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Sudden fear at night in crate


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Hello Everyone!

I am new to this forum so please excuse me if this question has been previously asked/answered. 

Our three year old boy, Duke has always been a wonderful little guy to go 'night night' in his cozy crate (in our room) since he was first crate trained at 11 weeks old. It has never been an issue until 11 days ago. I am completely at a loss as to what to do! Here's what happened:

Our neighborhood is a reverse cul-de-sac with no other homes across the narrow street. Unbeknownst to us, our neighbor's 22 year old daughter had friends over while the parents were away for the weekend. At 2:30 am, I woke up to loud bass music outside. I quietly got up and looked out the windows trying to find the source of the music. I came back into our bedroom and told my husband that an unknown car was parked across from our house with music blaring from it. It did not appear to be running though. Snow had begun to fall and the car was already coated so I couldn't imagine someone sitting in a car in the cold (20 degrees) listening to music. My husband got up and called the cops to come investigate this unknown car. Meanwhile, Duke was now wide awake and sitting upright in his crate. He began to whimper so my husband figured he needed to go out to potty. Two things - Duke always immediately goes to potty when we wakes up and he LOVES snow. Some days, however (as the picture shows) he has no desire to get out of the crate even when the door is opened. 

After they came back inside, Duke settled down for a few minutes. He again began to whine so my husband presumed he needed to go poop and took him out again. He did not poop though. He brought him back up, put him in his crate and he just whined and whined until around 4 am. I'm not sure if he ever stopped because I fell asleep out of exhaustion! Whatever happened, it has now created an ongoing issue for him at night. He follows through with his normal routine of going 'night night' and will gladly run upstairs and get in his crate. I can tell he will whine once I close the gate because he no longer lays down when he goes in, he just sits. And the whining, whimpering commences for at least an hour or longer. The first three nights, we took him out of the crate and brought him downstairs hoping to reset his little mind and follow through again with the 'night night' routine. Nope. 

I took him to the vet for a routine checkup and asked what to do. They said to try VeriScience Composure treats to help take the edge off. Hmm. That has sort of helped but it hasn't either. We read to wash his crate, put in new bedding, vacuum the area, possibly move the crate to a new area, etc, etc. We've tried so many things and absolutely nothing is fixing this issue!! Help! Has anyone experienced anything like this and what did you do to get them back to 'normal' again?

Thanks,

Looking for Answers

Duke in crate.jpg

Duke tanning.jpg

Duke.jpg

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Sophie's Haven

Duke your a handsome boy.......this is from what I have experienced with my 7 over the years.......first of all I don't crate...6 of my 7 are rescues and a couple have issues of being in a confine space.....for one example my Missy was a puppy mill paw that lived 24/7 in a crate. Our paws tend to have high volume hearing and for example when it is raining what sounds pleasing to us is about 10 times louder for them so being Duke was sleeping and what woke him scared him and he associates the crate to the possible cause of his fright........Our Sophie was 2 years old and never had any issues with noise until one day we had a hail storm that hit our sky lights and the noise was loud to me so I can only imagine what she heard.........she started to tremble and sat with me until the hail stopped.....she is 8 years old now and from that day she is fearful of any type of loud noise no matter what it is. I have used Bach Rescue Remedy Spray but depending on the noise it does not always work.......I sometimes spay lavender scent on their bedding which helps them relax........another example of dog fear........ a couple weeks ago we had frozen fog and the steps going down to our dog run was slippery and my Lexie (who is not afraid of anything) hit the top step and slid down the other 3 to the landing and then continued down the other 3 steps with no issue but from that day on she refuses to go down the first set of steps but once on the landing she will go down the remaining steps........

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Jo-Anne

Hi Welcome to the Chatter family.

Just love your Duke, what a cutie..thanks for sharing the pictures.

Sometimes their routine gets disturbed, a strange noise outside mom or dad going to investigate and things can be different and maybe scary. It also happened here. Our Karel wasn`t happy anymore in his crate in his case it was thunder.So first I put his crate door open..didn`t work. And then I got rit off the crate and made him a bed and another one :Dso that he can choose at night. Ever since he is allright, sometimes when it is a very bad thunder he is walking around and we take him with us on the bed. So maybe you can try and leave the crate door open en make him a nice little bed..and put something of yourself in there..t-shirt or something..socks. I never used a crate nomore. 

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Crinkly

I have noticed with my two, that while it may take weeks to establish a routine that I like, it only takes a couple of incidents where that routine is broken (in a way that they like) for the whole thing to go pearshaped.

As I was reading your post, the thing that struck me most was this:

- you had a noise disruption, which was interesting, exciting and broke the usual (boring) routine.

- this disruption resulted in Duke having a fun widdle trip outside, in the snow!  Wow!  how great is that!!!

- once back inside, Duke whined again, and was let out again!  Double wow!  - so whining/whimpering and disruption led to a fun/exciting trip, attention from your husband, and snow.  What a wonderful break from the usual boring zzzzzs!

- worth whining again, to see if the fun continues...?

- then on subsequent nights, his whimpering may not have resulted in an exciting snow trip, but it did result in repeated trips downstairs, and a delayed 'lights out'.  

So, my question is whether you are 100% absolutely, totally and unutterably certain that Duke isn't training you to provide night time entertainment in the form of trips downstairs, and trips out into the snow?  Knowing my two little horrors as I do, I can get away with one disruption to our routine.  But if it repeats on the next night, then it'll be a problem.  And by the third night, they are waiting, watching the clock, and turning up the Excitement Dial, ready to party, because more than twice = a New Fun Tradition especially if it involves trips outside in the sniffy dark, cos that is just... well... it is the kind of adventure that is worth a bit of whimpering...

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Thank you all for your comments, suggestions, and recommendations! 

I wish we could let Duke roam free at night but he is apparently part beaver since he loves to chew wood! As a puppy, he successfully ate huge portions of our brand new bedroom suite which is why he's not allowed upstairs unsupervised. His daddy prefers he does not sleep in the bed with us because it's just not 'romantic' to have a dog in the bed. Read between the lines (sheets?). 

"So, my question is whether you are 100% absolutely, totally and unutterably certain that Duke isn't training you to provide night time entertainment in the form of trips downstairs, and trips out into the snow?" I can definitely see this is likely the issue! Now if I can just find a solution! So far we have used lavender oil near his bedding, given him new bedding, put daddy's worn t-shirt in the crate, and given him the Composure treats. We considered boarding him overnight for a couple of nights in hopes of breaking the cycle but not sure if that would work either. 

2 hours ago, Crinkly said:

I have noticed with my two, that while it may take weeks to establish a routine that I like, it only takes a couple of incidents where that routine is broken (in a way that they like) for the whole thing to go pearshaped.

As I was reading your post, the thing that struck me most was this:

- you had a noise disruption, which was interesting, exciting and broke the usual (boring) routine.

- this disruption resulted in Duke having a fun widdle trip outside, in the snow!  Wow!  how great is that!!!

- once back inside, Duke whined again, and was let out again!  Double wow!  - so whining/whimpering and disruption led to a fun/exciting trip, attention from your husband, and snow.  What a wonderful break from the usual boring zzzzzs!

- worth whining again, to see if the fun continues...?

- then on subsequent nights, his whimpering may not have resulted in an exciting snow trip, but it did result in repeated trips downstairs, and a delayed 'lights out'.  

So, my question is whether you are 100% absolutely, totally and unutterably certain that Duke isn't training you to provide night time entertainment in the form of trips downstairs, and trips out into the snow?  Knowing my two little horrors as I do, I can get away with one disruption to our routine.  But if it repeats on the next night, then it'll be a problem.  And by the third night, they are waiting, watching the clock, and turning up the Excitement Dial, ready to party, because more than twice = a New Fun Tradition especially if it involves trips outside in the sniffy dark, cos that is just... well... it is the kind of adventure that is worth a bit of whimpering...

 

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PipsMom

Just wanted to Welcome you both, you have been given good advice so I won't repeat.  

Duke is a handsome boy, love his coloring :dede:

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Missysmom

Welcome to you and Duke, so glad you've joined us! Duke is very handsome, thanks so much for the pics! I have to agree with everyone else and have my own little whiner- who has learned that as soon as she whines she gets to cuddle in bed! So I am absolutely no help! ;) 

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