November 14, 2003
Doggie Nirvana?
11:30 p.m.
Today, we did some work on 'staying in the apartment alone and quietly.' Dusty is been great in the crate - no crying - but it's when she's outside of the crate that she panicks. I wasn't quite sure how to modify this behaviour. I'm going with my gut instinct. Here is the basic concept: I've been asking Dusty to go in her crate, then in a down-stay. Then I leave the apartment for a few moments and come back.
I worked with some different criteria: Closing the door, but not actually leaving; Leaving, but only for seconds; Leaving for longer periods. Then I raised the criteria to a new level: Jingling the house keys and closing the door, but not actually leaving; Jingling keys, leaving and coming back right away; and so on. The final criteria was actually *locking* the door with the keys and staying outside for a few seconds.
The purpose behind keeping her in the down-stay isn't to have her do a down-stay all day while I'm gone. I've mostly done this to distract her from crying and to give her something to think about. I've noticed that she doesn't get all worked up and hysterical until she actually *comes to the door*. So I'm keeping her away from the door and trying to build a habit of calmness when I'm gone (and confidence that I will always come back to her).
Eventually, I'll start putting her in the crate with a Kong and leaving for short periods. Hopefully she'll be so accustomed to me leaving, then *coming back* that she'll no longer cry at the door.
My mom never had this problem with her dog, at least that I know of. Of course, being in a house, she doesn't need to be concerned about noise. I can't disturb my neighbours, so it's a rather delicate situation. Wish me luck!