Nights in the crate: check ✅ Meals in the crate: check ✅
I do: ✅ Reinforcing with treats/kibbles whenever she goes in there by herself (which is rare, except at night when she's tired and puts herself to bed) ✅ Very short crate training sessions (5 to 20 minutes) while being in the same room, or the next room. As soon as I go up or down the stairs, she loses it. I ignore her and eventually come back calmly to let her out when she's stopped screaming. ✅ I do toys rotation and leave them in her crate. She just picks them up and take them out… I tried to insist and continuously bring the bully sticks/chews back in the crate, but she just takes them out, so eventually I gave up. She's stubborn as heck. ✅ I only leave her in the crate when she's eaten, went potty, did her activity/exercise.
The longest I've left her home alone in her crate in 3 months and a half was 1h, 1h30, and 2h. She was batshit crazy when I came back. Super anxious and out of it.
Why is she not liking it, but only during the day??? I have no life at this point.
When I leave for errands (40 minutes), I come back and she's completely panicked. Usually hasn't touched her super cool treat I leave her, and just takes it out with her and enjoys it only when I'm back?
I don't trust her to be alone with the cat/in the living room (baby gated), because she busted through one of the baby gates over a month ago while I dared leave her alone in the living room for 2 hours in the living room while painting my deck/patio.
I work from home, so it's hard for me to actually leave consistently every day, that's why I've been doing tiny practices with her in her crate while I'm in another room. She's not fond of it. And it's worse when I actually leave. So yeah, how do I get my life back? I just want to be able to leave for 2-3-4h occasionally without having her panic.😖 I don't want her to grow up to be unable to be alone.
Help 😵💫
submitted by /u/rF1Bbernewoofwoof
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