As I write this my poor little pup is crying in his crate and I am dying of the sad sounds. He stopped screaming, now he’s just crying. I love him so much it breaks my heart idk what to do.
He’s 6mos old chi mix and was doing sooo good in the crate at night. He didn’t love it but settled quickly, finally at the point of barely even a complaint and sleeping till 7am. It took a lot of incremental work to get him there but I did it bc I didn’t want him to feel scared or sad before bed
Then, he got neutered. I couldn’t leave him in his crate overnight bc I couldn’t monitor if he was licking or not. (He couldn’t wear the plastic cone because he’s tiny and would fight it so bad he would get his paws stuck under it. So I switched him to the inflatable donut. He could easily get around the donut to his stitches but he never seemed to discover that. But I didn’t want to risk that he would discover that in the middle of the night or something. So I let him sleep on my bed with my had on him so I could monitor him.)
And now it’s the first night I tried to put him back in the crate. More accurately, HE went into his crate at 930 (tbh he does this often just for treats) and I thought oh he’s tired bc we had a really long hike today. So I gave him treats and closed the door. Holy hell broke out. I couldn’t open the door bc then I would reinforce his behavior but I feel physically sick to listen to him so upset. I’ve been talking to him and singing to him. I have really bad ptsd and the sounds and stress is making my face numb. He stops for a sec and I think he’s gone to sleep and then starts crying again. If I give in he’s sleeping in the bed forever which I do not want. Ugh idk what to do. I feel sick and I know this is going to be a long night and I’m traumatizing him. Anyway, thanks for listening. :0(
submitted by /u/P100a
[link] [comments]