Hello reddit, I am hoping to get some advice. My wife and I rescued a pitbull mix, at the time she was 5.5 months and about 27 lbs, she is now 8.5 months and about 45 lbs. She's a healthy pup, and we have a trainer who has helped us with her behavior. We usually crate her for the evening between 8 and 9pm, and she's up at 6am during the work week, and on weekends we get up around 7 or 8 am. She sleeps through the night with no issue. Perhaps this is why I'm perplexed about her daytime crating. She isn't trained to enter the crate on command, but she will allow us to place her in the crate, or she'll follow a treat into the crate. Once inside she will settle, and not come out until we call her out. The issue lies in the length of time she'll stay in crate – I've tried keeping her out in the morning until 8am, 9am, and even 930am – this means she'll have as much as 3.5 hours out of the crate in the morning. This was our 3rd round of attempts to daytime crate her, and each attempt has resulted in a reduction of time in the crate from 3 hours, to 2 hours, to at times less than one hour. Each attempt is usually 5 or 6 days in a row and then one or days off. She paws at the door of the crate and/or barks and cries. I usually cave in after about 10 minutes. She doesn't hurt herself or try to escape. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I could extend this daytime crate season to 4 or 5 hours, I will need to be able to go back to the office soon, and my wife is a teacher and has to be at work. Our trainer does have a program that we're technically on step 2 of 3, but the issue isn't getting her in the crate, it's the amount of time. I haven't yet left the house with her in the crate. It's been 90 days. Send help lol. Am I giving in too quickly? The crate is in our bedroom. Apologies for the scattered thoughts, just wanted to include all info.
submitted by /u/dgearity
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