Posted: 2/11/2009 4:07:35 AM EDT
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My 1 year old Shitzu is crate trained. In the mornings as soon as he hears the slightest noise, usually the bathroom door shut he starts whining. I believe it is because he just wants to be with us instead of being locked up. He has to pee yes, but not that bad, sometimes he doesn't even pee when I first let him out. He is hungry...starving but I think it is more the company than anything.
How can I get this to stop as it is driving us all NUTS?????!?!?!?!?!! Yelling at him doesn't work. Scolding him doesn't work....nothing seems to work. I've read that ignoring him is the way to break him but normally* this isn't possible as we all have to get ready for work and he gets what he wants by getting out. *I'm currently laid off so this is the ideal time to deal with this. My concern is that by ignoring him, probably going to take an hour or two is going to cause him to piss in the kennel, which is something that I don't want to start. The second concern is that my GF's dog doesn't whine so when she gets let out and such he isn't. Any thoughts? Thanks |
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You got it right, ignoring him is the only way. Whining and barking must absolutely be completely ignored. You can't yell because that is still attention even though it is negative attention. If he's got to go out for elimination then you've got to do that but then it's right back into the crate until the whining stops. No talking, petting, feeding, etc. Out, pee, in, ignore. For really extreme cases they say to move the crate to the basement or garage so you are not tempted to give in.
You can also work on teaching the "out" command, which is a combination of drop it/stop barking/stop attacking. Anyone know how to teach this? I don't but I've seen it work great on dogs so trained. |