Crating Conflict....

[donnieo]

I was wondering if those who've been using NDT for a while can give me some advice/insight on how you used the crate in the early training stages.

Kevin recently wrote an article on his site about crating your dog and how it relates to Negative-as-Access-to-the-Positive. I asked him how much time a dog-in-training should spend in their crate. His response was that until the dog no longer regards any items/animals in the house as prey objects, they should remain crated indoors and gradually re-introduced to the house. Once the dog is trained, the crate goes away. I feel like this is a step that I've been missing. I do find that if I crate her for a while immediately after we come in from a walk, Jinxsie is a lot mellower in the house.

The one problem is, once again, conflict with my partner. One day when I had Jinxsie crated for most of the day, F. told me she though it was cruel and that I'm pushing her too hard, I should leave her alone and let her be a dog, etc. My response was that I thought putting her in situations that she wasn't ready to deal with (such as when the cats are jumping over her to get on the couch) or giving her too much stimulation in the house and then correcting her acting out on that stimulation was cruel and by crating her I was leaving her alone. I tried to assure her that this wouldn't be something that goes on forever, but it didn't seem to matter. As you can tell, we have extremely different takes on what it means to give a dog a good quality of life.

Can anyone give me some idea as to how you used the crate during the first few months of training? A compromise that I'm going to suggest is that while we're out, Jinxsie is out of the crate but while we're in (which is when I think she really acts up) she mostly stays in the crate with brief periods of time when she's out of the crate but on lead and we give her no stimulation whatsoever. Does this make sense?

[Sang]

Hey Donnie, in the early phases my dogs were always in their crates unless we were outside "training". It really helped them learn that outside was for expression, and inside was for relaxing.

I slowly weened them off of this as they started to become more and more relaxed when they'd come inside. Now, when I leave the house they are put in their crates, and then let out when I'm home. But they're never allowed to have free roam of the house when I'm not home. And at times, if I need to do things where I can't keep tabs on them, then they're put away as well. But having made pushing for meals and stuff a regular routine, they are always really relaxed around the house now, whether they are in their crates or out of them. We also have 2 cats that Roxy used to always want to chase. I never worked with her specifically on the cat issue. All I did was work with her outside with the pushing for her meals and the bitework, and now she leaves the cats alone.

Also, something I picked up from being at Kevin's farm, is that now I'll tie them out individually outside on a short line in the back of the house where it's nice and quiet, without a lot of distractions. I'll just leave them out there on their own for a while so they can have some isolation time by themselves. Like I said, we do live in a really quiet spot without much going on, so I wouldn't recommend that if you live in a busy area, or if there's lot of things that might trigger your dog's prey drive, like squirrels or rabbits. It's really nice for them to have that alone time without human influence.

I'll also sometimes put a crate out on the patio and put Roxy out there too, since she's the one who needs the isolation time the most to help break her owner addiction to us. Again, it's always in a nice quiet spot where she won't be disturbed, but she gets that important alone time.

It really does have tremendous benefits. Because the biggest thing is to keep them out of trouble to begin with. But not only does it keep them out of "trouble", it also allows them to channel all their energy into you when you do go outside to "work". Because all the time they spend with free run of the house, is more time they spend leaking energy that they don't have available anymore when it's time to channel it into the push or the bite. The crating really helps accelerate the learning process.

Anyway, I hope I've answered your question on some level.

[Alec]

I let my dog be out of the crate when I'm gone from the house and I'm pretty sure she sleeps just about 100% of the time I'm gone. I prefer it this way as she is able to stretch her legs and also is a good deterrent from prowlers. The only draw back is, as Sang mentioned, that she probably doesn't have quite as much drive when it's time to work but I don't know that it is too bad since she is mostly sleeping.

However, I think I'm going to be crating her more when I'm home because this is when a lot energy is leaked (primarily). It is interesting that I can go in another room and shut the door and she will stop completely and just relax. But when I show up again she is likely to go back at it (I do my best to ignore it which helps but what really helps is a nice new bone or sock to lay down and chew on, but how many of these are available?). At times she will walk over and hump my leg. Interesting enough, I put her in the crate last night when she was all wound up. After about 30 minutes I took her out and went right outside for some tug. She tugged extremely hard (probably the hardest ever) and finally brought the tug toy back to me after I let her have it (like 6 times!). I have been trying to get to this point for a long time (she loves to run n' shred). I also began holding onto a leash so that she couldn't run that far away from me (not sure if this helped though and I didn't last night when she came back to me) Anyway, this is kind of carrying on; my point is that putting the dog in the crate does allow them to channel more energy into "work" time as Sang stated.

[neilsattin]

I'm not sure how much you want to get into it, donnieo, but I'd be curious to hear how you and your partner are handling your conflicts.

I don't know anything but what you've mentioned here, obviously, but here are a couple questions:

1. To what extent are your conflicts about the dogs a deflection of other, more meaningful conflicts that are going on between the two of you? Arguing about the dogs might be a "safe" way to have conflict without getting to the heart of the matter...
2. With all of the energy that you're putting into Jinxsie, and your quest to become a dog trainer in general, how much energy have you been able to put into your relationship? Sometimes, in my experience, it can be easy to forget that the relationship we're in can actually be a great source of strength along our path, if we take the the time to feed it, and feed it well. Perhaps your partner really needs to feel like the queen again?

I'd of course be happy to chat with you about all of this off-line, if you'd be more comfortable. And forgive me if I'm way off base here. But since you brought up the conflict part, I just thought I'd take a stab at it!

[donnieo]

Hi Neil;

Forgive me for responding to your last post after such a long time. To be honest, I was a little shaken by how on-the-mark you were about my relationship. I took some time off of being on the forum and obsessively reading all the stuff on here and the other NDT sites to try and ground myself a bit. Plus, I've had a bit of personal tragedy in my life recently (which I won't go into here) and have had to focus my energy elsewhere.

To answer your questions:

1) yes, I do think that ultimately we are not fighting about the dogs. I'm not really sure how to explain what it is we are fighting about, but I think it has to do with the fact that neither of us are good at compromise. I don't think our conflicts really get resolved, we just fight and then make up.

2) I'm not really sure how to reconcile my desire to be an NDT dog trainer with my relationship with my partner. She has no interest in Natural Dog Training and no desire to examine her own relationships or feelings about why our dogs do what they do. I feel really stuck because I can't exactly be a dog trainer and tell people that this is the way I think they should relate to their dogs and not have that same relationship with my own dog at home. I don't know what to do. I feel very unsupported in this regard.

I read your article about using NDT principles in human relationships and really enjoyed reading it; I just don't really know how to apply it to my own situation right now.

[Sang]

Hey Donnie, sorry to hear about your personal tragedy. I hope everything is ok.

I know you were responding to Neil, but I happened to be browsing around here and saw your post. Hopefully you don't mind my thoughts. And I hope you don't mind me continuing this discussion here, but I think there's always something everyone can take away from these things, and I'm glad you are open enough to share with us all.

Originally Posted by donnieo

1) yes, I do think that ultimately we are not fighting about the dogs. I'm not really sure how to explain what it is we are fighting about, but I think it has to do with the fact that neither of us are good at compromise. I don't think our conflicts really get resolved, we just fight and then make up.

It's important to remember that when your partner is fighting with you, she's not actually fighting or in conflict with YOU, she's just feeling an emotional collapse of something unresolved from her past. She's really "testing" you to see how you'll respond. If you fall for the bait, you'll become combative and fight back, when what she really wants on a deeper level is for you to tell her that everything is going to be ok, and that she is loved and respected. Keep in mind that the reason she feels that she can challenge you isn't because she doesn't love or trust you, quite the opposite. It's because she loves you and trusts you that she feels safe enough to express her past unresolved emotions, as a result she is testing your will. She of course isn't doing this intentionally or consciously. She's just trying to figure out how, to put in NDT terms, "flip polarity", but she just doesn't know how yet. So it's the perfect opportunity for you to flip instead, and be the receptive one.

This isn't about who's right or wrong. Fights and arguments are never about this. It's about trying to connect. If you can be the receiver, and just agree with her so she'll feel in alignment and harmony with you, then you'll start breaking down the barriers of resistance that currently exist, so that she'll eventually be able to start feeling you and then ultimately start receiving you as well. You always have the choice to own your experience. Don't listen so much to what she's saying, and start trying to feel what she's feeling instead.

You mentioned that neither of you is good at compromise. So my suggestion would be that you take the first step. You do have that power to do so. Forget about the fact that you want to be NDT trainer. Of course I am biased and believe in NDT and that it's the right path for working with dogs. But right now that's not important. And no amount of you trying to use logic or explanations of why you think NDT is the right thing to do is going to have any effect on convincing her that she should listen to you.

Instead, focus on your relationship with her. Stop trying to be "right" about things, and instead try to connect. Once you show her enough times that in those moments of conflict, where she's expressing her feelings, that she can trust you with her deeper, darker stuff, that's when she'll start to open up to you and trusting you in other things as well.

You will get to the point of being a NDT trainer. It will happen. I get the sense that you are too committed of a person for it not to happen. But in the meantime, my suggestion is to focus on what's most important, which is your relationship with your partner.

In the meantime, you could also suggest a mini vacation to Vermont, with a stop in Newfane to spend a day or two with Kevin so she could experience that world first hand. Not a training visit, rather just to spend some time with no pressure or expectations. Hanging out with Hessian, as well as Trisha's dogs Athos and Hero will make believers out of anybody.

Anyway, hope I didn't say too much, and that there's something in there of benefit to you Donnie.

Take care.

Sang.