Another concern, from yours truly...

[inkondesk]

Kay is coming along really well and really quickly, with only a couple of set backs, with her lead training, recall and 'doggy manners' ... However, the two people I live with are complaining that Kay will whinge and whine whenever she can't see me, and they can't do anything to stop her.

She's been crate trained, but has recently started chewing up her bed in the crate. She's never done this before, and it's more than likely due to the 'awkward' age that she's at at the moment. Whatever the reason, she's not allowed to do it, and has had her nice poofy bed removed, and it replaced with a flat mat bed. The flat mat bed is yet to be destroyed.

My previous dog took up both of these behaviours at around the same age as Kay.

Kayenne sleeps downstairs at night time, shut away in her crate. She has no problems with that. She also gets crated when everybody leaves the house. She's never crated if somebody is home.

I leave her home regularly...She's crated, everybody leaves, "A" (referring to one person in the house) and/or "B" (referring to another) return home, but I stay away...Apparently she's fine when she's taken from her crate at that time. But, if I leave and A and/or B are still in the house, she'll whine until I come back.

I don't really go out much other than to do things that involve Kay, so leaving her at home more often is kind of out of the question unless I take trips specifically to leave her at home. I know Dobes are known as "Velcro dogs" but is this something I should be worried about?

[Big Dogs]

This is the beginning of separation anxiety. Does she tear her bed up at night or when you are gone? Why is she in her crate if your room mates are still there? Now is the point to deal with separation anxiety which another one of those processes that you take slow easy steps to correct but isn't that hard to correct if you do it now! First when she go's into her crate reward her and also give her a toy that she can not destroy to chew on. Start off by letting her in her crate with the door open and this one takes the most time on your part block her door with your body until she settles down to the point where she lays down and looks relaxed do this for a couple of days until she goes in and settles down quickly. You do this because she can still see you and doesn't feel trapped. After you are done with the session release her to come out this is one of the keys always release her do not just let her bolt out on her own. The next step is to put her in her kennel and wait for her to settle down and do somethings in the room she is in so that she can see you but only for a short period of time. Again go release her on your command do not praise her instantly as this can produce a whole different set of problems with an over excited dog. The next step is to leave her for 5 or 10 min return and release again. This sounds like allot but it works and is the least amount of anxiety for the dog and if you only take a week on each step she will be over it in under a month. But again how quickly it happens will depend on her!

[inkondesk]

Big Dogs, she's never in her crate if A, B and/or me are in the house, garden, or on the property. She's only in the crate if we're not there or are in bed. If all three humans of the house go out, the first one back lets her out of the crate. That same rule applies for the first person up in the morning. If you get up first, let the dog out!

She's perfectly fine in her crate...Just the chewing. She's never toileted in her crate (ever) and was only making a fuss about it on the third night she was home. We were then able to transfer her to a bigger crate when she turned 5 months old (2 months after she came home) and move her downstairs. Prior to this, she was in my room at night. If she did happen to toilet in her crate in the middle of the night, none of us wanted the whole house stinking up. Plus, she had the comfort of my other two dogs, who were crated either side of her.

She's never made a fuss for more than 20 minutes in her crate.

When I first left her home during the day, in her crate, I asked our neighbour to listen in. She reported back that there was a bit of noise and a few barks for about 20 minutes, but that was it. She was just over 5 months at that time. She hasn't made a noise in her crate at any time of day since then.

The chewing is a really recent thing. She settles down instantly when she's in her crate, and will curl up in the corner by my computer desk to sleep as soon as she's sent in there. She needs no luring or anything anymore. I think I've managed to stop the habit of her chewing before it started.

She's never chewed any other piece of furniture, however, I've always left a knuckle bone for her in the crate. She'll only chew it if she's left in her crate even after a person has walked in the door. Say, if I came home, walked passed her crate and into the kitchen...She's make a little fuss, and then start chewing the knuckle bone. She doesn't chew it until after we've come home, as far as I can tell.

I'll try some of the tips you recommended and see what happened. I'll also mention it to my trainer on Thursday, to see if there's anything she can recommend.

Janice, she's in the crate for about 7 hours at night, sometimes less (depending what time I head to bed and what time another human gets up) and is rarely left in the crate during the day. If we go to town, she would come with me so that we can work on her 'public behaviour' and socialisation. She's slowly learning that it's not okay to take things from peoples handbags. ;)

On Tuesdays, she's put in the crate at 7PM and all humans leave. One human returns at around 7:30PM and lets her out, and then she's crated again from 9:15PM to 9:45PM-ish. The same routine takes place on Wednesday. She's chewed her bed once on a Tuesday when everybody was out, and then during the night when everybody was in bed, and then during the day when her crate door was open and everybody was there! That's when her poofy bed was replaced by her flat bed. As I said, it's yet to be eaten.

Just to give you a rough idea of her 'crate schedule'! ;) Sometimes we have to leave unexpectedly, and so she's put into her crate, but usually, she's not in there during the day for more than an hour.

I'm more worried about the fact she'll follow me around the house and whine when she can't see me. She's taken to laying on the linoleum floor by my computer chair when I'm working at the PC. If I get up and head to the kitchen, she'll get up and follow me. I've started telling her to "Wait" before I leave the room, standing out of sight for a few seconds, and then calling her to me, giving her a treat, and then sending her away while I do whatever it was I left to do.

It doesn't seem to be making a difference. She'll still get up to follow me if I don't tell her to "Wait". I've been doing the "Wait"'s consistently for about a week and a half, and have lengthened the time I'm out of sight, and have started giving her the "break" command. But when I give her that command in the house, she gets up to come and look for me.

"Break" is used when she no longer needs to do what I commanded her to do. I usually use it when we're on walks for the "Heel" command. If she's up ahead, I do a sort of sequence.

"Turn"
"At my Heel"
"Sit"
"Heel"
5-15 steps at heel
"Break"
"Good girl!"

I've never encouraged her to come and find me when I leave the room. I actually discouraged her when she started it, by turning away from her and firmly telling her "Front room" but she continued to come out to look for me.

Er. Think that covers her life story. I'm not sure if any of this will benefit future posters...But I started typing. This is the result. :p