What's Going On ...

Watch what kind of bones you give her. The dentabones gave my two diahrrea. Take an old t-shirt of yours and wear it. Then put it in her crate. She will find your smell comforting and want to stay in her crate. Make the crate her little place to be safe and warm. Also, give her a little treat for going in the crate. I get those soft treats and break them in half.

So far the only bones we've got for her are the huge rawhide ones..she's taken to them pretty nicely... we have one for her crate and another for her bed, so she doesn't have to cart one around thru the house...we've not been giving her anything to eat other than the Flint River - that's what the obedience trainer was using as 'treats' as well, so we've been sticking to that - when she does a command (sit) I give her a couple of nuggets..I'm not ready to start introducing anything new into her diet yet and of course NO people food...I don't want to train her to be a beggar, she's large enough to rest her head on our dining room table as it is, I don't need her snagging my sandwich off it...ha...I think she doesn't like her crate because its not near us when she sleeps and she stresses out...i'm not sure how we're gonna fix this...I might have to start spending more time with her in the studio so she doesn't feel so bad, but I think she has separation anxiety when she's in the room by herself...we just can't have her in our bedroom at night, since we're doing the cat thing...they have to be in the bedroom all day, then they come out when she goes in her crate at night...its pretty crazy...

My first pound dog was a basketcase when I brought him home. He pretty much lived on rice while we sorted out his parasite problem. He had been beaten at some point so I had to be careful in disciplining him or he would panic. He had separation issues in a big way. I wish I had a better solution than time, but that's what it took for him to figure out that I wasn't going to abandon him and he could settle down. Now he's a well adjusted, happy guy, but the first few months with him were awfully trying. Lady will figure it out, too.

None of them like the crate when you start training them, but they'll start to see it as *their* space. The older Brittany will head to her open kennel when she wants time off from the younger one, but when we started crate training her as a puppy, she howled all night for the first week! Our neighbors loved us. But they have to figure out that sleeping alone in the kennel won't kill them, and that it's their own room, not a punishment.

Oh yeah, and don't fret. If Lady sees you worried and unsure, *she'll* be worried and unsure because you're supposed to be the leader. :)

We adopted a greyhound and found that the bigger dogs do stress over things like new environments...have skittish tummies initially too...Rice is good for calming things down. Eventually she came to love her crate as a sanctuary from the rest of the chaos...it does take awhile for them to settle in though...hope it works out sooner than later...it helps to spend time with them so they can deal with the separation part....