Make Pepper goes to his crate on his own free will…

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005 at 4:27 pm

Last night I thought of trying something new. From what I learned from the book, the dog listener, dogs are pack animals so they do not want to be alone. Every night I had to kind of drag Pepper into his crate. I would like to make him go when I told him to go without forcing. So we closed all the doors in the other rooms so out of the bedroom was only the landing and the staircase. We also closed all the doors of the rooms downstairs in case he went downstairs. Then we opened his crate and told him to go in the crate by tapping inside of the crate and said the word Crate. He looked at us and stepped backwards. HG threw him out of the bedroom and closed the door. We waited for one minute; he whined and knocked at the door. We repeated the same thing over and over. It took us about 5 times before he decided to give in and went to his crate himself.

In the morning I made him think that I ate my breakfast out of his bowl again. Today he was a bit agitated. I gave down his food after that and walked away. He ate the food very quickly. I waited for a while before I gave him a little bit more. After his breakfast we played fetch-the-rope game again and he brought it back to me every time. Then I stopped playing and wanted to try the same trick we did last night about putting him in his crate without forcing. It was a bit different because this time I was the one who leave the room not him but it achieved the same thing, loneliness. At first time it took me 3 times to leave the room and when he walked into his crate I praised him and gave him a little biscuit. The second time in the afternoon, I left the room twice and again I praised him and gave him a treat. The third time I left the room only once when I came back he was already in the crate. I went to the crate and praised him with a little treat again.