So, my roommate adopted a 12 week old puppy near mid June. She also got a crate immediately and started crate training. Tilly hasn't really taken to her crate and both of us are at our wit's end with her barking. She isn't afraid of the crate. Will go in and sleep on her own. My roommate feeds her in there even. We have tried several things thanks to a local trainer. She has done the typical stuffed/frozen kongs (she usually will eat them, then start barking halfway through or sometimes she won't touch them and immediately freaks out), rotating toys, leaving her in there for short periods.. We don't let her out if she is barking and she has to calm down and sit nicely before we open the crate. Lately, my roommate has used cardboard boxes to black out the crate and has always played music or left the TV on while she is gone.
Tilly is persistent. She is to the point that she barks initially (15-20 minutes), when she has decided that no one is there, she will be quiet. But if you make one peep, she starts screeching and scratching at her crate again. Yeah, she doesn't just bark, but scratches and screams. She also barked the other day when I had her out in the house and my roommate left. She sat at the door and barked until I hushed her. This time she got quiet relatively quick.
We've considered a couple of adjustments, since classes start on Monday, we need a quicker fix. She has shown very little signs of improvement. I'm sure the training isn't done as CONSISTENTLY as it should be, but there's nothing I can do about that. I can work with her more myself, and I definitely plan on it. But we need something that will work immediately while we start working through this training issue. My roommate has to leave anywhere between 6-7:30 during the week, and I don't plan on being up until 8-8:30. Two hours early is no bueno.
Some of our thoughts:
Try an ultrasonic bark control My roommate favors this as the other solutions are more dependent on there being another dog around. We don't plan on living together forever. We've both heard they are ineffective, however (and I don't think it will work since she freaks out and will probably ignore it). If it doesn't work, she can return it.
Move her crate to the living room I think this would work during the day when I am out and Toby but don't want to have to deal with both of them. I think she could get used to just chilling in a crate if she could see what was going on. I could be totally wrong, but the good thing is that it is easy to try and easy to undo. The only bad thing is that I don't think it would help her in the morning when needed the most. She would still sleep in my roommate's bedroom at night. (I wonder if just generally making her sleep in her crate at night would help too. I just found out that she isn't locked in there at night)
Have her sleep in my room after my roommate leaves Should work, one of them can go into the crate and the other can sleep in the floor. They are doing it as I type this right now. Haha, but I am sure there will be those mornings when they see each other and go OMGPLAYTIME and that would take a little bit of work.
Put her and Toby's crates next to each other Move the dogs to the spare bedroom and have their crates next to each other (safe distance, of course). This is my most favored one, because I think Tilly just wants someone around. We could continue training her this way too. Downfall is potentially making separation anxiety worse since she won't be by herself very often.