Over the course of about three days, we slowly worked with Ziggy to get him in the crate. Luckily, he is food motivated, which helps tremendously.
One thing we are noticing about Ziggy is that he needs to approach new situations on his terms. We put food in the crate, and even had to keep our distance while he entered. If he feels corned or trapped, he'll book it!
While running some errands on Christmas Eve, we set up Zoom to watch him being alone locked up for the fist time. After some initial protest, he did eventually calm down. We enticed him in to the crate with some smelly wet dog food in his bowl and slathered on and in a few toys. This kept him occupied while we made our exit. We also had some soft music playing to drown out any neighborhood noises.
Since then, we've tried to leave him locked up for longer increments of time. The longest we have had him in the crate so far was about 4 hours.
One thing we are noticing about Ziggy is that he needs to approach new situations on his terms. We put food in the crate, and even had to keep our distance while he entered. If he feels corned or trapped, he'll book it!
While running some errands on Christmas Eve, we set up Zoom to watch him being alone locked up for the fist time. After some initial protest, he did eventually calm down. We enticed him in to the crate with some smelly wet dog food in his bowl and slathered on and in a few toys. This kept him occupied while we made our exit. We also had some soft music playing to drown out any neighborhood noises.
Since then, we've tried to leave him locked up for longer increments of time. The longest we have had him in the crate so far was about 4 hours.