Re: wet crate

In Reply to: wet crate
Posted by:  krista loshe
Posted on:  February 27, 2001 at 20:11:31

: My husband and I have had our JRT for 5 months. At first, we crated him like we were told. After many sleepless nights, we could'nt stand to hear him cry throughout the night, so we let him sleep with us. Every time we tried to crate him, he would carry on and on. We gave up on the crate. 4 months now that his been out of the crate, we put him in our partially finshed basement. Later, he started expelling himself in the same spot. We were told that we must crate when we leave the house. We started to do as we were told. Now, when I get home to let him out of his crate, his feet and the inside of the crate is wet....and it's not urine. We can't fiqure out what it is. My husband said that when he got him out of his crate he noticed he was foaming at the mouth. What is the wet crate from and why would he be foaming at the mouth?

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Hi, Krista,

Excessive salivation is a symptom of separation anxiety. No offense intended, but it sounds like your terrier is on the spoiled side of life. Sometimes our dogs will train us before we even begin to simply figure out how to train THEM. Your terrier knows that he won the crate battle the first time around because he was rewarded for his behavior by being allowed out. I'm sure what he's doing now is stressing HARD because he's not getting the same reward. And it is indeed stress and anxiety that your dog is feeling if he's salivating so heavily.

It would be good if you could pick up some books on dog behavior so you can understand what he's going through. I strongly suggest "Dogs Behaving Badly" by Nicholas Dodman, if you want to get right to the meat of problem issues quickly.

Your dog is still so young that you should be able to work through this, but it's going to take some patience, and you aren't going to be able to give in to him just because he knows how to convince you to let him have his way. You have to start with setting some rules and sticking to them no matter what.

Good luck!