Hello from Minnesota

amyj

New Member
Hello,

Our family adopted a 1 1/2 year old Rottweiler/Shepard mix this past week. His original owners surrendered him to an over crowded shelter due to the loss of their home. As we understand, he was an outdoor dog and this became very apparent once we got him in the house and turned on the TV. He was clearly not familiar with the concept of TV and went a little crazy. Now, 5 days later he is tolerating the TV and has lost his apprehension about the mystery box. He has slowly been getting used to all of the noises that living inside a house brings and he is doing quite well I think.

The major issue is that he doesn't like his crate at all. He is mostly free to roam the house (we do have baby gates up to keep him away from the X-mas tree because he peed on it a couple of times) but for the most part, he can go where he chooses. At night we are putting him in his crate and let me tell you, this is NOT an easy task. We have tried treats, toys, a shirt that smells like me, his favorite blanket, a lot of praise if he does go in, etc. But he really would rather not have any part of it. When we finally get him in there, he whines for a bit and then settles down to sleep. But only if we are in the room. We have also crated him while we left the house for a couple hours. If we are not in the room while he is in the crate he is destructive of everything inside it. But if we are there, he is fine. If anyone has any suggestions at all, that would be great.

Overall, he is a very friendly, loving and smart dog. We have trained him to ring a bell when he wants to go out side and he follows the sit, stay, lay down and come commands most of the time.

I am looking forward to reading this forum to find tips, tricks and other advice so that we can do the very best for the new addition to our family.
 
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