retrain to stay in kennel?

[Dubbs]

ok, so my puppy was caged up from the age of 3months to 8months at humane society. I have had him for 2-3 months for most of this time he has been around at my shop, home and sleeps in my bed as well. I felt he needed all the love and attention in the world to try to make up for the abuse he suffered. So pretty much he was around me 23hrs aday (-1 when at the Gym)
Well he grawled at my landlord a couple of weeks ago. So my landlord has told me I am not allowed to bring him to my shop anymore. He is afraid to get sued if Smokey bites someone. I finally built him a good size kennel 13ftX10ftX5ft. For now he is being watched by my brother. Soon my brother is going to college. I have started to put smokey into the kennel a few minutes at a time and praise him for being in there. I still feel like he is either scared or upset. I also fell very guilty when i leave him there even though i am next to him. So to make a long story short. Is this the proper way to introduce him back to being in a kennel unsupervised? He is about 60-65lbs what type of igloo do you guys recomend to buy? thanks

[Sharon Marples]

First of all, has your dog been through any formal obedience classes yet? If not, I suggest that you get him enrolled immediately. If he is growling at people, he needs to learn that is unacceptable behavior and not to be done again. What did you do when he growled at your landlord?

Secondly, don't put human thoughts into his realm. Dogs do not think like people. If he basically grew up in a kennel situation, then he is already trained to it. You should be able to put him in his kennel, give him a nice bone to chew on and walk away. Do not coddle him while he is in the kennel or hang around to talk to him a lot. He will feed off of that and start to act up even more just to get your attention. Do not let him out if he starts to bark or whine, just ignore that and walk away until he is quiet. He will soon learn that you will always come back to him when he is there and as long as he is comfortable, dry and protected from the sun and rain, he will be fine.

Get him a large igloo, one that has plenty of room for him as he grows to an adult.

Is he neutered?

[Ayoka]

I know how you feel, I felt the same way at first but, I think Sharon's advice is sound. I got Bear at 9 months and at first he was not impressed with the kennell in fact, he is just now getting to the point that he doesn't bark when I leave in the AM (My roomates are LOVING this!).

What really made a difference was adding a kong full of frozen peanut butter to our morning "get into the kennell" routine I have also heard of people feeding their dogs in the kennell to help dogs associate the kennel with "good things"

It could take a while for him to get used to not being around you but do not give up and don't feel bad about leaving him. By the sounds of it he has a HUGE kennel and as long as you leave him water and remove his collar so he doesn't get snagged he is perfectly safe.

[Dubbs]

Well he is fear agressive due to previous abuse. First trainer got me to buy a training chain/collar. It worked wonders for comands like sit,stay ect. As far as for growling and lunging out at people to bite them it made things worse. The second trainer wanted to put an electrick collar on him and i just resufused to allow her to do that. So i went to the Humane Society and they had me talk to the Supervisor of the Trainers he has over (20yrs experience). Plus since i adopted him i get FREE traing classes, he even went to my store to train Smokey free of charge. This is what he told me and warned me that it mite seem cruel to me and others around when i do it but it would work. He told me that the leash did not allow my dog to run away when he felt threaten so his only option was to bite. He told me to find a friend who i could trust and would not sue me incase of a bite. Have Smokey next to me off the leash and to have my friend approach me. As soon as smokey would start to growl at him. To firmly grab him around the mouth and nose(like a muzzle) and say NO! loudly. To not worry if he started to wimper or make crying sounds i was not hurting him he was just protesting. This would let him know that this was behaviour that was not allowed. I gotta tell you it work better then i though. now he is not perfect but he wont try to lunge at people and when he feels threaten he looks at me and i say NO! Be nice Smokey and we go about our business. He plays with other dogs now and actually looks happy like a pup should. So i guess his advice worked.

As far as an igloo i decided not to spend the $140 on a large. I bought him a large thick (plastic?) house almost a square shape but longer in lengh for $64. I did this for two reasons. 1 it doesn't get too cold here in my city during the day and he will always be inside on rainy days and will spend nights in my room. So the house and kennel are just to confine him from 8am-6pm. Second reason is that i have spend a large amount of money building his kennel so money is a bit tight right now.