Hi,
A quick background - I got Coby, male goldendoodle, at 12 weeks from the breeder who had him crate trained since 8 weeks. Long story short - he hates the crate and has separation anxiety. I don't use the crate during the day now, he's kept in the kitchen with baby gates. But I have been perservering at night, on the advice of the trainer. He used to bark for approx. 1 hour when going into the crate and it is now down to approx. 20 minutes. In the past 2 weeks he had NO barking 3 times and 2 minutes two times. But there is no consistency, as he barked for a long long time last night! Also he still continues barking in the morning, starting at about 4:30, on and off, until I go down to get him at 6:30. (I had been getting up whenever he started barking in the morning to let him out to go to the bathroom, which he didn't even do, but the trainer said to wait until the morning) He also pees every night, but there is no correlation to his barking (he had been pooing before, but that has stopped at least - thank god!)
So...I'm looking for some advice. Should I just stop using the crate and leave him in the kitchen at night? I haven't done this before because I thought he would just bark anyways due to the separation anxiety. I've also had many people suggest that I bring the crate into my room (it's in the kitchen now), but I'm hesitant to do that because of him peeing (he's not allowed upstairs at all right now, but I will once he's completely house trained).
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks! Colleen
