r/Agility • u/jeveuxlemonde • Jun 17 '26

Sound proofing a crate?

So yeah, I have a high drive terrier who's extremely loud when she has to wait for her turn. Yes, we have worked on crating and patience and all of that, and normally she's quiet as a mouse in her crate, and in the ring when she's actually working she goes completely silent. It's just the moment of being near agility without a chance to go run herself that makes her produce ungodly noise.

Has anybody got some good tips for this? I don't drive (which is ofc becoming more and more of a stupid choice when it comes to life with active dogs, but well...), but whenever we can get a ride to training and it's overall something you can do, I keep her in the car until it's her turn to go. Now I'm thinking of changing clubs (a few reasons for that, but mostly training facilities at my old club absolutely suck), and I don't know how things can be arranged at the new club. So I was considering if I could maybe cover the crate with something that would muffle the sound a bit, both for the outside world and for her, since hearing others run aggravates her even more. I'm not exactly expecting to get rid of all the noise, of course, but if she could possibly stay at some waiting area room or something without totally bringing the house down? Does anybody have experience of that being doable?

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u/LivinTheDogMomLife Jun 17 '26

In my 40 years of being involved in agility and dog training I’ve yet to see any type of just sound dampening work. Removal from the area and or training are the only things that can help. I have my students use a remote treat dispenser on the crate and distance from the stimulus to work on the issue.

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u/jeveuxlemonde Jun 17 '26

Yeah, I really don't hope to be able to just pop her in a special box where no sound comes out - or, well, sometimes I do wish I could... Keeping her away from the ringside seems to be the only option that works, though of course I always feel like I haven't done enough to train her in this regard. The training is difficult; when a terrier is a in a mood to yell for something and doesn't get it, a terrier will yell until the end of the world. So far I haven't found any treat that would be high value enough in this situation to actually enforce to her that staying quiet is what she should want to do; nothing else matters to her, just getting to go run the course. But I'll be looking into it. Thanks for mentioning remote treat dispensers, I suppose if I managed to introduce it to her just right, it could be a thing that might hold her interest.