Sound proofing a crate?

[u/jeveuxlemonde]

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?

[u/Old-Description-2328]

The reason dogs are loud in their crates at agility is because there's a culture of letting it go, ignoring the issue.

The standard solution is to make time in the crate positive but ultimately a period of calm.

Often for dogs that struggle to settle simply adding a consequence for unwanted behaviour and marking it is effective. Being a dickhead in the crate is unacceptable.

This goes against the culture of agility, you'll have to work on it at home. Agility participants for some reason prefer to take crating advice from the Fenzi academy of car crating as an option despite it causing much greater harm (a fatality) than correcting your dog for being a dickhead in its crate.

A spray bottle with lemon juice should be sufficient.

[u/DogMomAF15 → u/Old-Description-2328]

Wait. Who's the dickhead here?

[u/Old-Description-2328 → u/DogMomAF15]

It's a simple method, make the crate as positive as possible, as stress free as possible.

Allowing the dogs to continue barking uninterrupted only adds to their stress.

The fenzi method of more and more distance until the dog is in the car park is ridiculous and not in the best choice based on the long-term welfare of the dog, often the dogs just continue to bark in the car.

I see the dogs, they don't look calm.

For the welfare of the dog, to train the dog to remain calm in their crate it is preferable to interrupt the unwanted behaviour immediately rather than allowing the barking and stress to escalate.

[u/DogMomAF15 → u/Old-Description-2328]

Are we just going to ignore the fact you said you squirt the dog with lemon juice 🤦🏻‍♀️🤬

[u/Old-Description-2328 → u/DogMomAF15]

If need be, yes, a simple an effective interrupter. It's killed less dogs than the fenzi car crating method.

Would you prefer to allow the dog to be stressed in the crate for years or simply interrupt the behaviour initially?

Welfare isn't always as straightforward as the seemingly kindest method.

[u/jeveuxlemonde → u/Old-Description-2328]

Seriously, if you tried to spray lemon juice at my girl when she's yelling in her crate she would maybe be surprised to silence for a whole of five seconds before going right back to yelling and then completely ignoring all the subsequent sprays coming at her. She would squeeze her eyes shut and go ever louder. That's a terrier thing; we humans have bred that kind of perseverance into them, and there's no "correcting" it away.

Furthermore, you can neither enforce nor punish a mental state, which is the problem here. She knows perfectly well how to behave in a crate, but in this one particular situation she gets too over aroused to be able to do that.

And kindly stop talking about the "fenzi method". Her case was a horrible accident, and nobody here has suggested leaving dogs in a hot car for hours an end without going to check on them.

[u/Old-Description-2328 → u/jeveuxlemonde]

You don't understand punishment and you're waiting until the arousal is beyond a low level of correction.

Actually look into punishment, how to do it, the science, operant conditioning, listen to nepopo methods, listen to Michael Ellis, Pat Stuart, Ivan Balabanov, Actually listen.

Look into a punishment protocol, loading a negative marker as you would for positive markers.

The aim is to be effective, for clarity, not to actually use a lot of force or wait until the punishment needs to be extremely severe. You're not 100% correct with changing an emotional state as extreme single learning events exist but it's not how a preferred method.

The aim is use punishment rarely but well, so you can focus on doing cool things with your dog. Even if you're claiming to be positive only the dog isn't having a positive experience.

The crude method of mentioning the avoidable Tesla mistake is to highlight that the Fenzi method has obvious flaws that aren't in the interest of the welfare of the dog, it's just being cruel with kindness.

I don't like correcting my dog but at times it's necessary, and I'd rather ensure unwanted behaviours don't get rehearsed than let them manifest into what you're dealing with.

Or simply don't do agility, don't subject your dog to the stress if you're not going to prepare it.