[31773]

My Yellow Lab is a year and a half, and has had this problem for a couple of months. Almost every night when my family tries to put the dog in his crate to sleep, he turns extremely agressive. Growling, loud barking, baring his teeth, the whole shebang. He's not an agressive dog, he's actually very sweet. During the day, he usually follows orders, he doesn't bark much, and the only biting he does is nipping your sleeves or hands for attention. We've tried giving him more exercise during the day, then tried less exercise, and We've tried training him more strictly. We follow every rule the dog trainers give us, so our dog is definitely a good, well trained dog. At night, in the crate, is the ONLY time he performs this extremely agressive behavior. There are some other problems with him, he doesn't like to eat very much, and he has some digestive troubles, but we can't connect those at all to his behavior. Tonight we're going to try and get a video of his behavior, I'll follow this post up with the video in a few hours. Every time we look up night agression we get results that don't help in the slightest, so this is somewhat of a last resort. Any advice at this point would be much obliged. Thanks!

 

[JoanneF]

Sorry, some questions.

Is this a new thing? If so, has a vet ruled out a medical cause?

Does he have to be in the crate? What would happen if he wasn't? How much time does he spend in there?

We've tried training him more strictly.

How? What exactly are you doing?

follow every rule the dog trainers give us,

Examples please.

Sorry for all the questions but the more we understand, the better we can help

 

[Shadowfox]

Just to clarify, he doesn't have issues being created during the day? Just when it is time for bed?

 

[Curls]

This is giving me the vibe of a dog that's scared for some reason. Since he doesn't have the option of avoiding the conflict (people keep grabbing him), he's left with no option but to fight back. I, too, would be curious what your methods of "training more strictly" are. If they involve punishing him or forcing him to do things that cause him pain or fear, the training might actually be reinforcing his feelings of fear and helplessness. That will ultimately lead to more aggression.

 

[forgotten]

Sorry, my error

 

[forgotten]

Why is he caged during the day and then again at night ?
Is his cage big enough for him, can he stand up and hold his head up and can he lay down without having to curl up, can he stretch his legs out when laying flat?

 

[Laco]

Some dogs, ours for example, just do not like being crated. Since its a relatively new behavior, I am going to guess he communicated his crate dislike, more passively in the past, but since that did not work, he resorts to what, in his dog mind, is his only remaining option, more aggressive resistance. My question is, why does he have to be crated at night?

 

[Schnauzaluv]

Agree with the others. Maybe there's a reason he needs to sleep in his crate, and maybe it's because we don't normally crate train or use crates, but my boy displayed his dislike to sleep in his pen when he was just a wee pup. Same as you, I just moved him in when it was time to go to sleep and he growled each time. Since he was toilet trained already (very easy lad to potty train), we just let him sleep where he wants. He chooses the loveseat on a flat pillow.

If you need him to sleep in the crate, have you considered having it closer to you at night (maybe in your bedroom beside your bed)? I would also work on luring him to his crate at night instead of placing him there maybe with a bed time snack Kong?