Riverwind (imported) wrote: Thu Oct 20, 2011 5:39 am
I have raised dogs for years Corgi's, they always loved their crates to sleep in. Today I have a little rat terrier, she is only about 7 lbs with a Jack Russel personally I make her sleep in her crate, she is not happy about it but that's where she sleeps. You would think after 8 years she would just accept this however every night is "in the crate, in the crate, pick her up and in the crate, good girl."
Something you might want to try, your Jack may not like it but you will.
River
Thanks for the post River. I really seem to struggle to relate to people on the EA at times (partly because I am too just interested in myself most probably) so I appreciate your conversation (in fact I've been looking at "what's new" stuff for about 20 minutes but couldn't find anything that I could comment on; though I still find stuff to read).
The treatment of a pet dog seems a bit like the treatment of a human child; you want to spoil them, but if you do this it is bad for them (and perhaps consequently yourself). In fact sometimes I feel like sleeping with my Jack Russell (this has only happened a few times; at the beginning and after she was de-sexed, plus when there was a storm one night and she was whimpering!), but know that this is bad because it takes a while for her to deal with it when she is not with me, and will make noise for much of the night.
I do have a crate - meant to be used just for when she is in the car (though the other day when I drove her to the lake for a walk I let her just sit in the front sit; and she behaved well actually), so it would be possible to have her sleep in that, but generally speaking her behaviour at night is good enough now to allow her to wander around half of the house as she likes - so long as I don't spoil her too much (after a walk this evening I lay on my bed with her for about 15 minutes, then a couple of times later she was sneaking back in, once she made quite a mess, was obviously looking for the soothers and knew she'd done wrong when I came in! During the past couple of hours while I have been doing worthwhile stuff online she has just been sitting quitely on the couch behind me, basically dozing, but comfortable to be around me).
It's a hard balancing act sometimes. Kind of like how the bad food for you usually tastes the best!
I don't think that you treat your dog badly (in reference to the crate). In fact a friend of mine overseas surprised me a little with his treatment of his dogs; they were not pets; they were treated poorly so that they would distrust all humans and be good guard dogs (one did quickly learn to trust me though and we became good friends), but I tried to understand the different culture and didn't think him a horrible person, even though I wouldn't ever see myself treating a pet like that.
We are all unique.
