Dutch Shepherd Forum

Hey all I've notice a few issues that have been coming up. Koda was doing well without the crate and I finally put the crate away for almost a year. I've setup a few webcams at home and I've watched his behavior starting to change. He use to sit by the window and watch people walk by including some with dogs. He would get sad and just put his head on the window. Now if someone walks by he goes frantic and scratches at the window like he wants to bust through it.

I'm at work today but I think he's going to go back into his crate. My only concern is that we have other dogs in the house that trigger the behavior. For example the other dog will growl and bark and in return it starts a chain reaction and Koda goes off. I'm trying to catch this before it gets out of control, this morning he jumped the fence and went right up the the neighbor and barked at him. He had a heavy jacket and a hat on, when I got there he took off back home and cowered by the door with his tail between his legs. I scolded him and we went inside.. he's a year and two months so he's never seen people with that type of clothing. This will be his second winter and we're going to go back to socializing with people. I want to put him back into the crate but the other dogs kind of paw at the crate and never been trained in their life. Should I put him in a crate and then lock the other dogs in their own rooms? The other dogs typically sleep during the day. Would walking him in the morning deter his thought process.. for example if he sees people walking he will say.. I already walked? Just looking for some advice, other than that still working hard!!

Exercising him before you go to work is a good idea, period, but his thought processes aren't anything like you think they may be . He's not going to think to himself, "Hey, I was exercised this morning, I don't have to get riled up by someone walking by my house." I would guess boredom has a lot to do with it.

Crating him while you're at work is a great idea. He's shown you he's not ready to be free in the house when you're gone.

Keeping the other dogs away from him in his crate, however you manage that in your house, is also the way to go. He should not have to withstand other dogs coming by and messing with him while he's in his crate, period.

Also, if he's going to go over your fence, as he demonstrated he can and will do, you may also want to consider going back to having him on a long line when you're outside. The socialization will help some, but if he practices that behavior any more, you're going to have a hell of a time trying to stop it. Preventing unwaned behavior thru management, as well as training, is the way to go here. (It's one thing for a dog to know what he's supposed to do and not do. It's another for him to have the maturity and responsibility to be able to abide by those rules. It's our job to ensure they aren't able to blow the rules off.)