The Power of Choice, or How Tempo Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love His Crate.

Road trip!

“The power to control one’s own outcomes is essential to behavioral health, and the degree to which a behavior reduction procedure preserves learner control is essential to developing a standard of humane, effective practice.” - Susan Friedman

About a year ago, we adopted a plucky six-year-old Jack Russell Terrier from the shelter.  Tempo had been surrendered to the shelter by his previous family.  In their notes, they stated he was crate-trained.  It also appeared that they used crating as punishment, and that he spent the majority of his time either outside in the yard or, when inside, crated.

Not surprisingly, when Tempo came to us he would indeed tolerate going to his crate, but he didn’t love it.  We camp, travel, and go to dog events frequently with our dogs, so accepting a crate as a comfortable place to chill out is fairly important.  Plus, as much as I love snuggling in bed with a dog, I am too light of a sleeper to realistically have dogs loose in the bedroom at night and expect to get a restful night’s sleep, as I would be awake every time they stirred.  So, our dogs spend their nights either crated in our bedroom, or loose in the living room, as our eldest dog Jade prefers.

For the first several months, Tempo had a nice JRT-sized crate, and we worked diligently to get him to like it more than he did.  We played crate games, worked on counter-conditioning protocols, gave him his meals and high value treats and chews in it, but he was still resistant to going in and would cry at night.

In the fall, we tried him out in a “big dog” crate, and for several months he was much happier.  He would run into the crate at night, settle down immediately, and patiently wait in the morning for us to get up and moving before letting him out.  All was well until one day it wasn’t.  Around mid-January, Tempo decided that he didn’t like his fancy big crate anymore either.

OK, we’re dog trainers and crate training isn’t a big deal, right?  Right?

A couple months of more games, more shaping, more counter-conditioning, more high value rewards, DAP diffusers, new beds, new blankets, new relaxation essential oils, new sweaters to keep him even warmer at night, curling up next to his crate in an attempt to comfort him, and eventually shameless pleading and luring – and at the end of it we had a sad little JRT who at night would slowly, pathetically plod to his crate, hesitate at the door, then slink his way in and sit there looking pathetic.  He stopped even eating his special rewards that he would find in there. 

We have absolutely no idea what caused this complete change of heart regarding his crate, by the way.  There was no event we could identify, and nothing we could imagine was causing him discomfort.  All I can say is he is a weird dog, who forms strong opinions, and I’m pretty sure he sees dead people sometimes.  (In all seriousness, we do wonder if he has some medical issue underlying some of his peculiarities, but so far no tests or examinations have found anything.  So all we can do is work with the behavior – which is what we are supposed to be the professionals at anyway!)

Finally in mid-March, coincidentally the day before ClickerExpo Detroit started, none of us got any sleep.  Tempo slunk to his crate as usual that night, but as we tried to drift off to sleep, we noticed that he was not settling down, but was sitting upright, pressed against the door of his crate, looking completely miserable and dejected.  He whimpered occasionally, but mostly suffered in silence.  We in turn were broken-hearted seeing him so unhappy for reasons we could not figure out or understand.  This was not working.  He sat there staring – we tossed and turned feeling awful that our dog was so inexplicably uncomfortable.

In the morning, he was at least happy to jump into the van and ride in his travel kennel to ClickerExpo – so at least he had not generalized this stress to all crates.  Loaded up on caffeine, we enjoyed day one of the amazing talks, all the time considering how to apply them to our current biggest training challenge at home.  Inspiration came in Irith Bloom’s “Power of Choice” seminar, which reminded us how important learner control is to the outcome of a behavioral intervention.  Tempo had no control in his sleeping arrangements.  While we did not physically force him into his crate at night, he still clearly felt coerced by the routine, and it was becoming a nightly source of stress and anxiety for all of us.  Were we really “force-free” trainers, if he really had no option?  Physical force is not the only form of coercion, and although our intentions were good and intended to be positive, they were clearly not reinforcing.  After all, only the learner can decide what is truly a reinforcer and what is a punisher, no matter what our intents or hopes are.

Tempo is reliable in the house.  We knew he wouldn’t eat the sofa cushions or raid the refrigerator.  So that night we gave Tempo a choice.  After coming in from his final run of the night, he had the option to go to his crate as usual, or to the living room to spend the night on the couch with Jade.  Not surprisingly, he chose the couch.

Honestly, at first this felt a lot like giving up.  It felt like we were giving a fancy justification to our decision to cave in to our tenacious terrier.  But the reality was that the crate had become a huge source of stress.  Lowell and I were stressed, Tempo was stressed, no one was sleeping well, and no one was happy with one another.  We could either focus on a single behavior issue, or try to find a mutually agreeable alternative – one that would lower everyone’s stress and anxiety.  It was clear that as long as Tempo HAD to go to his crate, his overall opinion of it was not going to change.  What was important to us was that we could still crate him for car rides and travel, and he still loved his travel crate and had always settled fine in it while camping, so that was promising.  We decided we would empower him to make a different decision at night – albeit one that was still acceptable to us – and to see how it went.  We figured if nothing else, at least we might get a decent night’s sleep again.  If there was fallout from our new strategy, at least maybe I could face it well-rested.

The first few nights, Tempo glared at us a bit from the couch as he settled in, still not entirely trusting that we weren’t going to send him to his apparently haunted crate.  But then some interesting things happened.  Other behavior problems started to decrease.  He became more compliant when asked to do other things that weren’t exactly his favorite – like getting off a warm couch to go outside in the rain for a final evening bathroom break.  He started play-bowing at us several times a day, then tearing around, grabbing a toy, and running to us so we could help him “kill” it.  His focus and attention on walks improved.  He seemed to be wagging his nubbin more.  He just seemed happier.  And so were we.

And if you can believe it, allowing a dog to have a choice over something (even a Jack Russell terrier) somehow did NOT result in him overthrowing the entire household, stealing our credit cards, locking us out of the house, and kicking us off the furniture.  All it did was help him regain his trust in us, knowing we weren’t going to impose something on him that he hated anymore.

What was important here wasn’t really that he be crated at night.  What mattered was that everyone could be comfortable, happy, cooperative, and safe in the house.  If Tempo wasn’t reliable to be left in the living room unattended, then I would have looked for other options – a baby gate in the hallway, an exercise pen in kitchen, etc.  We’d search for something that met our needs, while respecting his needs and preferences as well.  We control so much of what happens in our dogs’ lives – what and when they eat, where they live, when they go to the bathroom, how they get to play and exercise, who they get to socialize with – why wouldn’t they want some matter of choice in some aspects of life?  Especially, as seemed to be the case with Tempo and his crate, there was also a fundamental issue of not feeling safe or comfortable in there, as clearly it is inhabited by the bogeyman (or so he would claim).

And then there was more.  He began pausing at the door to the bedroom hallway in the evening and looking toward his crate.  Then this week as the rest of the dogs were rushing to their crates in preparation for their evening meals, Tempo ran into his crate as well, and waited patiently there for dinner to be served.  Last night as I was crating the other dogs for the night, he stood in front of the door to his crate waiting for it to open before we invited him into the living room instead.  Seeing that the stress associated with the crate was already decreased, we began some brief sessions of crate games and counter conditioning again.  He’s charging happily into it.  If we asked him now to go to his crate for the night, I believe he would do so willingly, not begrudgingly.  And if/when circumstances require him to spend the evening there again, we’ll ask him to do so then.  But not before, unless he decides otherwise.  It’s his choice.
T

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Tempo's preferred sleeping arrangement.