BehavioRx Case of the Month
for March 2000

A 4 month old female Shih tzu was bought at 8 weeks from a breeder by a middle aged couple as a companion, although she was from champion stock. The breeder, the veterinarian who examined the puppy and declared it in excellent health, the pet store clerk and several pet pages on the internet... all recommended they get a crate and put the puppy in it at night and when they left home or could not have it under close supervision. They put the crate in the kitchen at night and in the living room at other times. "Tilly" started both urinating and defecating (diarrhea) in the crate during the first week of her incarcerations. She also started to salivate copiously when in the crate.

When they called the HelpLine, they were totally discouraged. All the "authorities" they spoke to said Tilly was behaving "abnormally." When we explained that, contrary to popular mythology, dogs (and wolves) are not "naturally denning animals," except for pregnant bitches during births for a few weeks thereafter, the husband commented... "Then, the crate's the 'abnormal' part of her life with us!"

We explained that many dogs learn to tolerate extended hours of crating, but many others do not and can develop "cage stress." When this happens, their autonomic nervous system can go into high gear, including their intestinal tract. Hence, her lack of control and salivation.

We advised the couple either to move the crate to their bedroom at night and to leave the door open with her bed inside, or just put her bed next to theirs and forget the crate.

"What if she wakes up and pees at night," Mrs. Client queried.

"She came to you from a litter where, with the other sleeping animals, she probably slept 9-10 hours straight through every night. Why break the habit? Besides, when she sleeps, a hormone keeps her from making much urine, so her bladder won't fill up if she goes outside before bedtime.

They opted to leave the crate door open. We sent them the BehavioRx Housetraining Instruction brochure and Obedience Training Primer for Leadership.

A week later Mr. Client phoned to report Tilly had only had two accidents, and they were on the linoleum right by the kitchen door to the back yard toilet area. He also said that feeding Tilly the same number of meals as she had BMs (which was four per day) really made it all a snap... she defecated after each feeding. He said they were now well into Stage 2 of the program.

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