Why not leave it up to her to decide. I got a big kick out of the nights when my dogs finally earned the privilege to have free range at night. I had long since wondered, where would they sleep, what would they do? With my older dog I started out by putting him in his crate, giving his evening cookie like always but this time leaving the door unlocked. He came out but I pretended he wasn't there. I took a shower and went to bed. He had the most puzzled look on his face like "what am I supposed to do now?" and he went back in his crate after misbehaving a little bit trying to get me to notice and slept in there. Eventually he decided he would sleep under my bed for part of the evening then in his crate part of the evening then when I wake up he is under my bed again. And let me tell you , it is really hard to clean dog barf out from under the bed. :-)

My younger dog when I did this did the same thing but he moves around at night. Instead of being under the bed- which he doesn't fit under there too easily, he moves around the bedroom, sleeps in the doorway or in the hall and sometimes he sleeps in his crate.

Maybe just let her play it by ear and see where she decides she likes it best.

With some affected dogs I think they can give a vitamin k injection to help clotting time. Have they considered that?

Lisa

I know many dog trainers hate him, but Cesar Milan has a unique perspective on dogs. I think you would find his first books extremely helpful.

You know the book Marley & Me, Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog by John Grogan?

Well, John and his wife got another dog and were surprised that this second dog had problems also, so it occurred to them that maybe they didn't understand dogs! So they called in Cesar, who was a big help to them. Cesar could have helped them with Marley also, but then they wouldn't have gotten a book out of it, LOL>

It's not just aggressive dogs he helps; also fearful dogs and those with phobias. Your dog can be normal.

Can relate to the crate loving dog. I wanted to put my youngest's crate away for so long (he's going to be 4). Last spring we laid a hardwood floor in my office where the crate is kept. I thought it was my golden opportunity to get rid of it once and for all. Not so, after I broke the crate down and put it all away, enjoying a bit more room in the office, bad behavior started by my young boy.

Won't go into long details, but lets just say my boy isn't ready to give up his crate. He lies in there when the boys are in my office or if we aren't home. The door is never closed, he just likes the crate. Needless to say, I reassembled the crate and all behavioral problems went away. He sleeps in our bedroom at night with no crate, but like QQ's dog, he manages to get as much of his body under the bed as he can. He's at least 85 lbs and that is not an easy feat. My other boy could care less about the crate, likes to stretch out on the floor (or sofa/chair, if someone forgets to put a cushion up.

So long as you aren't removing the crate altogether, I don't think you should have a problem. I have been able to move the location, just not eliminate the crate altogether:)).

Best of luck!

It would be an interesting study to see if crate training actually set dogs up for these crate dependencies in the future.

Let's not go there!

This sounds a lot like what happens when people try ot switch their childs's bed (toddler to twin, etc.) or bedroom. So it's not just dogs. Maybe some like the security, know where they belong, that you will know where to find them, that in the past it's been a safe place, etc.

Just my 2 cents. (Coming from a cat person, good luck trying to get one of them to sleep in a crate!)

LOL. Lisa, your post really threw me for a loop. .

QQ. I would let her choose if I were considering allowing her free reign of the house. But if she's upstairs, she'll be babygated on the top level. It doesn't matter how tired she is, there is ALWAYS enough energy reserved to play with the cats. And of course, being cats, they're most active at night. So she needs some sort of restrictions. It wouldn't be half as bad if she didn't yelp and scream when she chases the cats, but she does, and I am NOT listening to that all night, lol.

I guess I could always put her travel crate up there, and lock it, at first and see how she does. If she really puts up a fuss and wont settle down, then I'll move her back, or keep trying. It'll save the hassle of setting up the gate and such before hand, if it doesn't work.

Laura, thanks for the suggestion. But Coda's little quirks fit in just fine in our happily dysfunctional furry family. I wouldn't change her for the world. She's very reliant on routine, and we have a pretty reliable system set up for when we have to break her routine. So barring any unexpected loud noises and crashes and bangs, she's generally extremely happy and not fearful of much anymore.

Sue, funny you say that. Anytime we leave codas travel kennel out after a trip, I always find my black cat passed out in it. We used to leave the cats travel kennel out, and she'd always sleep in it. She's too big for it now, though. Now she's taken a liking to sleeping wherever the dogs are sleeping. Her little 8 pound body can take over a large dog bed and remove any other body on it, in 5 seconds flat, lol.

My Golden Retriever Lilly and I just went through this! She does not like change. When she was a pup she was in a smaller crate and as she got bigger I bought her a bigger crate but left her smaller crate beside it for about a day. Lilly kept trying to get in her smaller crate when it was time for her to go to bed. It took her a few days to get used to the new crate. Then the moving problem came. She was in the kitchen at first in the smaller cage. Then about a month after she got the bigger crate, I decided that I wanted to move her because the new crate was so big. I tried several spots in the house before I landed her in the dinning room, but anywhere I put her she was ok with it as long as it was her same crate with her blanket!

So I would suggest if you move her upstairs, move the crate she is used to and she should do ok.

So we moved her about 5 days ago now. She's doing OK. Except she snores SO lound and it's keeping us up! lol. We may have to move her a little further down the hall.

However, I don't think she likes it, or she is just confused. Generally we tell her to 'go to bed' or dont even say anything, and she goes to bed. Now it's a struggle.

We tell her "Go to bed" and she runs to the old spot her crate was in and stands there. We tell her to come up stairs, and she'll start and then run back to the old spot, and stare. And a final "go to bed" has her running for her bed in the living room. I'm not sure if she forgets where we put it, or if she really wants it back where it was.