We live overseas, and there is going to come a point where the dog will have to spend 8 hours in a crate if we go back to England and fly her back with us.
She's always had a crate, but I never really pushed the crate training too far - I used to be able to get her in it, but she was nowhere near as happy being left alone in there as she was in an empty room, so we never really pushed it. Originally she used to sleep locked inside it at night, but she started freaking out about bed time, so we left her in the kitchen with the crate open instead, and she was much happier then - she would even choose to sleep inside it occasionally, usually on cooler nights.
We put the crate in kennels with her when we went on holiday, and ever since then she's been terrified of it.
I need her to be OK with it again, because of the flying issue. I also need to start feeding her raw food diet inside there, as we were feeding her out in the garden, and that started to cause problems with her refusing to toilet in the same garden as a result.
I have managed to get her up to the point of jumping inside it for a treat, but her body language once in there is horrible - she looks uncomfortable, and jumps straight out again as soon as she has had her treat.
This morning I threw some lamp chops inside, but she won't go in there to eat them. She squeaks outside the crate, I let her in, she manages to eat about half of one and then panics and asks to come out again. (The door is shut to stop her dragging the raw meat around the house).
So, she would rather go without breakfast than be in her crate.
I know some dogs just don't do crates, but I need her to be OK with it - I need to start feeding her inside it ASAP and I need her to be fine in there if we ever fly her back to England.
Do I need to get her a bigger crate? I always read that the dog should be just able to turn around inside it, which she can, but she looks kind of uncomfortable doing so - I wonder if a bigger one might make it less claustrophobic for her.
Has anyone got any other tips for getting past this problem?