Originally Posted By: angel519She has some training by me and we couldnt be any closer than what we are. She still has seperation issues when I leave and no matter where I am in the house she is there with me even in the bathroom. But nobody is answering the question about crating her this late in her life. I think the bonding is established very well between us I just cant train her because of a foot injury.
People are giving you their concerns on sending her away for training and that's as valid as the crate-training issue. I'll give you my thoughts on all of it.
You have a dog that has anxiety problems and is afraid to be separated from you. Your plan is to send her away to people who will keep her crated (probably most of the time, since training is usually no more than an hour total per day). So she's not only going to be away from you, but she's going to be severely confined. I would expect that she would NOT handle this well.
If you're sold on the concept of having her trained by these people, then teaching her to accept a crate before you send her away would be the best thing. However, it's very possible that this experience, whether you crate-train her or not, will change her in some ways. When a dog goes to someone for training and the owner isn't there to observe, there is NO way of knowing what is actually done to your dog. It doesn't sound like they're even set up properly (they have to keep her in a crate?). You run a huge risk of having her personality dampened or even changed by letting someone else do whatever they choose to do to her for three weeks.
Years ago I would take in an occasional dog for training but my criteria was that the owner had to either be physically unable to train the dog (one was an elderly man with a sick wife) or they had to be going away for a few weeks and planning on boarding the dog anyway (might as well get some training in during that time). If they didn't meet these criteria, I would recommend classes or private lessons because in all honesty, the long-term results were MUCH better if the owner was an active part of the training. I could teach these dogs all sorts of things, and show the owners how to use the same commands/signals etc., but in most cases the dogs lost a good part of what they learned because the owners just didn't have enough background to sustain the dogs' behaviors. It was far better for them to learn along with the dog.
You mentioned having a foot injury as being the reason for having your dog sent out for training. You can do a tremendous amount of training with little physical exertion and it may work out really well for you to have a private trainer come to you and help you train your dog. I have an auto-immune disease - rheumatoid arthritis - and when my chow pup was ten weeks old I flared up so badly that I couldn't lift my arms, couldn't close my hands around a leash, could barely walk and spent most of my time on pain pills and either laying in bed or sitting in an easy chair. But I kept a baggie of treats with me and I trained that pup to come when called, sit, down, stay, spin in circles, wave goodbye, cover her face with her paw, speak, back up, retrieve, etc. And on the days I could hobble around I taught her to walk on a loose leash and eventually to heel. It really wasn't as hard as it seemed it would be and all that training helped create a far tighter bond than just living with a dog does. I still struggle daily with pain and reduced mobility but it doesn't stop me from training my dogs. You just plain get better results if you do it yourself.
Best of luck to you and I hope that whatever you choose, it works out well.
Melanie and the gang in Alaska