[Frank's Mom]

Hi there -- I'm totally new to this website but was hoping to get some free advice! My 7 month old Golden Retreiver puppy is pretty well behaved. Normal puppy stuff primarily. But, we are having two particulary problems. First, we have his crate in our guest bedroom. It blocks the door so he can get in and out without getting into our nice room and chewing everything in sight. Whenever WE go into the room by sliding his crate and slipping into the room, he goes absolutely nuts -- barking, jumping, showing teeth, anxious behavior. My kids were in there playing a game and he actually jumped over the entire crate (the largest one you can get) to get in there. Basically, whenever we touch his crate, other than at night when he goes to bed, he acts the same way. We have the same behavior with him in our mini van. We can't take him anywhere, even keeping him on a short leash doesn't work. He chewed through the seatbelts in the back of the van. He seems happy and excited to get into the crate and the van, but when he gets in there he acts crazy! Thanks in advance for any advice!!

[FriendsOfZoe]

Don't have any real experience with these issues so I'm afraid I can't help much. The one thing I will say is that we were keeping our bedroom off limits to our golden pup for awhile (it's the only carpeted area, and we didn't want her in there at all until we trusted that she wouldn't go potty in there). Well, she made it her life's work to get in there...if we forgot to shut the door tight, she would push it open; if we went in and weren't quick enough to shut the door, she'd follow us in. The millisecond her paw touched the carpet, she was off, zooming around and going nuts. She wasn't at all aggressive though, just very very very excited. It took awhile to desensitize her to the bedroom, until she could finally go in there and be as calm as she is anywhere else. Now she sleeps in there with us, so it's definitely not an excitement zone for her anymore.

So, I would try to things in regard to the spare bedroom: shutting the door rather than blocking it with the crate, and bringing your pup in there, on leash, to explore a bit (right afer a potty trip and a nice long walk!) so that he can start to see that there is nothing special about this room. Again, my situation was quite different from yours, so hopefully you will get more advice than this. But that was the first thing that jumped into my mind, that perhaps you have made such a big deal about that room being "off-limits" that he's becoming obsessed with it...just shutting the door so he doesn't even think about the room being there or desensitizing him to it might help.

[TooneyDogs]

Guarding personal space like a crate or a bed is not uncommon. Your moving it (taking it away from his point of view) is seen as a threat. Perhaps a baby gate to the room and a new location for the crate would work better.
A crate for traveling in the minivan would be a lot easier on everyone and he will learn that if the crate moves, he gets to go for a ride!

[Frank's Mom]

Thanks for the advice, I guess I didn't explain myself well enough. We never block him from his crate - he always has access to it. I just slide it back a bit to get into and out of the room. The crate is huge and I don't really have a good place for it. He goes into and out of it when he wants to get his toys or blanky or teddy bear. I'm about to hire a trainer to help us deal with it. Maybe I'll try taking him in and out on a leash first, but I'm afraid the habit is pretty ingrained in him for now. The car behavior too is a bad habit!!

[Anela]

I think your hiring a trainer is the best thing you can do.

Goldens have huge amounts of energy, and they can be somewhat challenging to train. When the bad habits are formed without proper correction, you can really have a problem on your hands.

Anela