pupdate: did i say progress? i spoke too soon

Remember this? Recall from canned salmon and dehydrated liver treats?

Worked once. Didn't work a second time.

On our next visit to Storey's Beach, both dogs were completely absorbed in harassing the little fish. Cookie had zero recall. And Kai regressed and had none either, no doubt learning from her little sister that crime does indeed pay.

Even worse, Cookie seems to have developed some form of separation anxiety. She busted out of her crate (a cheapy we bought second hand), destroying it in the process and went a ways towards destroying the nice new one we recently bought.

I recently emailed a dog-trainer friend.

Both dogs are crated when we're not home, and overnight. Both have always been completely fine with being crated. Cookie will wait until she knows she's getting a treat, but if we're holding treats, she'll jump right in, and once she's in, she settles right down. We go out to dinner or whatever, an hour here or there, and both dogs are calm and fine. No crying or yelping as we leave, happy and excited when we get home, but not insane, not stressed at all.

But two or three times, Cookie has gotten destructive -- ripped up her bed, tore at the bottom of the crate, bent the door -- and also peed in the crate. Recently we left the house in the morning, both dogs were calm. Our dogsitter came over about 1.5 hours later and all this destruction had taken place. Later in the day, dogsitter leaves, we come home 45 mins later, and it's way worse. 

Poor girl. She's freaking out about something but we don't know what. It's very puzzling. But she must be crated when we're not home. So we're working on more positive reinforcement for crating, plus trying to catch what's happening on video.

On the plus side, she has not peed in the house in weeks, and now clearly tells us when she needs to go out. Hooray for that.

Kai, who was 100% housetrained when we adopted her, recently pooped in the house, hiding it in an empty room. Cookie taught her well.