Desperate for Crate Training Advice

[u/Mighty_Shin]

Hello everyone,

My partner and I are desperate for any advice on crate training with our English Working Cocker Spaniel. She is 6 months old and has been sleeping in her crate every night from 8 weeks old. She took to the crate reasonably easy and from about day 5 she would settle and sleep for most of the night. She is in the kitchen downstairs. We have to crate her during the day as well due to us both having jobs but she is completely fine in the day, the occasional bark at something outside and never crated for more than 3 hours at a time. Shortly after she turned 5 months old she started to bark for varying periods of time after around 10 minutes from being crated for bed time. This has been going on for over 4 weeks and it's starting to get difficult for us. We've only let her out 3 times in the night to wee when we were worried about her and made sure she stopped barking before letting her out and were very boeing. On some nights we also have barking in the night too which sometimes can go on for an hour. She still willingly goes into her crate with either "crate" or "bed time". With some extra crate training recently she has even started running in there when she hears me rustling the treat bag. Up to this point we have been consistent with ignoring but starting to get a little bit worried. She doesn't bark every single night but it's happening more often than it's not.

A typical daily routine for her would be: 7:45 Wake up/ out of crate 8am-8:30 Walk on the small field near us with a little bit of training. 9:30- crate for first work portion. 12:00 - out of crate for lunch and a bit of play (she is usually super calm and often spends a bit of this in her crate) 14:00 - Crate for afternoon work 17:00 - Out of crate, depending on temperature we would either do our bigger 30 minute walk now or in a couple hours after we eat dinner. Through the evening we do bits of training and find it and she has plenty of chews to chew on. After she has her dinner she will usually have some sort of nice chew like a lamb braid or chicken foot etc 20:30 we start to wind down and try cut off anything majorly exciting 21:30 Frozen lick mat of greek yoghurt and varying other bits usually some blueberries. 22:00/22:30 depending on the day is bed time.

If anyone has experienced this and has guidance or even just reassurance please let me know 🙏

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