Is that a mouse hole?!

When you crate a dog who is overwhelmed (or in Langley's case, ticked off) a great thing to try to help them calm down is giving them something to chew on and then completely covering their crate.  Having fewer visual stimuli, the darkness, and probably just not getting to see outside the crate where they really, really want to be helps them pull themselves together.  Of course we aren't talking about dogs with crate anxiety or separation anxiety.  This is for your average dog.  Or a dog like Langley.

Yesterday I was cleaning out a closet and Langley was crated.  He could see the stuff all over the floor and see me pulling out even more stuff, and see Frodo stealing some of that stuff, and he wanted out. NOW!!!  So I used the old sheet-over-the-crate-trick and continued my cleaning project, which soon grew to a closet, an upstairs office, and one of my bedroom closets.  It worked like a charm.  He settled down and other than a little whining was quiet.  After about an hour of cleaning I had stuff tidied up and went over to take him out for a potty break and then some inside play time.  This is what Frodo and I saw.

Frodo, wondering where this little arched entry came from

Had a mouse come and eaten a perfectly arched hole in the bottom corner of Langley's crate?  Frodo and I were perplexed.

Peek-a-boo!

Nope.  No mice were involved.  Langley had quietly fashioned his very own little peephole in the bottom corner of his crate so he could lie down and have a good view of the corner of the room that I was doing most of my work in.  So the sheet did keep him quiet, but just not in the way I had expected it to.