Why does my dog suddenly hate her crate

Question
QUESTION: I have a 1 year old Portuguese Water Dog that has spent every night in her crate
since she was 9 weeks old. About 2 weeks ago she started whining, barking and
frantically clawing on and off all night long. She is also panting. The first night
that she did this we thought that she had to pee so we took her outside and put
her right back in her crate. She has cried every night since except for the
weekend when she is at the cottage. We have the identical crate there and she
doesn't make a sound. We have tried telling her to be quiet, ignoring her, putting
a fan in front of the crate, taking out her bedding and covering her crate.
Nothing seems to work and she is obviously very stressed. Do you have any
suggestions on what else we could try and why she would behave this way all of
a sudden? I should also add that she doesn't spent much time in her crate in the
daytime as I am usually home with her. She gets lots of exercise and even does
this after a day of doggie day care when she is exhausted.


ANSWER: Judie-

Have you tried moving the crate to a different room? perhaps the problem is not the crate, but the area that she is in that is making her so panicked. Just a suggestion!

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: She is in our room with us, at home and at the cottage. I would have thought
that putting her in a different room would make her more stressed. What do you
think?

Answer
If she isn't having a problem with the crate at the cottage, then it only makes sense that for some reason she has a problem with the room at the house... has anything changed about the room recently? My other concern, that I just would mention, is her intuition- if she were my dog and there was this sudden shift in behavior I would be concerned she knows something I don't know: like a co2 leak or something else we can't see or smell. Thats of course not a highly likely situation but something I thought I should mention. I have known dogs to be aware of a situation but not alert to it until they are put in a situation where they can't escape- put in their crate, locked in another bedroom, etc.

The only thing that I can suggest is to give it a try to move the crate to another room entirelly. Put her crate out in the kitchen or living room and let her see it for the whole day. Feed her in the crate with the door open, give her cookies in the crate, etc. Then try one night to see if there's any change in behavior. If there is... I'd start looking to see what could be wrong in your room.

I hope this helps!