Help With Crate Training a Rescue Dog

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Aug 23, 2012
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Hey guys! I've only posted on here a couple times -- but I'm in a bit of a predicament, and I need some advice. Here are the details: my mom's workplace is on an extremely busy highway, and last Monday a dog managed to make her way across the highway -- almost getting hit several times. My mom brought her inside her office, and later that evening we rode through the nearby neighborhoods and tried to find out who she belongs to. No one claimed or recognized her. We put 'found dog' posters up in the convenient stores and local vet offices; put an ad on Craigslist, a post on several Facebook groups dedicated to lost and found pets in Alabama. We haven't heard anything back. She wasn't wearing a collar and isn't microchipped.

So, she's here at my house now. My best guess is that she is 9 or 10 months old. Everything is going as well as can be expected considering my 7y/o BC mix is slightly dog aggressive and not very accustomed to having to share his house with another dog. The first few days were a little rough, but they're actually getting along pretty well now. She is absolutely enamored with my two cats, and that's proving to be a problem.

Anyways -- enough with my novel of an introduction, and on to what I need help with:

1.) I'm not able to keep her due to the aforementioned issues, so I'm wondering how long we should pursue finding her previous owner before we start pursuing finding her a new home? And how /should/ I go about finding her a new home? I've never fostered any dogs before or anything, so I'm not even sure how to begin.

2.) She's housetrained, but is definitely not trustworthy being left alone in the house at night like my BC is. I've never had a need to crate train Sox, but I'm going to have to crate train her. How do you crate train a dog? As she gets more attached to us, it's looking like she may have separation anxiety. Whenever someone leaves the house or a room, she runs to the door and whines for a while until they come back or she gets tired. How do I stop this before it becomes a major problem?

3.) I'm not sure if there is a name for this, but whenever she's on the couch or in someone's lap and Sox gets near them -- she snarls and growls at him. Whenever she does this I've just been telling her no and putting her on the floor. How should I be handling this?

5.) She has an appointment for Monday the 15th to be spayed. Is that enough time for her previous owners to claim her? Should I wait longer? I'd like to get her spayed as soon as possible because there are a ton of intact stray dogs in the neighborhood, and I have a feeling having a dog in heat will be extremely stressful.

4.) Just out of my curiosity, what breeds do you think she's a mix of? I haven't heard her bark the whole time she's been here.







Thanks in advance for any help you guys are able to offer!
 

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