Crate training--gradual versus abrupt

Sarah,
Congrats on your V and welcome.
Personally I would just stick your V back in there and let him cry it out. It should not take too long for him to get used to it.
I can only tell you what worked for us. From day one he slept in his crate, I wouldn't have it any other way.
We picked him up from the breeder and put him in his crate for the 3 hour drive. The odd time we would take him out and he would sleep in my GF's lap.
The first night was a struggle, we all had a slumber party in our living room. Crate door open and myself and my GF on the floor outside the crate. He cried for about an hour. Then we woke him up to go relieve himself. Once we got him back in he cried for 20 minutes.
The next night the crate went in our bedroom, 15 minutes of crying, tops. We would talk to him while he cried, mostly positive reinforcement, just to let him know we were there. Oh and all these times and to this day (he's 5 months old) we cover his crate with a blanket to black it out for him as much as possible.
We keep a fleece blanket in there for him and a non edible nyla bone. We had towels in the crate when he was even younger, but soon discovered he would rip at them while we were at work and eventually he would swallow the towel strands... not good.
Knock on wood he has not even tried to rip up the fleece blanket.
All I can say is you have to have patience for the first while....good luck and keep is posted.

Harry

Hi all,

Thanks for your advice and words of encouragement. We have definitely tried not to let her out while she's crying, which we know we're not supposed to do, but there have been some major exceptions. I also have to confess she's still on the bed at night (whoops). Mostly, she sleeps without disturbing us but we may get her into the crate eventually at night. During the day, though, we have been putting her in the crate more often, which she still finds distressing (our fault because we have spoiled her, most likely). We gave her breakfast in the crate today and left her in there to cry it out. When she came out, she had diarrhea and vomited twice, so I felt pretty badly. She isn't acting sick so we're just going to watch it and take her to the vet if it persists, but I think it might be just anxiety or the wrong kind of treat. She seems to generally get loose stools at the drop of a hat, if you so much as look at her the wrong way (or feed her the wrong thing). She vomited once before, too, but not in the past few days.

We have the biting under fairly good control. We give her attention for licking and correct biting by closing her muzzle for a few seconds (which she hates). We've also noticed a pattern of her getting into a "vizsla crazy" mood at night, which seems to trigger the biting. We coped with her crazy mood last night by letting her get it all out chasing after an electronic vibrating ball and playing fetch, then she was knocked out. I agree with what others have described about vizslas, she seems to have only two speeds, hyper and asleep (and if you disturb her sleep, she vocalizes discontentedly under her breath).

Oh, and she also loves toilet paper, grass, bark and leaves. We don't let her have these things, but on walks, she probably manages to get some grass into her, which may be what upset her tummy. This seems to be a vizsla trait. Good to compare with others who know...

Sarah

yes, mine loves grass, leaves, branches, bugs, gum, garbage, oh and he once ate a sandwich bag with half a sandwich in it that somebody left at the park that one cost us $300 to get his stomach pumped.
be careful, we had to send Kian to the vet about a month ago. The vet thinks he licked bird droppings or ate some form of garbage. He woke one morning and vomitted 4x and had diarrhea 4x in the matter of 3 hours. He was put on antibiotics and on a soft food diet for 10 days. The poor guy lost so much weight right off the bat.
So, be careful when your V is out and about on walks and in parks, at this age they will put almost anything into their mouths, and being a puppy they are so fast that you will miss it.
Try the "LEAVE IT" command. Kian is doing well with this one when I see garbage or crap on the sidewalk or in the park. I usually yell it at him before he makes a move for it.

Good luck.

One problematic thing is that after she poops (including diarrhea), she tries to go over and commune with her poop, smelling it and, well, we don't let her get past smelling it but I'm afraid what would come next...I'm at work now and others are home with her and were to take her to the vet post haste if it continued, but I'm assuming that the diarrhea and vomiting stopped. The last time this happened was some days ago (a week?), and her stools returned to normal in between with no vomiting, so I think it may just be a sensitive stomach issue. But I worry because she loves to try to eat gross things. One of her favorites according to another family member is goose poop (tried for it, not allowed to have it, and therefore, the walk was no fun because it's an area that has a fair amount of goose poop right now and she was quite persistent).

BTW, I've been looking for my instructions I printed out from the website of a local chapter of prevention of cruelty to animals on how to train the "leave it/drop it" commands. I had the idea this one would be a priority with her. She already learned sit, but not doing us a lot of good...