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I'm sorry if some of you felt my comments were hurtful but I wasn't trying to attack the Op, just being brutally honest which incidentally is exactly what she asked for.
I'm not going to sugar coat the facts here when a dog's life is at stake, and quite frankly the op and her family are not doing all that great either. Being "nice" and avoiding the hard truth in this situation would only be a dis-service. The facts are that this is all her doing and changing her ways is going to be the key to resolving this. She needs to know it's not the dog's fault. I'm not going to blame this on the dog and say "oh it's ok, it's not your fault" because that would be lieing to her face in order to protect her feelings. I'm sorry but that is just wrong when once again, the dog's life is at stake and the situation is this serious.
Kateryna, I really do feel for what you're going through. If you can't even leave him in the crate, because he protests so much, plain and simple he isn't properly crate trained. You need good crate training as a foundation to help change his ways. There is a lot of good material out "there" about basic crate training. I would also recommend the DVD "Crate Games" with Susan Garret, those games could also help you establish a better relationship with your dog and start turning around some of his believes that he's the boss. Jut putting the crate away and out of sight while the dog isn't properly crate trained to begin won't necessarily resolve any thing. You may not be able to hear him, but in his mind you just might be creating an environment where he feels he just has to get that much louder to be heard. Could make things worse when the crate comes back inside the house. His crate needs to be a happy and safe place, and I think should be stationary for the initial periods of training. If we are dealing with an insecure dog turned tyrant, moving the crate around could give him reasons to be more insecure. You don't want to end up with a dog who is now happy to go in his crate but becomes protective of it.
I wouldn't recommend a prong collar for this dog without seeing what is happening. Especially with the fact he already has hierarchy issues, the prong could act to further frustrate him. While he will need stern leadership and possibly some corrections, I would prefer to use a more positive and guidance based training system on a dog like this. Especially if his issues have originated from insecurities and lack of socializing in his earlier life. He doesn't need more conflict, he's already created enough of that for himself.
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