Moving from day care to staying home alone?

[Binny P]

Hi all,

Our two doods currently spend their days at doggie day care, which, from the best we can tell, they really enjoy. And we certainly enjoy many of the benefits of it -- tired doodles make much easier evening companions than wrestling party monsters. However, it is *not* cheap, I worry that they are learning some bad habits, and they often come home much stinkier than they otherwise would be. The smell is a negligible concern I can live with but the cost is really getting to be a bit prohibitive.

I'm curious for those of your who work outside the home 9-5 how you manage dog care and, if you were using doggie day care, how you started to transition to being home alone. One of our boys is a year and we will leave him uncrated for short amounts of time if we aren't around, but generally only to take a shower or do some yard clean up - if we are leaving the house, he goes in his crate. Our second buddy is a little younger -- 9 months or so -- and much more of a destroyer. We are just getting the point of trusting him enough to leave him alone for even small amounts of time. All that to say, neither have had any significant uncrated, unsupervised time in the house. 

Any thoughts/guidance/advice? How long are you leaving your dogs alone? How are you managing possible household disaster while you are gone? Did you move from crated to uncrated in the house alone or from doggy daycare to house, and if so, how?

Thanks so much!

[Stacy]

I had to do some creative thinking when Katie was a puppy. Instead of leaving her crated or loose I put her in a 4’x4’ exercise pen with a top. She had room to play with her toys and I knew she was safe.

We also did day care, but I agree, the cost gets prohibitive. I found that she got a lot of benefit from it even when she didn’t go every day. Every other day still kept her pleasantly worn out. It seemed like a good compromise.

I feel like there are a lot more people out there recently who are available to come to people’s houses and let the dogs out during the day or take them for a walk. I wonder if that would be a less expensive option than daycare every day. In my area people advertise these type of services on Nextdoor. But I would get several referrals before I would trust someone with my dogs.

I also think that the older they get the less they need to go to daycare. I am lucky not to have super high energy dogs, but I find that they lounge most of the day even when I’m here. In a perfect world I would just be able to stay home with them full time, but nobody ever wants to buy the dog food, so off to work I go.

[Andrea, Belle and Honey]

When I worked full-time, although both dogs were crate trained, I dog-proofed a small room that looked into the back yard where the squirrels and bunnies played.  I left water and a radio tuned alternately to classical or jazz music. I also left a piddle pad for the 6 lb terrier with a tiny bladder; the lab never had an accident but peed like an elephant when she went out after we got home. However, I did take the dogs to day care on a farm 2 days a week because they enjoyed it so much. Even after I retired, I continued to take the dogs to daycare twice a week.  When my sweet lab died and Belle came, the terrier was old and passive enough to have the run of the house, and Belle stays happily in her pen when I go out, but she still goes joyfully to day care to run and play with her buddies two afternoons a week even if I am home. Another advantage of maintaining Belle's connection with the day care was that when I had to stay with my Mother for a while, Belle could board at the farm with people and dogs that she knew and loved.

[Jennifer and Jack]

When I first got Jack at eight weeks, I was still working as a nurse, so shift hours.... As soon as he was old enough he went to daycare the whole time I was working.. We also enjoyed the benefit of a tired puppy that was ready for bed when we got home.  Eventually, at about two years old, I wasn't working as much but I still brought him to daycare 1-2 days a week which was much cheaper and still gave him some play time....

Now at 9 (today) he would hate day care.. He loves to sit on the guest bed with the ceiling fan blowing on him and look out the window.....   Your guys are still on the young side and still full of beans.......can you split your time with daycare, or have a dog walker come in..  I would be afraid they are too little to be left unsupervised for that period of time and would need to be crated if left home with a dog walker to let them out.... then when you got home you would need to put in some time to exercise them.  We did sometimes gate off a section of the kitchen that was a safe zone for him during those in between times and also when he was real little a play pen....

[Sally]

My husband and I both work full time.  Farley goes to daycare 1-2 days a week.  He was crate trained.  He was in his crate during the day for the first year.  I would go home every day at lunch to let him out.  Once he turned a year I no longer went home at lunch....neither my husband or I work close to home.  A little over a year we were able to let him roam the house during the day.  We did this by leaving him out of the crate for longer periods of time on the weekends if we were gone until we felt comfortable.  He does great free in the house all day.  Of course we did dog proof our house a bit.  We do not leave things on the ground that he might get into.  He is now 1 year and 9 months and still benefits from 1-2 days in daycare. 

[Nicole and Teddy]

I work full time and currently Teddy has free rein in the house- he just turned 4 years old. I usually get home to let him out for a quick potty break at lunch and then a few days a week I have a dog walker come in for 20 minutes. This tends to be costly as well- she charges $19 for 20 minutes and I know I could bring Teddy to doggy day care for just a bit more for a full day but in my mind it's worth it- he loves the company if nothing else- he does love his humans! Plus he's not a huge fan of large crowds of dogs and I was always worried he'd get hurt and/or scared. He could probably be alone for 8 hours but, being the doting, over-protective mama that I am, usually leave him alone for no more than 4-5 hours at a time. We started by leaving him in the crate when he was little and at 4 months or so slowly started increasing his 'space' - so at first we had him gated in the tiled laundry room with the crate as an option. When he did ok with that, we got one of those huge gates and gated him in the kitchen. We finally got to a point at about a year or so where we decided to see how he did having the whole house and he was fine. Now when I get home, I typically find him napping on one of the beds. I do find that if he get 2 visits in a day he isn't quite so needy at night when I get home. If he only gets a lunchtime visit, it's play, play, play at night! He's pretty much spoiled rotten- we said we were only going to do the dog walker while he was a puppy and you can see how well that worked out!

[Samantha Randall]

My husband and I both work full time so our guy is crated Monday-Thursday and goes to Doggy DayCare on Fridays. We recently started taking him and absolutely love it. He comes home worn out and we don't feel guilty if we go to dinner or out with friends because he will sleep as soon as he gets home and not get up until the next morning on the days he attends! As far as the crate, he actually enjoys it. We have it in our bedroom and leave the door open and he will go in there when we are home to relax or sleep so we keep him crated during the day. I don't anticipate changing this because he has never shown signs of stress going into it and voluntarily goes in there. Daycare is pricey but the once a week session really helps with his socialization and getting his energy out! He's still young as well- will be one in April. 

[Debbie]

my Mila doodle was lucky to be able  to spend her first year at home with my daughter who worked part time  for a year between high school and college.. since then she has gone to doggie daycare   2 days a week  ,,it is the same place she has had her training and boarding!  She has sooo many doggie friends and is happily tired upon returning home.. Seems to make the days in between easier as well when we work..  As Andrea said, the benefit is she has a safe place she loves to go to for boarding. It has not been cheap but she so loves it,, she follows me around on the mornings I say,,do you want to go play with your doggie friends?  lol