home alone

[Stacy Deitrich]

Rosie is now 16 weeks (tomorrow).  We have been leaving her home out of her kennel for short spurts here and there and she is doing great.  At what age do you think it is safe to leave them home out of their cage for short periods?

~ Stacy & Rosie

[Sorana, Darwin and Chance]

Depends how well housetrained she is, and what kinds of things she likes to chew.  Our pup Chance is now 5 months old and we trust him loose in the house every workday for 8 hours.  Our older dood, Darwin, was trustworthy at about the same age, though Darwin did chew some inappropriate stuff when home alone (mostly pillow corners and shredded any loose papers he could find - nothing major).  Chance is also teething at the moment, but we leave lots of toys and chewing ropes around, and so far (last 2 weeks) he hasn't chewed anything he shouldn't have.  

 

Oh, I should mention that after crating little Chance when gone, I progressed to leaving him gated, but Darwin is afraid of the baby gate, and would bark incessantly.  So that only lasted 2 days until our neighbours complained - we then took a chance and left the puppy loose.  Same with puppy Darwin - I tried gating him in the kitchen area, but the little Houdini always managed to escape, and when we'd get home he was always calmly waiting for us on the bed or on the couch, lol!  (places he was not allowed to be when we were home)

[J and Riley (and Luna)]

We progressed from:

 

- Crated (1-3 hours only) up until about 3 months

- Crate open inside an ex-pen up until 8-9 months (Up to 8 hours alone)

- Crate open in the bedroom + bathroom (currently at 10.5 months)

 

We will probably just stick to leaving her in the bedroom while we're gone for the next few years.  It's safer for her since she's used to it, and we don't have to worry about making sure the WHOLE house is safe while we're gone, just one room.

[Becky and Murphy]

Hi Stacy and Rosie,

My Murphy is 5mos. now, and we leave him in the crate like clock work whenever we leave the house.  He is never in it for more than 3 hours at a time....and sleeps all night in the crate. I am looking forward to the day we can leave him out to roam the house.....he has never been destructive, except for digging in a flower bed. We plan on leaving him in crate for the first year.  I'm anxious to hear how Rosie does.  

[Sandra Griffith]

I would be careful about leaving him unattended alone.  Puppies go through adolescence anywhere from 4 months up until a year or two with the average for larger dogs being around 6 months for the stage to begin.  This is unfortunately the most common age that people give up their dogs (not that you are in any way considering this at all).  They give them up because they think that they have these wonderful, well-trained, house-broken dogs and suddenly overnight (in their eyes) their dogs "forget" all or everything that they knew.  This stage is akin to adolescence in humans and often comes with an urge to stretch their boundaries and see what is possible in their expanded view of the world.  I  like to keep dogs supervised until they are at least a year (sometimes older depending on the dog).  If they are to be left alone for longer than around 3-4 hours I usually set up an ex-pen setup so that they can move around a bit more (this involves setting up an ex-pen which contains a crate, water, and some interactive toys (such as stuffed kongs, buster cube, everlasting treat ball, etc.).

 

By preventing your dog's ability to get into trouble, you avoid ever getting them used to engaging in behaviours that, although perfectly natural for a dog, are not way up there on our list of house-friendly acitivities.

[Elizabeth & *Kosci*.]

If it's for a length of time I place Kosci in my laundry with paper on the floor, and not to much trouble to get into..
I remember leaving my Dalmation inside the house and coming home to a 'snowstorm' she had shredded the pillows off the lounge, she has now lost her youthful enthusiasm and now spends her days sleeping on the lounge. ( @14 years).

[Stacy Deitrich]

Thanks for all of the input!  There is a lot to think about.  For right now I've only been leaving her out if I need to run to the store (less than 1 mile away) for milk and eggs or something.  No more than an hour at this point.  So far she does really, really well.  She doesn't have run of the entire house, just the main level.  There are no exposed wires that she can chew.  I guess the most damage would be that she would chew our couch or rugs.  LOL  I always make sure to leave plenty of her toys laying around for the right thing to chew on.  Rosie is definately different from any other dogs that I have had.  She is very mellow.  And, she housetrained so fast!  I'll keep you posted as to how she is doing with this!