leaving puppy home alone for first time

[LarryL]

Hey everyone,

So I kind of have a two part question.

Oliver is almost 7 months. He is crate trained, and for the last 4 months when my wife & I go to work during the week we leave him in the crate. We work from 10am-6pm, and we've been taking turns coming home during t he day for an hour or two during this time frame.

We are trying to transition to the point where we can leave him home alone, but outside of his crate. We started letting him sleep in our bedroom with us, which is where his crate is, but outside of the crate.

The 2 times I did this I noticed that he likes to chew the wires plugged into the electrical outlets.

Today and yesterday were the first days that we left him home outside of the crate. Of course we baby proofed and got rid of any wires he can chew on, and we also have him gated off to just our bedroom and a small hall way.

My two questions are:

1 - when we used to leave him home alone I would leave the TV on for him. not sure if this is even necessary, but I thought I heard somewhere that leaving them alone in silence isn't the best and there should be some music, or TV, or something. Is this an old wives tale, or is this true?

2 - what experiences do you guys have with wire chewing? Now that I'm leaving him uncrated, I unplugged the TV. So now he just has silence. I am still too nervous to leave him with any wires plugged in unattended. What do you guys use to help prevent wire chewing?

I have the bitter apple spray, but its a spray and only works while its wet. Soon as it dries up, it evaporates, and I'm worried he'll chew.

Thanks in advance for all the great advice I'm sure I'll get.

[Tammy and Violet]

Violet is almost 2 and recently  I started to leave her home along ...I have a transister (spell?)radio I keep on if I am gone too long,I think they like some music ..never had wire chewing ... not good ...can you hide all wires somehow ? I know a pain but .....let us know how things go .Oliver is darling !

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

Here's a link to several solutions for hiding exposed electrical cords:

http://www.cableorganizer.com/articles/Ways-Protect-Wires-From-Cat-...

[Leslie, Yogi & Maci Bear]

We leave Yogi gated in the kitchen. He is very well behaved at 9 months, but I'm not feeling good about the run of the house yet. I do think he would do well, I'm just conservative I guess. Can't help with the wire thing, it's not been a problem for us.
I do think having some background noise is good however.

[Barbara Korber]

Hi, here's a link to cd's that are specifically made for dogs.  I used them all the time with my epileptic golden retriever and now I just leave it on all day for Gus.  Very calming and hides any outside distractions. 

http://throughadogsear.com/

[Malenie Piscetelli]

Question 1 it is true to leave the music or tv on.

[Gretchen Nastrom]

We started leaving Preston out with run of the house when he was about 7 months old.  BIG MISTAKE!!!  We are back to putting him in the crate because we would come home every day, and he would wreck something.  He would mostly get things on the kitchen counter and shred them, but some nice shoes were ruined as well.  

Now that school is out for the summer I have a next door neighbor girl coming over to walk him during the day.  Sometimes she brings him over to her house to hang out for a bit, but otherwise she just puts him back in the kennel.  I know it sounds strange, but he is better behaved in the evening after being in his kennel, so we will just keep doing that until he's older.  I had a cockapoo growing up, and he never had run of the house, and was always in his kennel while we were gone.

[Susan and Bentley]

Bentley is 14 months old and we just recently started leaving him out of the crate for a few hours a day.  He's been very good but I could definitely not have let him out at 7 months old.  He didn't chew wires but he did chew my walls.  We close all the doors to our bedrooms and bathrooms so he basically has access to kitchen and living room.  As to the 2nd part of your question, we leave classical music on for him when we go out - that's what the breeder did and we've been doing it since we got him.  It supposedly relaxes and soothes them.

[Jordan & Daisy]

Daisy is 7 months and she has free access to the kitchen but the living room is gated off. She hasn't chewed wires but I am super paranoid about that because they are exposed in our house and she has chewed other things. I also leave the TV on every day for her. 

[Deb's Yarrow and Schatzi]

I just have a comment about leaving the radio or TV on. I leave music on just so that the dogs aren't going to notice every little outside noise that might make them on edge. I leave soothing music. There's a CD you can buy called Through A Dog's Ear. It's all music proven to mellow out a stressed pooch. I have the CD but tend to just tune in some classical music for them - nothing too dramatic.

Good luck with your puppy proofing. Yarrow is 9 months old and very good about chewing only her own things, but we still confine her to the kitchen when we leave her. I believe that's how things will remain until she's mature (a couple of years old).

[Kelly & Zoe]

Shortly after getting Zoe our work schedules changed and we had to start leaving her all day (8+ hours) when she was 4 months.  We have dog doors (electronic since we live where unwanted critters could let themselves in), and she learned how to use those quickly.  In terms of house access, in the beginning, we gated her in the kitchen and a small portion of the living room that had access to the dog door (similar to what you are doing).  We puppy proofed those 2 rooms including electrical wires (moved and or completely hid them so she couldn't get to them), trashcans, paper products (after a few boxes of tissue were thoroughly ravaged!), and covered the sofa with a sheet.  Even at 4 months, she did surprisingly well, hardly getting into anything (except tissue!), so we continued to puppy proof and open more rooms to her.  I'm a big fan of gating smaller areas (rather than crating), then opening up access when they've 'earned' it.  In terms of music/tv - we left on a radio at very low volume, but it turns out that Zoe will often go into another room when there's loud music or TV on, so we stopped doing it - I think she likes the quiet actually.  I guess it depends on the dog?  If there isn't a separation anxiety issue, I probably wouldn't bother with the tv or music.