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I would probably train the dog to be in a crate quietly before putting him in it and leaving for hours. I have had several Aussies that were crate trained and calm in them. But my current one goes crazy when confined. He is epileptic so I just put him in the bedroom with the baby gate securely up and try to remove anything he might mess with or destroy while I'm gone. He is almost 8 and somewhat calmer but I wouldn't even try leaving him in a crate. It would make him too nervous and he broke a tooth once clamping his mouth on a wire crate during a seizure.
Mine do better in confined to a room than a crate. They react very poorly to crates, and it's never been enough of an issue to me to worry about it. I just put them in the bedroom and close the door. FWIW.
Given a choice, they almost always would rather go with me somewhere in the car, EVEN IF it means they have to sit and wait in the car while I'm in a meeting or in a store where they are not welcome. They don't like being in stores much anyway, but sometimes they would still rather go in the store than not. And they KNOW what being in the store is like for them.
For mine, and for their breed, the velcro thing is strong, and I'm pretty sure there is a difference between what people call "separation anxiety" and what mine do. They aren't USUALLY destructive, although it has happened once or twice. I think their internal command-set (instincts, I suppose you could say) to stay next to me is just that strong, where "normal" separation anxiety is more fear-based. I think. It's not something I've had to deal with extensively.
The night I came home to destroyed blinds was the night that I put the cats in the bedroom and let him have the rest of the house, which included windows to the forest.
He didn't like that. He is the one who opened the bedroom door. The latch when you close the door isn't that strong, and a very determined dog could push it until it opened. Which is what he did. The cats can't open it. He then proceeded to destroy the blinds while looking out of the bedroom window - that is the one that faces the parking lot, and I'm pretty sure he was looking for me. He clearly stood up on his hind legs while on my bed (and no, the way that they put all the closet doors and the bathroom door in this bedroom, I only have 1 way I can have my bed, so it cannot be moved to another way), and tore through those blinds, trying to see where I was.
When I gave him is own space, he didn't like it.
So, he is going to be in a crate. He doesn't like it, most dogs don't seem to like it, but that's what he chose...not that he knew that's what he chose. It's big, so it has enough room to put in a very soft memory foam dog bed in there - he's got all the comfort he needs. What he cannot do is destroy the rest of this place (I'm renting). I am glad it was just a blind and not a window, or a door, or a cabinet, or whatever.
There's no compromise on this.
He does sit in it quietly. I have asked my next door neighbors, from the time I moved in with Sakari, I asked them to tell me anytime my dog is bothering them, making too much noise, etc. They said they couldn't even hear Sakari - despite her being out on the porch and barking away at everything. But, I believe them because they have 2 small kids and I hardly ever hear those kids. I only hear them if I'm approaching our doors from outside.
So, if he starts being loud, I'll have to figure something out, but for now, it's the crate. I'm not taking a chance on scratched, torn, broken things around here that I don't really have the money to replace.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Windwalker2
I would probably train the dog to be in a crate quietly before putting him in it and leaving for hours. I have had several Aussies that were crate trained and calm in them. But my current one goes crazy when confined. He is epileptic so I just put him in the bedroom with the baby gate securely up and try to remove anything he might mess with or destroy while I'm gone. He is almost 8 and somewhat calmer but I wouldn't even try leaving him in a crate. It would make him too nervous and he broke a tooth once clamping his mouth on a wire crate during a seizure.
He is quiet in there. It's when he comes out that he lays on the guilt.
And what I do all day allows me to come back anytime I want to. So, I'm not going to be gone for 8-10 hours at a time. I can go a couple of hours, come back, give him a quick walk for business transactions, let him stretch his legs, then come back in, crate, and I go work again.
It will be starting to cool down which means that I will be able to take him with me more often. Right now, I can't leave him in the car.
If I leave him in there with the a/c on, I could have my car stolen, as we have been dealing with a huge rise in stolen cars in the last couple of months. This is a relatively safe area that I live in, but the number of cars being stolen right out of people's driveways, or while they are running in real quick to some restaurant for a pick up - in broad daylight, in front of everyone, cars are being stolen.
If I roll the windows down and lock it up - it's way too humid and hot to leave him out there, anyway.
Today is the last day of the worst of the horrid heat. Tomorrow, it will be much cooler. We'll have a few more days of heat as we get into October, but they won't be as humid. This last week, it was like Mother Nature said, 'I'm just going to singe you all to near death so that you don't forget what summer is like'.
It is so hot today that I'm not even willing to go out in it to work. I don't go from a/c home to a/c car to a/c office. I am in this heat all day long, and many times, I'm carrying heavy stuff up 3 flights of stairs to someone's door - because the people on the 1st floors never order anything heavy, just those who live on the 3rd floors.
If I'm not willing to do it, and if it's really hot for me all day, there's no way I'm leaving my dog in the car, even with the windows down. If my car gets stolen, I have no income.
ThreeWolves, this is my favorite thread. Like so many others reading, thank you for sharing the great news and the updates! I am learning a lot from reading here. And I understand very well the feelings about your wonderful new dog (he is absolutely beautiful!), while still dealing with the aftershock of Sakari's passing. Her spirit will always be in your heart.
Keir S. Chaser -- LOVE his name! He is so fortunate that you found him. I'm very happy for him and for you.
Your work with him helps me understand and do better with my own dog. I adopted a new little dog recently too, similar to your story. Happy and also a little worried about my ability to move forward after the loss of my special dog, but it feels good to have a wonderful little dog who needed a caring, safe home. I wish you were here in Maine so we could get our two together. I think they'd do well socializing and help each other get exercise.
When I see that the shtf is just about to be on us, I'm leaving. When this economy goes south, and it will, and people start getting even crazier than they are right now, I'm driving up to Maine. I have no idea where I'll stay, but I do have a way to make some money.
The last place I want to be is down here, in the city, and from here, there's way too many places that are close to cities.
OR -
I get a work from home job that I can do anywhere, not just here, get set up and established, and then move up there. I'll have the wfh and what I do now that I can do anytime.
One way or another, I'm getting back up there.
I would love to take this boy to Acadia National Park. I'd also like to take him out in the woods where he wouldn't have to be on a leash all the time. He does very well returning to me every single time. Again, he's clearly been trained. I'm not that good at training to make total recall happen in a day.
So, he is going to be in a crate. He doesn't like it, most dogs don't seem to like it, but that's what he chose...not that he knew that's what he chose. It's big, so it has enough room to put in a very soft memory foam dog bed in there - he's got all the comfort he needs. What he cannot do is destroy the rest of this place (I'm renting). I am glad it was just a blind and not a window, or a door, or a cabinet, or whatever.
There's no compromise on this.
Memory foam beds are easy to shred into small pieces. Eating the pieces might make him sick.
Memory foam beds are easy to shred into small pieces. Eating the pieces might make him sick.
Do you know why he was put in the shelter?
As I continually say in these posts, I can't figure out why anyone would have surrendered him to the shelter.
*He is trained in many ways - he was already house broken, he already had recall down, 100%, (no trainer is going to make that happen in a single day, especially me who is not a novice, but certainly not an expert).
*He was clearly loved by someone - but maybe someone else didn't.
*He is ridiculously affectionate.
*He failed only the longest 'test' of me not being in the house by destroying the blinds.
*He appears to be 'cat friendly'.
I have said it multiple times in these posts - I do not understand why anyone would have given him up. We have been together for a week. The only thing that he does that needs work right now is him having a cow when I leave the house and not taking him with me, (no, I'm not leaving my dog in a car when the weather is hot, even if the windows were down), and he barks at other dogs while on walks.
That is all I've seen from him in the last week. Granted, a week doesn't show everything, but this dog is not showing me issues that people see in dogs within days.
It's like he was raised with love, trained, well taken care of, and then 'given' to someone as a 'ready to go dog'.
I don't understand why he was brought to the shelter. I didn't see him posted as a stray at any time. I also didn't see him on there until the 15th, even though they said he arrived at the shelter on August 29. Where was he that whole time? I don't know. If he was in foster, his pic would have showed with an 'In Foster care' label on it.
Maybe they couldn't afford him. Maybe the owner died. Maybe he was too energetic for them. I have no clue.
I will work on him with the barking at dogs thing, but the freak out when I leave? I don't have the money to pay for any damage he will do. I can afford blinds. Tearing up doors, walls, carpet, breaking windows, etc., no, I cannot afford it, nor do I want to be told to 'get rid of the dog or move out'. So, he stays in the crate when I'm gone.
Yes, he could tear up the memory foam mattress, or he could tear up and eat all kinds of things in the house by being allowed to free roam.
If I see him tearing at the bed, just like I did with my last dog, Shasta, who tore up his bed, I will take it away from him.
Today, we got up really early to walk around the lake. It was very cool, and it was barely light, so off we went. We spent 2 hours walking around, taking in the sights, going off trail (too cold for snakes), and got followed by a trio of deer, which sometimes come up to the complex where I live. We were having a good time. And I wanted to walk Keir a good 3 miles, because I wanted him to go into his crate and sleep while I went to do some work.
We got home, I gathered my things to get out and start working, grabbed a job, put the boy in the crate, and walked out the door telling him to 'just get some sleep'.
I was out for 4 hours, and I decided to come back, let him out, feed everyone, and spend about an hour with them before going back out. I even went to the store and bought him dog jerky as a reward for dealing with the crate.
Backed in to my parking spot, got out of the car and looked at my window that faces the parking lot. The blanket I had put up after someone tore the blinds apart, was..askew. And there appeared to be a 'breathing print' on the window, higher than the cats could get to.
Sigh. Did this dog break out of his crate?
I walked to the door, slowly, quietly...no noise coming from my place. But I knew - I knew that when I opened that door...
And I was right - there was his little nose poking out the door as I started to open it.
Well. Let's see how he did it. Won't this be fun.
Walked in to the bedroom, the crate door wasn't open...in fact, it was still locked.
The side door?
No. Locked.
The tray was still in the bottom of the crate. The bed was still in there, unharmed. All my stuff on top of the crate was still there.
HOW?
I started to question my sanity. I know, for a fact! that I put him in there before leaving. I know I did. It was why I bought him a bag of dog jerky, because I felt guilty. He was in there! Now he's not. The doors are locked, he didn't get out of the bottom part, he didn't get out of the top part, the crate was intact....HOW?!?!?!
I walked away and then back to look at it again, several times. I considered changing his name to 'Houdini'. HOW?!
And then I saw it. You can barely see it.
Dog crates that are larger tend to have a 'front' door and a 'side' door. The 'side' door is on the long side of the crate, and the 'front' door is on the shorter side of the crate.
Imagine a rectangle that is taller than it is wide.
In the middle of that rectangle is a smaller rectangle. The large rectangle represents the 'front' side of the crate, and the smaller rectangle inside the bigger rectangle represents the 'front' door to the crate.
You're looking at the rectangle(s). On your left side, you notice the tiniest bit of bent crate wires. Very, very, very slightly bent.
I pulled on it. If he was a cat, I would have thought, 'Ooooh, yeah, that would have been easy'. And while he is a smaller dog, I still want to know how the hell he got out of that little opening he made by bending the corner of the cage...one metal wire bent very slightly. When you pull on it, the opening is a) not big enough for a dog of his size, and b) taller than him.
But that's how he got out.
I can only imagine he will have some bruises squeezing out of that tiny space, but he managed it, and he was quite pleased with himself.
So - I guess there won't be any more 'crate' time for him.
Now, I have to fear what he will destroy while I'm gone.
He didn't destroy anything today, but I have no idea how long he was out. It could have been just minutes, or it could hav been the entire time. He did try to look out the bedroom window again, but now that the blinds are already in the dumpster, all he could do was push my blanket aside.
It doesn't appear, so far, that he messed with anything, BUT, again, today was cooler, so I kept the screened in porch door open to let in the cool air, and to let the cats be out on their 'catio'. Never expected a certain someone else to be out there. I can't always have that door open to entertain him.
Like tomorrow - it's supposed to be very warm and humid....so the door will be closed.
I have no idea if he'll behave, or if I will come home to a house destroyed. I don't have a lot - there's only a few things I will worry about - so, I might just have to unplug them and put them out of his reach.
Tomorrow is going to be stressful. I hope he surprises me with leaving everything alone.
LMephingAO!!!!
Oh, that's funny. When I went to the rescue where I got my current two, the kennel master told us these two had opened their crates from the inside. Locked, sure, but somehow . . .
I have to think though, that one little factoid I've observed about mine rings a bell when reading about Keir's caged adventures! When I leave, mine watch the door I left from. They might pace as well, but they typically hang close to that door. And, they like to watch out the closest window. I'm thinking if you let Keir stay in that room where the window is - sounds like it's next to the door, yeah? - that might be sufficient. I'm thinking let him take the lookout spot. Might work.
That's the layout. The crate was in the bedroom which is where the window is that he must have access to, apparently.
The hallway which leads to the front door (FD) is where I leave from, so it's not right next to the window.
Outside...the way these are built, I'm actually below the parking lot because of the slope we are built on. I have to walk across a little bridge to get from the parking lot to the front of my building.
So, he was already in the bedroom with that window, which is the only window on that side. He just doesn't like being in the crate. He wants to shove his face against the BR window and wait to see me walking across that bridge. That's all it is.
As I continually say in these posts, I can't figure out why anyone would have surrendered him to the shelter.
*He is trained in many ways - he was already house broken, he already had recall down, 100%, (no trainer is going to make that happen in a single day, especially me who is not a novice, but certainly not an expert).
*He was clearly loved by someone - but maybe someone else didn't.
*He is ridiculously affectionate.
*He failed only the longest 'test' of me not being in the house by destroying the blinds.
*He appears to be 'cat friendly'.
I have said it multiple times in these posts - I do not understand why anyone would have given him up. We have been together for a week. The only thing that he does that needs work right now is him having a cow when I leave the house and not taking him with me, (no, I'm not leaving my dog in a car when the weather is hot, even if the windows were down), and he barks at other dogs while on walks.
That is all I've seen from him in the last week. Granted, a week doesn't show everything, but this dog is not showing me issues that people see in dogs within days.
It's like he was raised with love, trained, well taken care of, and then 'given' to someone as a 'ready to go dog'.
I don't understand why he was brought to the shelter. I didn't see him posted as a stray at any time. I also didn't see him on there until the 15th, even though they said he arrived at the shelter on August 29. Where was he that whole time? I don't know. If he was in foster, his pic would have showed with an 'In Foster care' label on it.
Maybe they couldn't afford him. Maybe the owner died. Maybe he was too energetic for them. I have no clue.
I will work on him with the barking at dogs thing, but the freak out when I leave? I don't have the money to pay for any damage he will do. I can afford blinds. Tearing up doors, walls, carpet, breaking windows, etc., no, I cannot afford it, nor do I want to be told to 'get rid of the dog or move out'. So, he stays in the crate when I'm gone.
Yes, he could tear up the memory foam mattress, or he could tear up and eat all kinds of things in the house by being allowed to free roam.
If I see him tearing at the bed, just like I did with my last dog, Shasta, who tore up his bed, I will take it away from him.
This is not the first time I've had a dog.
Even if you have had dogs before every new dog teaches me something I didn't know, just saying.
Rescue dogs always show their best side the first few days.
There is a table we use in rescue which is the 3 3 3 rule.
First three days feeling overwhelmed , not comfortable to be himself , acting very grateful , , might be testing the boundaries.
After three weeks starting to settle in , realizing this might be his permanent home, getting into a routine and this is the time when behavior issues start to show up.
After three months dog is finally completely comfortable in his home , building trust and set in a routine.
I am probably alone in this but he has already showed you that he has separation issues , does not really like male runners nor dogs going by . He is telling you already his issues no matter how many times you say that he is perfect and wondering why he was put into rescue. Wait and see what else shows up in the three week period and you might have an answer as to why he was in rescue.
What I am trying to say is that you might not have seen all his issues , and most do not see them within the first days but obviously kudos to you for adopting and loving this dog.
Your adopted dog is on his absolute best behavior right now , things might show up but I hope not.
Even if you have had dogs before every new dog teaches me something I didn't know, just saying.
Rescue dogs always show their best side the first few days.
There is a table we use in rescue which is the 3 3 3 rule.
First three days feeling overwhelmed , not comfortable to be himself , acting very grateful , , might be testing the boundaries.
After three weeks starting to settle in , realizing this might be his permanent home, getting into a routine and this is the time when behavior issues start to show up.
After three months dog is finally completely comfortable in his home , building trust and set in a routine.
I am probably alone in this but he has already showed you that he has separation issues , does not really like male runners nor dogs going by . He is telling you already his issues no matter how many times you say that he is perfect and wondering why he was put into rescue. Wait and see what else shows up in the three week period and you might have an answer as to why he was in rescue.
What I am trying to say is that you might not have seen all his issues , and most do not see them within the first days but obviously kudos to you for adopting and loving this dog.
Your adopted dog is on his absolute best behavior right now , things might show up but I hope not.
I'll now go hide.
I didn't say he was perfect, I said he is affectionate and trained, and I don't know why he was given up. The shelter never said why.
He's not barking at male joggers, or walkers anymore except maybe 1 or 2. We pass quite a few people on these walks.
I forgot to mention, yesterday I took him on a quick job. The customer told me her dog had recently died. That started a conversation, which led to her coming to the car to meet Keir. He didn't try to back away. She petted him, cupped his chin, held his face, and he just stood there, allowing it. First person he allowed to pet him besides me.
I'm thinking that the poster who mentioned hormones due to his neutering last Friday may well have been right. As each day passes, this dog is not reacting negatively to male humans minus 1 or 2. He is still having a cow about other dogs, and I'm working on it. Honestly, that is a negative for me because I went through that with Shasta, and it's...exhausting and a little annoying. But, I'll keep working on it.
I fully expect to see things as we go on. Could have sworn I mentioned it in one of these posts.
As for "best behavior"... not entirely, but sure, there could be other things that may show up.
I completely agree that it's separation anxiety. He whines like I was gone for a year. I'm hoping that as time goes on, he'll realize that I am coming back...as long as nothing happens to me. Maybe he'll calm down, or maybe this will be something I figure out because I've never had a dog act like that when I leave.
My point about having other dogs is not to say, "I know everything". It was to say that something like tearing a dog bed apart is not something I'm going to worry about. If he were to start tearing it apart, then he doesn't get to have it...not that it matters now since he can escape the crate. I got them to give Shasta comfort when I crated him, and one for Sakari so I didn't have to deal with dog arguments about a single dog bed.
As it is, he doesn't care about the bed...or toys...or many dog treats - he's extremely picky about what he'll put in his mouth.
So yes, what you said is a good way to prepare for what might show up later, and while not your exact timeline, I have wondered if certain things will stop, and other things appear.
Every single pet I've ever had came off the streets. He's the first "from the pound", and the first time not being a baby animal. So...yeah, I'm sure things will change along the way.
In the meantime, I shower him with praise when he does what I want, and yes, I allow the hugs and cuddles a lot. I want him to feel secure, but I don't expect it to happen immediately.
We'll see how he acts when he gets more confident.
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