Hi all, Happy New Year! Hope you all had a lovely break (if you got one) over the festive season. We had a wonderful time, introduced Ruby to the beach, snow and iced over puddles - all were a huge success. Now we are back to work my OH and I have a few new obstacles to overcome and I was after some advice. Firstly - how long can we leave Ruby alone for? She is 19 weeks today and next week my Husband is on a late shift so we were thinking of leaving her at home from 1pm to 5:20pm. She will be left with her lunch, a couple of kongs and some toys. Is this too long? She is used to being left 2:15 - 5:20 so will that extra hour be ok? Secondly - we have started to de-crate Ruby (so scary!!). The last 2 nights she has been put in her crate at 10pm (bed time) but we have left the door open. Needless to say at 7am when I have gone down she was curled up in her bed. No accidents, nothing chewed etc. We will only let her sleep in the kitchen on a night so there is very little she can get at. She still goes in her crate at work with me (more for convenience) but how soon can we take away the crate at home? Thanks in advance for your help. Jen (& Ruby)
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy I waited to completely remove the crate until I was pretty sure Riley had given up chewing stuff. He was never a terrible one for chewing though. I can see the current pup being in a crate overnight for the rest of his life! : Obi spaniel is 5 months old and I've just made it to leaving him three hours on occasion but he's been much slower in that regard than Riley was. I might be tempted to try and find a few days to leave her an extra 30 mins between now and the late shift to see how she does, or find someone to pop in and give her a pee break and a leg stretch for 5 mins.
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy Ruby has never chewed anything - except what she is supposed to! We have been very very lucky so far. She has just started teething though so all that could change soon....... Good idea on the building it up over a few days, will see what we can work out. Thanks
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy I decrated mine at about 15 months old. At 19 weeks you still have a good few months of chewing to come, in fact many owners find their puppies are at their worst around 9-12 months !!! In terms of leaving your pup for 4.5 hours, I am sure she will be a fine to be left for that amount of time on the odd occasion but I wouldn't be doing it on a regular basis. You may have to accept that she may have an accident in that time too. Chloe
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy Gypsy was de-crated by 5 months. She sleeps in the kitchen. I smeared chair legs and skirting boards with Vicks Vapour Rub (which put them off chewing) and removed any toys etc which she might destroy. She has been 100% fine
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy The dining room is shut off so apart from the corners of kitchen cupboards there isn't anything for her to chew in there! It sounds like all puppies are different and we will just have to take it on a week by week basis to see how we get on (and hope for no disasters!)
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy Pongo de-crated himself at the age of 8 months : (we came down to find he'd chewed his way out of his home under the stairs and was curled up on the sofa). Since then he has had the run of the sitting room at night. We make sure he goes outside for toileting last thing before we go to bed (10.30-ish) and he doesn't have access to water overnight until we're up again at about 7.30am. He has been fine; only a couple of accidents and they were because we'd let him have a great big lamb bone to eat late in the day (we don't do that any more!). He has never been a big chewer and his favourite activity is sleeping, so he has been pretty easy.
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy [quote author=Boogie link=topic=9404.msg135169#msg135169 date=1420551364] Gypsy was de-crated by 5 months. She sleeps in the kitchen. I smeared chair legs and skirting boards with Vicks Vapour Rub (which put them off chewing) and removed any toys etc which she might destroy. She has been 100% fine Vicks vapour rub, another idea [/quote]
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy I let Cupar free range about six weeks ago. I now leave a couple of plastic bottles out( minus lids) for him, as I got up the first week to one of my cookery books eaten. He then made a start on another one a couple of days later. So they're all moved and my kitchen Cupar proofed as best I can. He's eight months old. I might try the vicks but knowing him he'll eat it.
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy Our labs have always just slept in our bed : so the crate is only used during the day at our house....and we never offficailly take it away - it's always there as a safe zone for them. Sometimes we decide they need time in it, other times it's their choice. Bella isn't as in love with her crate at home as our other labs have been....but she spends time in her crate at work with my hubby during the day - where past labs have been crated at home while we were at work. When we are not home and the dog is....they are ALWAYS in the crate...it's a safety thing as much as anything else.
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy I would be pretty wary of anything menthol/camphor containing - I thought it was pretty toxic. I have heard it mentioned before, but I wouldn't use it. Mind you, my choice of washing up liquid heavily laced with chilli powder and painted onto hard areas might not be everyone's cup of tea either
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy Only crating at night as Chepi isn't left on her own in the day. Do can't give advice there.
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy I like the ASPCA guidelines on how long it is reasonable to leave a dog in a crate: www.aspca.org/pet-care/virtual-pet-behaviorist/dog-behavior/weekend-crate-training It varies, I guess, massively from dog to dog and what else goes on in their lives, how much exercise, whether they sleep alone, how much training and activities, bladder capacity, how many days a week they are left..their personality, how long you have spent getting them used to being alone without getting in a state. Etc etc I think the best thing you can do is observe your dog and her behaviour carefully to judge whether the routine you have is suitable for them.
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy We are at this stage too, the boys are almost 8 months and we have de-crated them in the afternoons, with a view to mornings next week so it's not a huge freedom all at once. They have a good walk before work and sleep all morning anyway, so it made sense to try afternoons 1st and it's gone really well. My worry was that they would get giddy with each orher and go a bit mad, but there has been no evidence of that. Our issue is that Barney is almost de-crating himself at night;; Jack trots off straight in as soon as I say it's bed-time,but Barney will not get up from whatever cosy spot he's in, and he's now too heavy for me to carry to it! We are thinking of trialling them tonight, just to see how they go....they aren't big chewers, except slippers and they both seem to have cast iron bladders as they refuse to go out at night before bed and we have never had any crate accidents either daytime or overnight, so I don't think that should be an issue. It does seem to vary so much from pup to pup so I guess it is a case of trial and error - hopefully my leather sofa won't be the 'error' 8) Lou x
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy On days we work they are, but we have staggered start and finish times, so they are up from 5 am when my son get up and the last person out puts them in their crate. They have a good walk, and garden play and then sleep all morning (they do this when we are at home too). We have a rota between us and a dog walker to cover an hour at lunchtimes, then someone is home between 3.30-4pm each day. They sleep in the crate overnight, but only from 11.30-5am, due to varying shifts people work. At weekends and school holidays they just sleep in the crate at night, and at times where they take themselves off for a nap in there. It's a military operation and we are lucky to have 4 adults at home to help out.
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy We de-crated Inca during the day at about 4 months but she only gets the run of the utility room so it's not like she can go wild and to be honest every time I spy on her through the sky light (my office is above) she's asleep in the crate. I might start giving her the run of the kitchen at 6 months - we will see. So far she hasn't chewed anything except an Ugg boot early on but there's time yet and I've never met a lab who didn't go through a chewing phase. I make sure all wellies, shoes, etc are cleared off the floor of the utility room at the moment so there's not much she can attack but the kitchen may be harder to puppy proof. She had a tummy bug recently and I left her crate door open during that time in case she urgently needed to toilet and we didn't wake up. As it happened she didn't need to toilet during the night and didn't make any mess so it's made me think about possibly decrating her at night earlier than planned.
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy Thanks for sharing your stories everyone! 3rd night with Ruby out of her crate was another success! I think we will continue to leave her out during the night but when we are at work and she is home alone she will be crated. If she starts chewing a lot then we will have to reassess - I'm hoping the couple of toys we leave her with will be enough for now.
Re: De-crating & Leaving Puppy Rolo is 6 months old and I had decided to maybe start leaving the crate door open at night and letting him have the run of the kitchen until.......Whilst we were sat in the other room he pulled the lino up in one corner and ripped it up into the middle of the room! Looks a total mess. He is being a handful at the moment!
