Remember that lovely little babygate I bought only a couple of weeks ago for Penny to have free access to the kitchen whilst we are out? She can now jump it So now what do I do?? I think she might only have done it because she knew we were in the house - it was this morning and mornings are an issue for us anyway with whining but that's a whole other problem. I wonder if she would do it if she knew we were out... Well I suppose we will find out later today. Grrr. I really don't want to go back to crating her, and I would prefer not to have to spend money on yet another baby gate (I've bought three since we've had her) but I might have to look at those extra tall ones designed specifically for dogs. Rather annoyed as had a late night last night out with friends and don't appreciate being woken up at 4:30 being trampled on so I didn't get much sleep! Anyone got any ideas?
Re: Houdini! My last dog would NOT leave the post or the letter box alone. We put a wrought iron gate in the hall way. It actually looked quite good. I should add that the gate was a last resort. We'd spent several years trying to train her out of attacking the post to no avail. We installed the gate for the postmans benefit. She was a terrier and it was just in her nature.
Re: Houdini! We don't have a kitchen door I've found an extra tall baby gate but it's about £35 which I'm not sure I want to spend... Plus there's two sizes! Reckon id opt for the tallest one...
Re: Houdini! Try gumtree or something similar in your area. Facebook has a lot of sites for cheap or even free second hand gear. Might help save a few pennies on a tall gate.
Re: Houdini! I'm surprised at the variance in sizes of the extra tall gates.... Usually they're 91cm tall and most of the reviews on those sizes say they were bought for dogs who jump normal size gates but they can still get over them. Then you go straight to ones that are 101cm, 103cm and I found one that was 109cm tall. OH still thinks she would get over one that tall. What do you guys think? Experiences of dogs who jump? Bearing in mind she's a small lab... There's gotta be a limit how high she can go, right?
Re: Houdini! I think most healthy labradors could clear just about any baby gate you can buy. So I don't think it's a case of could, more would. Charlie doesn't (but certainly could) jump his pen panels (96cm) - but in part that's because they have always been there from day one.
Re: Houdini! We go over jumps in excess of the baby gates here and yet Riley shows no inclination to jump the gates but the same as Julie they've always been there as a kind of demarcation of where he is allowed and I don't think it occurs to him to go over them in the same way it doesn't occur to him to go upstairs. Could you get one of the fabric ones and fit it above your normal gate ? Or just pin a sheet up? See if the visual barrier stops her from trying....
Re: Houdini! A door sounds like a good idea... When I needed to stop Charlie jumping up to rest his paws on the top of his pen panels I investigated buying a full height wire door. The kind that are used in industrial storage solutions. But I guess in a domestic setting, a wooden frame with mesh (like on some french kitchen furniture) might be nicer.
Re: Houdini! Feeling quite sleep deprived here, although today's sake up came at 6:30 instead of 4:30. So yesterday afternoon we had to go out and leave her for a couple of hours, when we got back she was happily asleep in her crate in the kitchen. She hadn't jumped the gate confirming my suspicions that she only does it because she knows we are in the house and wants to get to us. I decided to bite the bullet and whilst we were out invested in the 1.4m pet gate by Bettacare. Great, I thought, she'll never get over that, I thought. Unbelievable. We can't put a door on the kitchen as it's a funny sized doorway and the way the kitchen was remodelled by the old owners doesn't leave much space for one when it's open - it's just an open archway so we'd have to do some serious knocking down walls etc to get one in. Don't get me wrong I would love to take a sledgehammer to this house lol but we don't have the money for that what with planning the wedding. We are hoping to move in a year or so though. So I guess maybe this does relate to our issues with mornings after all, perhaps I should explain that and see if you lovely people can come up with some suggestions. As far as I can remember once we got Penny sleeping through the night we had no issues with mornings until she was a few months old. Ever since then she whines. At first I thought it was to do with the alarm clock - I used to have mine go off extra early as I needed a lot of snoozes to be able to actually wake up lol so I changed my alarm and that actually worked for a few weeks, then it started again at the same times as before. There's no pattern to it, it's not the same time every morning. Sometimes it's 5am some times it's 6, and on a weekend if we are lucky it'll be 7am. After changing the alarm didn't work I tried getting up before she had a chance to start, hoping if I could do that I could gradually get up a bit later each day until it was an acceptable time... But some mornings I would be having to get up at 5 to catch her before she started whining and I just can't cope with that - I need a lot of sleep, don't know why, always have. I'll go to bed at 9pm, fall asleep pretty soon after (almost always by 10 or 10:30) and then really struggle to get up with my alarm at 6am. Plus because there's no set pattern to the whining i can't predict when she's about to start. So now what I do is just ignore it. I ignore the whingeing and whining, and scraping up the bedding noises for as long as I can or until my alarm goes off. Then I wait for a bit of silence before even getting out of bed because I know she can hear me if I'm walking around and I don't want to give any sort of reinforcement to the whining. I figured this approach would work - like when you're crate training; ignore the whining and go to them when they're quiet. We've been doing this for probably nearly a year now. I don't know what else to do. I don't know if this is some form of seperation anxiety (when I'm in the house she follows me everywhere, she'll jump up out of the deepest sleep to follow me even if I'm just getting up the switch the light on) or if for some reason she's particularly stressed in the mornings - we have a very set routine so I'm not sure how this could be the case but I guess it's possible? I thought it might have been linked to what time it gets light in the mornings but she's about the same all year round. At the moment we are going to have to put her back in her crate for night times I think. I reckon she'll be ok to be out when we are out of the house as she knows we've gone and I think she just does it to get to us. Can anyone help shed some light on this?
Re: Houdini! [quote author=bbrown link=topic=6943.msg94424#msg94424 date=1405167697] Could you get one of the fabric ones and fit it above your normal gate ? Or just pin a sheet up? See if the visual barrier stops her from trying.... [/quote] I have got one of those actually, it's what I use at the bottom of the stairs and it never seems to occur to her to try to get over that one. I would be worried that it's not as secure and it she knocks it and goes over with it she could hurt herself... It's with thinking about though, thanks.
Re: Houdini! The other option is to go with it and let her sleep in your room...... maybe she wont whine if she's with you and you'll be allowed to stay in bed :-\
Re: Houdini! I don't if your fiance is good at DIY but maybe make a custom wooden gate high enough for the kitchen that could be removed when you need it to be to save on space? x
Re: Houdini! [quote author=bbrown link=topic=6943.msg94562#msg94562 date=1405237384] The other option is to go with it and let her sleep in your room...... maybe she wont whine if she's with you and you'll be allowed to stay in bed :-\ [/quote] I must say, that is our solution. Lilly wanders through around 6am. She will whine a bit and pester you to get up, but if we let her up on the bed (I know, I know, : : ) she will just settle down to snooze until its wake up time. Lately I have been thinking of just putting her bed in our bedroom, as I do find if I have to get up early in the morning for a pit stop, she may be just lying at the side of my bed anyway. If I was determined enough I guess I would send her back to her own bed, but to be honest, she isn't a bother. I guess its down to what you want, really.
Re: Houdini! I gave in months and months ago Harley sleeps upstairs with us and this stopped the whining, but also we now get lie-ins, sometimes til about 11am on a weekend she starts off on our bed, then gets on her bed or goes in the on suite (cold flooring), but comes up again for cuddles in the morning I think it is personal choice though, not everyone likes dogs upstairs
Re: Houdini! We do allow her to sleep with us occasionally but she insists on sleeping in the bed with us, under the duvet and everything. She's such a lump and so fidgety it makes for quite a bad nights sleep
Re: Houdini! Oops, I bet because you have occasionally allowed her to sleep with you, this is why she is jumping the gate to get to you again :-[
Re: Houdini! Yeah I think that's it. She loves being on the bed with us and knows when it's time to go to bed as she'll get off the sofa and stare at me until I go upstairs. Maybe I'm spoiling her.... She comes up to bed with me every night when I go up, and then when my OH comes up to bed an hour or so later he takes her downstairs, lets her out for a last wee and puts her to bed. She knows when she has to go downstairs as all he has to do is crack the door open and off she goes, then she'll go straight in her crate. We've only allowed her to sleep on our bed through the night a handful of times, usually special occasions or when my OH is away for the night - in those times I feel safer in the house with her on the bed with me. Maybe we should stop doing this? But the time I go to bed is far too early to put her to bed for the night (9-10pm) and she won't stay downstairs or settle with my OH if she knows I'm upstairs...perhaps that's why - because I let her up with me too much? If we put a bed in our room I'm pretty sure she wouldn't use it - she loves our bed and being with me too much. Maybe we should just go cold turkey for a while and have no more bed times...?
Re: Houdini! I think it is difficult for her if she is allowed sometimes but not others, she will naturally want to get to you, hence the jumping. Perhaps if you limited it to when OH is away and then she would accept that was the only time she could?
