Monday, August 6, 2012

Mild Mischief, Less Crate TIme

This weekend we got brave.
Until then, if we left the house for any length of time Toby had to go in his crate or the back yard. We just couldn't trust him alone in the house.
Cozy, but still a cage.
Toby was actually less anxious about being left alone if he was crated. If we were going to leave him for more than an hour or two though we always left him in the yard instead (weather permitting).

When we had a party to attend at the neighbors on Saturday, I felt terrible about confining him to the crate.
You can see why.
With the heat index topping 100 degrees though, we didn't want to leave him alone out back either. So we decided to close off the upstairs and try letting Toby have freedom downstairs while we were gone. (He already had graduated to being out of the crate at night and sleeping in our room.) We did check on him every 45 minutes are so and he was perfectly fine. Mostly he seemed to sleep in his favorite corner of the dining room.

So Sunday when we ran errands we tried the experiment again. This time we were gone for two hours. When we pulled into the driveway I said, "Well, what's the worst that could happen? The couch cushions torn up?? " (We weren't worried about potty accidents since Toby never breaks housetraining.)

To our relief a new couch won't be needed. The house was fine and so was Toby. Yay! I'm optimistic that one day soon we can return the crate to SEVA GRREAT and be crate free!

To be honest, I don't think this is a training issue but a maturity issue. At 18 months old Toby is growing up.

He's still got a little mischief in him though! This is the scene next to the computer when I got up this morning:
Happy Mischief-Making!

Snoopy's Dog Blog

12 comments:

  1. Toby those garbages call to every dog. Irresistable.

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    1. I guess so...I thought only the smelly ones would be tempting!

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  2. It sure sounds like he's on his way to being uncrated. :-)
    As for trash cans, we keep all of ours inside cabinets, otherwise, they would look just like yours. :-)

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    1. Haha same with our other ones so Toby didn't have options :)

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  3. Don't feel bad. Our brother Norbert, who is now 10, ate a couch when hew as 2, a whole couch! (Or at least ripped it to shreds)

    urban hounds

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    1. Oh my. That is some serious destroying. But a good excuse for a new sofa...

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  4. Toby is just testing you, mom. Making sure you're still paying attention.

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    1. That sounds about right, especially being next to the computer, where I seem to be spending a lot more time when it's too hot to be outside :)

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  5. Yay for Toby!!! OMD he is sooo much like Dakota! Dakota was like that with his crate and now he is totally crate-less but he is five :)

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    1. Oh good there's good reason for optimism then. I've never liked the crate but it did make having Toby feasible. I don't know what we'd have done without it.

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  6. Good job Toby! I think every puppy is a little different when it comes to trusting them in the house alone. Linus was pretty trustworthy at around 6 months while on the other hand I never really trusted leaving Derby home alone.

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