Should I give Boaz some trust a little at a time

pbowles · #1 1st July 2012, 04:45 AM

Boaz is a 14 month old neutered brindle, completely house broken and is a terrific dog. We crate him while at work. I want to give him the opportunity to stay in the house alone without being in his crate. What is the best way to do this ? Just little short times like if I go to store or short errand ? Block him in one room while I am gone ? I don't want to give him full run of the house until he shows me he can be trusted. Any suggestions on this would be greatly appreciated. I think crates should only be used for training purposes only. He is a member of our family and I want him to feel as though he his, but he has to earn my trust.
Thanks

Sansal · #2 1st July 2012, 09:46 AM

Start with short periods of time, like half an hour or so and see how he does. I would use baby gates to restrict the area. Keep him busy while you are gone with a stuffed Kong or a bone. And make sure not to leave out anything he could get into

Happy and Sky have pretty much full run of the house and have been really good, but once in a while I still come home to a ripped up tissue box or newspaper lol

Demismom · #3 4th July 2012, 05:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pbowles

Boaz is a 14 month old neutered brindle, completely house broken and is a terrific dog. We crate him while at work. I want to give him the opportunity to stay in the house alone without being in his crate. What is the best way to do this ? Just little short times like if I go to store or short errand ? Block him in one room while I am gone ? I don't want to give him full run of the house until he shows me he can be trusted. Any suggestions on this would be greatly appreciated. I think crates should only be used for training purposes only. He is a member of our family and I want him to feel as though he his, but he has to earn my trust.
Thanks

Good luck, I would def make sure there isn't anything you value out. We have tried this with Lucy and only once did she not get into something, usually we come home to a disaster.

CoraBoxer · #4 5th July 2012, 06:19 AM

With both Cora and Kahner I did what was posted. Smaller area and shorter duration to start. Once they got some sort of routine (ex. slept on blanket) I concidered opening up more. When I did, they ended up continuing with their routine. When I lived in a 2 floor house, upstairs all rooms were left locked. Cora had about 1000sq.ft downstairs. With Kahner, because he was an older rescue and I wasn't sure what his routine was like, if he had any separation problems etc I set up a web cam that I was able to stream to my cell phone from anywhere. Just to keep an eye on what/how he was doing.

I had a very brief period of time (after going on vacation for a week and leaving dog with parents), where Cora was grabbing shoes, chewing on them/tossing them about... this was at 2+ years old... but other than that no issues with either of them. Cora started being left uncrated at about 2 years old, Kahner about 3 weeks after I adopted him but still not while at work only on shorter trips out. He had stool problems following his antibiotics and I rather clean a smaller (crate) area if I had to which is why I waited a few weeks.

Quote:

I think crates should only be used for training purposes only.

So you want to train Boaz to use a crate and never use it? What do you mean? Crates aren't cruel (unless they are used incorrectly) and they are very useful (ex. travel). Its sorta like saying that your human child is a part of your family so they don't have their own room. The smaller more confined space of a crate can be comforting to the dog. Of course being house broken and having the ability to leave the dog at home is important too. Who knows maybe he'll retreat to his crate while you're away

Make sure that he gets his walk and is tired before crating. That helps too.

Madea · #5 5th July 2012, 07:47 AM

@CoraBoxer, what is the name of the webcam that you use? I would love to get one to see what my babies are doing during the day.

CoraBoxer · #6 5th July 2012, 08:51 AM

I use a logitech 1080p one, but quality isn't that high streaming (at least with the app I currently use) so something cheaper would probably work just as well. There are orb ones too that supposedly can be remotely rotated to look around. the app is ivideon (free) but lots out there. Can stream to phone or log in to website and view from there. Anyways ya, by doing this i've learned that Kahner will sit at the front door of the apartment for as long as i'm gone lol. He honestly doesn't move.