What do your dogs do when you are at work during the day?
Now that I have Maymay, I'm trying to figure out what to do with both Koda and her if she stays permanently.
Koda has quite the schedule. On Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays he goes to either doggy daycare or my mom's house. On Tuesday and Thursday, he is usually pretty tired out. He stays at home two days a week, and has the run of the house. Koda has never chewed anything, came home potty trained, and could hold it 8 hours by the time he was 10 weeks old. I have been really fortunate with him. He really is just a good dog!
On days that Koda stays home, I get off early and take him to the dog park. My long days are Mon, Wed, and Fri and I try to get out an hour early on Tues and Thurs. We spend about an hour and a half there to get him all exercised out. I think he pretty much sleeps when I'm not home.
Saturdays and Sundays are spent hiking somewhere, going to an open off leash spot (yes I fully trust Koda off leash when no cars are around), or going to the park. The one thing with Koda is that he expects to go out everyday. He's kind've spoiled. :-)
The one thing I will say about Koda is that he does great on a schedule. He doesn't care when I leave him to go to work, but he is excited to run to the door when I get home to go to the park.
With Maymay now being here, I'm not sure what it will do to his schedule. I can't really afford two dogs in daycare. I also can't trust her in my house running around. She's 1 1/2 and not potty trained. Plus she is a maniac! ha ha ha.
Right now, she is at my parent's house because Koda will be home tomorrow. My dad had knee surgery so he is watching her until I get off work. Then, I will go and get her bring the dogs out and take her to my parent's house on Wednesday. She is not potty trained, so she can't go to daycare.
I would hate to crate her all day. I'm lost as to what to do. What do all of you do with your dogs while you are at work? The yard is out for me, or a doggy door because Koda could climb the fence I'm sure. I also don't trust Maymay not to run!
Koda has quite the schedule. On Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays he goes to either doggy daycare or my mom's house. On Tuesday and Thursday, he is usually pretty tired out. He stays at home two days a week, and has the run of the house. Koda has never chewed anything, came home potty trained, and could hold it 8 hours by the time he was 10 weeks old. I have been really fortunate with him. He really is just a good dog!
On days that Koda stays home, I get off early and take him to the dog park. My long days are Mon, Wed, and Fri and I try to get out an hour early on Tues and Thurs. We spend about an hour and a half there to get him all exercised out. I think he pretty much sleeps when I'm not home.
Saturdays and Sundays are spent hiking somewhere, going to an open off leash spot (yes I fully trust Koda off leash when no cars are around), or going to the park. The one thing with Koda is that he expects to go out everyday. He's kind've spoiled. :-)
The one thing I will say about Koda is that he does great on a schedule. He doesn't care when I leave him to go to work, but he is excited to run to the door when I get home to go to the park.
With Maymay now being here, I'm not sure what it will do to his schedule. I can't really afford two dogs in daycare. I also can't trust her in my house running around. She's 1 1/2 and not potty trained. Plus she is a maniac! ha ha ha.
Right now, she is at my parent's house because Koda will be home tomorrow. My dad had knee surgery so he is watching her until I get off work. Then, I will go and get her bring the dogs out and take her to my parent's house on Wednesday. She is not potty trained, so she can't go to daycare.
I would hate to crate her all day. I'm lost as to what to do. What do all of you do with your dogs while you are at work? The yard is out for me, or a doggy door because Koda could climb the fence I'm sure. I also don't trust Maymay not to run!
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However I should say I use play pens fastened to flooring as crates. So they are 4x4 each with kuranda beds and tons of toys. They are a little more like studio apartments than crates.
Of course the present situation is possibly not quite optimal, but I haven't noticed any negative changes in behavior due to it. When Haru was not crated she just slept on the bed all day anyway till I got back, so not much different from being crated.
What's cute is that she's probably sleeping while we're gone, but as soon as she hears us get home, she gets up and starts playing with her toys so that she can pretend to be busy when we open the door to the bedroom.
Crate training did take quite a bit of work and patience but it's his happy place now.
That said, just last night my husband and I were talking about what the dogs do when we are not here. I know one that thing that happens pretty much as soon as we leave: Toby goes in the kitchen and jumps up to see if he can find anything of interest on the counters. I know he does this right away, because occasionally I've forgotten something and come right back, and yep, there he is in the kitchen. And if I stupidly left anything in his reach, he's already got it! (goodbye loaf of bread, or muffins, or whatever!)
My work scheduel keeps me gone most of the day and so the only time I get to walk the dogs and interact with them is at night and on the weekends. For me I'm not too cool with completely sharing living spaces with animals expecially when my son was a little baby. Although Taro was in the house one day, all day and he did'nt thrash the house too bad. He just tore up my son's sponge bob toys and ate all the doggie treats.
I only use the crate when they are small puppies, other then that I feel guilty for leaving them in a crate all day. Taro was in a crate until just recently so that he can get used to being out side with the other dogs.
My other reason for keeping my dogs out side is getting them used to cold weather (cold weather in socal?). Especially Hana because she is a duck dog. I have taken her out duck hunting at times up north where the temp was 15 degrees with ice all over her coat. Down side is I end up washing them more then if they were indoors and I have to pick up dog crap all the time.
Lynx got bored of being in yard one night and decided to jump the wall, luckually nobody was living in the house behind us at the time. I'm assuming she had some trouble climbing the wall because she had some punctures on the bottom of her hind feet (which I just cleaned and bandaged). I'm not sure how long she was out running the neighborhood but by the time I discovered her disappearance the police were already out looking for her, they got a report of a loose brown, "German Shepherd Dog". Thank goodness she didn't cause any trouble but it was quite a scare! My boyfriend, at the time, found her, called to her and took her home. The police man I spoke to I told him that "Yes, the loose brown Shepherd is mine and we found her, thanks!" She was found only a few streets over, so she was still very close to home.
Kotomi started acting like a cat and would jump on top of the 6 foot wall to walk on it or just sit there to watch our new neighbors and their dogs move in the house behind us. She did this with cat-like ease! I didn't know at the time though. My neighbor said that every morning Kotomi would jump the wall to play with his dogs and then when she was done playing she would come home and just jump back over that very wall. She probably did this for a few weeks to a month or so...I don't know...the neighbor made it sound like this was very common and her daily routine. The day I found out she was doing this was the day that for some reason Kotomi couldn't make it back over the wall to come home, she kept trying and trying to no avail. So the neighbor came over to my house so someone could go fetch her and bring her home. At the time Kotomi was a small PUPPY!
Shoushuu, I left out in the front yard unsupervised for a couple of minutes. When I checked on him through the livingroom window, I noticed him slip under the broken part of the front gate -sighs-. Instinctively, I grabbed a bag full of doggie treats and ran after him until he came into view and then I stopped and called out to him. Thank goodness we had been practicing our recalls. He came running to me and did nice "front" =]. I ended up turning the whole ordeal into a training session, kept everything positive, fun and a game. We continued training even when we got inside the house for a few minutes longer and I secured him away.
So yeah, I've had my fair share of what happens when you leave dogs outside unsupervised! LOL.
The black German Shepherd female I had prior use to EVEN escape from her kennel run! I remember a couple of times looking out my bedroom window (it was on the 1st floor) and there staring back at me is a black dog! She never left the property, just would stay outside my bedroom window or be waiting at the front or back door.
So, I'm very fond of leaving my dogs in crates when I'm gone and nobody is home. I feel more comfortable and at ease. If someone is home though, I will leave them in the backyard or in a kennel run.
Quite a story, huh? Not just 1 or 2 dogs but 4 out of the 5 dogs I've personally owned were escape artists! Hah -sighs-.
That's terrible what happened. I don't even know what I would do if I came home to one of my kid's hurt or worse dead. My condolensces go out to your cousin.
I am now quite happily on a part-time work schedule for 5 hours a day Mon-Thurs, Fridays off. I run the dogs in the morning before I go and of course we're off and running to practice or classes or training or just hiking the hills or walking somewhere, in the afternoons. I work about 7 minutes from my house. My current two adult dogs have the run of the downstairs family room, barricaded from the rooms off of that, and from the stairs. So they have plenty of room to move around. They could have access to the whole house but blind Jesse Malinois needs to stay away from the stairs. He can go up but if he forgets where he's at he could fall down the stairs, so we just barricade them.
When the puppy comes, he will be allowed to run off steam in the morning and will be crated for 5 hours in one crate or another, with frozen Kongs, chews, bully sticks, whatever. I've crated dogs in the past for 8 or 9 hours, and I do think they can adjust, as long as they get adequate exercise and individual attention in the evening. And maybe something to chew on inside the crate while you are gone.
I've had dogs that I could leave loose in the house at 6 months, others I wouldn't dream of it for the first 2 years.
Tara, you're in something of a pickle given the amount of time you must be away from the house. What would be ideal in your situation is some sort of outdoor or basement kennel enclosure with a nice cozy dog house, lots of toys. The dogs could move around and sleep the day away, with no worries about house-soiling.
Now the solid crates are hard reinforce should you need to (i have) The only reiforcement I could get to work was facing the door to the wall.
The wire crates (my wolfdog always gets outta these) you can use zipties and extra leash clips for leashes that got chewed up, and tieddown cables (work the best)
I'm still figuring it all out. Maymay is with my parents right now during the day. She needs a lot of attention and work on becoming potty trained. She gets the idea of going outside if someone let's her, but she will go anywhere if given the opportunity. My dad is home with her, and I think he rather likes it a lot. She has taken to him a lot, but she's a lover by personality.
I can also get a dog walker to come by, but Koda might growl and scare someone who just walks into our home. He can be a little scary when he wants to be. Which is so odd because he is such a wimp! He's a coddled mama's boy.
My dad being out of commission with his knee will buy me probably 3 more months. Maymay might calm down by then too. She is enjoying her freedom from not being tied up, and is still adjusting so hopefully she calms down a bit. We are also working on basic house manners. She is coming along.
This weekend my parents are taking her to Tahoe with them. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it goes well! They wanted her though. I'm wondering if they might ask to keep her. Again, we will see. She is just so easy to love!!!!!
I know how those Mama's boys are.