When we first got Seka we never left the house, not even for 10 minutes, without crating her. She has always loved her crate and it seemed to help the panic she felt when we left her alone. It was her own little cave, with specialty bedding.When Roxy was added to the pack, we continued with our crating ways, and while she doesn't love her crate like Seka does, she doesn't mind it either. I guess she doesn't like the color of her bedspread. But somewhere along the way, we started leaving the girls out when we left the house for short periods of time. You know, a short trip to the grocery store. A quick drive to get drive-thru. A little romp to the mall. Nothing more than a couple of hours.
The exception to this rule is during thunder storms. If there are storms in the area and we know about them ahead of time, the girls are left loose in the house - mostly because Roxy doesn't do well in a crate during a storm. I know that I would come home to a shaking, bleeding dog outside of a totally dismantled crate. So when we left to go to a play on Sunday night that would cause us to be out of the house for six hours and we were in the middle of a nasty storm, I really didn't have a choice but to leave her out.
Now, I have heard horrible stories about greyhound owners coming home to a house that looked like a frat party had been held while they were gone. Others have shared that they come home to find their dog injured - including compact fractures and blood all over the house. But when you crate you pretty much know what to expect when you walk in the door. When you don't it really is a crap shoot.
I guess we we've been lucky and were lucky on Sunday night that no frat party was held at our home. Instead some crazy grey-nerds preferred to hold a book club meeting. I'm assuming that someone didn't like the subject matter of the book that I was reading, since the first 170 pages were destroyed and ripped to shreds. The good news - I was on page 179. Despite the teeth marks in the binding, I'm golden.
Needless to say we're back to our crating routine and I'll just figure out something to do with her during potential storm days. As for the greyhound book club meetings, they may have to be supervised from now on, but it was clear that this author received two dewclaws down.
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9 comments:
Tee hee! I'm curious, what are you reading? Funny how greyhounds always have an opinion on things and find a way to express it!
posting anon because of what i'll say, but you know me (katy).
we leave our back door open when we're here. if i go out for < 3 hours, i keep it open. i'll lock the rest, but that back door is open.
oddly, they only tinkle inside when i leave and the backdoor is open. go figure. nothing is chewed though. they just tinkle in the bathroom.
when i'm home all day, do tehy mess? no. all night. no. just when i leave. the shortest time they took to tinkle in the bathroom was 15 minutes. now i usually try to herd them out, but i get lazy.
will you test her for intestinal bookworms? boom tish.
LOL At least it wasn't anything undigestible :)
My boys are very well read too. ;-)
Might get some Xanax. Also the Thundershirt looks interesting.... might help her in other situations also. You can also borrow Reagan's Princess Leia buns :-).
My guys have no interest in academic pursuits. They are content to spend all day on the couch snoozing :)
Our Maggie does not like thunderstorms either. We give her Natural Homeopathic Remedy Anxiety drops about an hour before (if we know the storm is coming). Works very well. Our pack spends their day hanging out in our house un-crated. We have lost a few possesions over the years, mainly my high heel shoes, but now our house is pretty well "dog proofed". Live and learn. :)
Yeah right, Gyeong. When you're out the door, they're online learning Esperanto.
Hi, just started reading and hope to keep up!
I don't know how old Roxy is, but if it's a possibility, you should definitely look into xanax.
(Sorry if this is too much to read, you can skim over it. My last dog was on Clomicalm for behavioral issues, and it didn't help with storms any. I mean, we got to the point that we would just have to bunker down in the closet, doors shut completely, and he wouldn't go to sleep, but calmed somewhat. Finally, I inquired about Xanax, and I know one of the contraindications is using it with aggressive dogs. But after starting Xanax with him when storms were on the way, it was like he was a completely different dog. Also, if I had to leave during a storm and left him loose, I can't tell you how many times I came home to find him in the bathtub ;P Again, IDK your dogs, but what worked for me if I had to leave was closing all the blinds and putting him in the closet with his bed, becuase he couldn't see the lightning, which freaked him out more than the thunder.)
I also have heard good things about the Thundershirt, and have been told (I'm not positive, though) that they have a pretty good return system.
Hope this might be helpful.
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