Where are your dogs when you are not at home (and they are)?

[McLoki]

Just thought it would be an interesting read, what different owners do while they go to work or whatever and have to leave their furry friends at home.

We have 2 dogs (as well as cats, guinea pigs, Bearded dragon, African grey parrot, etc.) an adult Great Dane named Disney and a 4 month old newf puppy named Daisy.

For a short trip - Daisy can be crated (in our room, next to the bed) and Disney is put free in our room (aka - sleeping on our bed).

For a longer trip (like going to work or out shopping - but never overnight) - They are both put in the garage (in their pen - see below for an explanation)

So what do you do with your dogs while you are gone?

Michael



Garage pen explanation:
We have a 15'x21'x6'-9" pen that is connected to our house. It has 4"-6" of pea gravel in the bottom of it.

We put a second walk door into our garage leading to this pen area. (its the only way in or out of the pen) and that door has a dog door in it that is sized for a great dane (or newf).

In the garage we have a 5'x10' pen (connected to the wall and floor) that has a dog bed, their water and some rubber mats (stall mats) inside the door. It also has some wood flooring on the walls as one of our previous saint bernards got bored one day and decided to make an alternate exit to the pen by chewing through the drywall - the flooring slows that down.

Here is a picture of the pen in the garage - their typical hangout when we are not home....

 

[wulfin]

We have a wheaten terrier and 2 cats.

When we are gone the wheatie is in the laundry room (it's the size of a small bedroom..so it's not small) and the cats have the run of the house.

.. our Wheaten is fearful/reactive and we've tried to let him have the run of the house, but when we come back in (even after just 5 minutes), he is far too stressed out. I'm planning on trying to bring back the x-pen and confine him to the kitchen area..so he has more space and the back door to look out of (We did that as a puppy until he learned how to climb it...so I'm hoping now that he's older and respects gates a lot more that it will work - but it will depend on his anxiety levels).

 

[lmfoltyn]

We have 2 newfs and a lab...depending on who it is we are leaving...if we are walking our youngest newf, LuLu Belle (20 months) we let the other two have free roam of the house...they are well behaved...if LuLu Belle is left in the mix then they all go to the basement and have free roam there...we don't trust our little girl quite enough to let her stay upstairs unattended...

 

[wrknnwf]

Mine are free in the house unless they are puppies and then they are crated when I can't supervise, until they are fully housebroken. I've had as many as 5 dogs loose in the house without any problems.

But I also was able to take my dogs to work for many years, even as puppies, and they had free run of the entire office, or were tethered to me if they weren't potty trained.

 

[Leonard and his bud Snuffles]

Use to kennel Snuffles when gone. Never was destructive here. On day had to take my mother to the ER like after midnight, and he was asleep I think in the dinning room where he had a bed. He did fine, and just kept the crate up till just this spring for visiting/found dogs. He use to just like to go in and sleep, but after blowing his knee Sept before last, I even moved the crate to a room Snuffles wasn't allowed in anymore because of slick flooring.

 

[Jeannie]

Since I work at home Chase is with me all the time. She thinks her official job is to have all my customers pet her when they drop off their dogs.

About the only time Chase is home alone is if we go into town to eat and she is home alone about 45 minutes. Or when we go to church then she is home alone about 1 hr and 15 minutes. She is either in our house or in my shop.

 

[snowdog]

At first we crated up our golden and newfie separately for a couple hours at a time. Tink our newfie almost busted out of the crate, bending the latches and essentially destroying it.

She gets to roam most of the house now - though we close the doors to the kids rooms, office and bathroom since she started eating the toothpaste. We also recently started taking the knobs off our gas stove since Tink's counter surfing has resulted in turning on the gas once - so scary....ugh.

Our golden has proven almost utterly trustworthy with the exception of an occasional dive into the cardboard recycling for a shred fest.

 

[shellyk]

We have 2 newfs and a lab...

Hey- we have two Newfs and a Lab too...we have a dog proof area that all three fit in with access to the doggie door to the back yard. From there a gate opens to the kitchen which is "no dogs land" between there and the area that the cats hang out in. Only one cat will brave this area to hang out with the dogs. We have been very fortunate that all the dogs have behaved in this area because part of one of the walls is the back of a leather sofa. If they really wanted to they could eat through the sofa. One of our Neighbors has a Great Dane who totally mangled one of their couches.

 

[R Taft]

We allow our adult five free run of the house with a doggy door into the dog yard, which is about 1/4 acre.... it is people/dog proof and padlocked. And attached to the house in the middle of our garden ( Gate also locked) which is in the middle of our property. We also have a Kennel Room and run, which we now leave Urshie in with mostly our very quiet Lukey. Mike is nearly always home except for a couple of hours here and ther. they are pretty lucky that way. When we go to our training long distance and the whole day all six come along. Not comfortable leaving them for more that 8 hours.

Our local fire station is aware we have dogs on our property and there is one of their padlocks in our chain system, so they can get on our place at any time. here we register animals (including horses and cattle) with the fire brigade, so they know to look for them.

 

[Keira25]

When we got our Kanga at 18 months, there was a brief period of time before my husband retired and she had constant company. The first time we left her alone, we had her in a crate in the bedroom with AC on and the door closed. She broke out of the crate and semi-trashed the room. We underestimated her reaction to being alone, obviously. My husband is a homebody and takes her with him all the time. When we do leave,we leave a marrow bone and that seems to do the trick. She has the run of the house.

 

[Jager's Mom]

1 newf
1 lab
1 dachshund

All in a bedroom (no people bed in the room). The dachshund is in a cage.
2 cameras (which I can watch via the internet from my phone) on them at all times.