So, anythings human don’t like is okay with dogs because dogs aren’t people?
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but this is not a valid justification.
I think most people on this board were probably kept in a small gated confined area by themselves for hours at a time at one point in their life, including you.
What? I am having trouble parsing this sentence.
He is saying you cannot think that humans and dogs have exactly the same needs & wants and behave the same way. They don’t.
I think dopers have correctly assessed the options:
a. alter your work schedule to one that would permit mid-day visits or part-time work-from-home
b. provide a secure outdoor pen with appropriate shelter for when you are gone
c. puppy-proof an enclosed area of the house where the dog remains while you are gone
d. crate for the duration of the workday
e. hire doggy caretaking of some kind (dog walker, doggy daycare, etc)
f. allow your dog to destroy your home at will while you’re gone
If you are unwilling or unable to do any of those things, then this dog is not a good fit for your household at the moment.
Getting him a friend is not necessarily a good idea. I have 2 dogs and they absolutely love to destroy my house.
If we’re only going to be gone 2 or 3 hours and the weather is crappy, we’ll crate them. If we’re going to be gone longer than 3 hours and the weather is crappy, we barricade them in the kitchen. My boyfriend sucks at barricading though and they usually break out when he does it. When that happens, something gets destroyed. If the weather is nice, they go in the kennel outside.
They will be a year old on Thursday.
First of all he has a playmate, we have another dog who is 2, and does not destroy the house - he’s a lot smaller, and not as smart, but they are getting along great.
Day 1 - Grady and Not-so-smarty were left in the lower level of our home, it was completely puppy proofed, they had tons of toys and two very old couches.
Grady tore up one couch and shat everywhere. NOT GOOD.
Day 2 - we try different tactic. We keep them up stairs in main living area, where we always play, where they always sleep - it has the best furniture - leather - and the most expensive things…however, it also has a dog door and they have full access to the outside.
I come home, creep into the house, expecting the worse … … …
All is good! the toys are every where, the couches slightly ruffled, but nothing is torn apart and the place pretty much looks like they slept and roamed outside all day.
I think the confinement of being downstairs with zero access to outside was the problem. I hope. Giving them access to the outside seemed to have quelled his need to destroy. We also got him some hard chew toys, not the soft ones, and it have been gnawing them like crazy…
Maybe this will continue. If not…I think we will put a dog door downstairs where there is less stuff to destroy…but for now, he’s good having full access to the back yard.
Well, you have a point, but you’ve missed the implied part of what was said.
The unstated part is “…and I believe dogs are comfortable denning in a small space, and they sleep much of the day, like other terrestrial predators, and if the crate is a safe “den-like” place they won’t mind staying in it…because they are not like people in this way.”
But not the dog in this thread. Have you ever been around Border Collies and other working dogs? You can’t just lock them up like you can some dogs. It drives them even more insane. They are bred to be smart and hyper. A six month old working dog is also a lot more developed than any human child that you would just stick in a play pen or baby bed.
I take my Black Lab out every night and throw the toy for 10-20 minutes. If I don’t, she finds things to do. A dog like that needs exercise and a lot of it.
If the dog does not play fetch, try taking him for a walk on a daily basis but with a loaded backpack to tire him out a little.
I have an Australian Cattle Dog - the very definition of working dog. She LOVES being in her crate. You can absolutely crate them during the day.
Edit: She gets free range in the house now - but has absolutely no problem being in her crate for 8+ hours. Since I stopped crating her, she now sleeps under the bed at night where there’s all of about 4" of clearance.
Our very close friends have an Australian Cattle Dog, mixed with Blue Heeler and she is crated…Amazing dog, very smart!
It is looking like the doggy door thing to the outside is working well, and my SO just told me she asked the 10yr old kid next door to come over and play with him when he gets home from school…so that ought to work out well. I hope
There is no doubt this dog needs something to do, and I think I am going to work with his natural abilities. Our back yard is Alpine Meadow, and it full of voles. Grady can hear them scampering around under the brush and will do anything to find them. Our other dog already knows how to catch them, so it’s becoming a game for them to track them in the yard.
I’m going to try frisbee training - bit I’ve never done that before and as of right now, the other dog is the better fetch dog. I’ll try and separate them and see what I can do about some separate trainings.
Honestly, I would have said that the doggy door to the outside is overkill; lock them outside all day. He’s a Husky mix, and if there’s not several feet of snow (and sometimes even if there is) he’ll prefer to be outside where there’s squirrels for chasing if you’re not home to entertain him. Then again, I have a strong “Dogs are animals, and thereby mostly belong outside” mentality. We had a big German Shepard mix as a kid, and when he was allowed to stay outside most of the time, he was best behaved.
ETA: Had you asked me what a dog would do given the first situation, with no access to outside, I’d have said “destroy the place”. Only old or very calm dogs can really be trusted indoors and alone for that long, and never puppies.
I agree, but our Beagle mix pretty much does whatever the new pup does, so if they are outside all day, the husky would be fine, the beagle would be a Popsicle. We’ll see how the winter goes, we are already getting flurries every night, and there is a bit of snow in the shady parts of the yard, which grady quickly finds and rolls in.
Count me in as another ‘dog loves crate’ voter. All my poodles have loved their (sufficiently big) crates. Before we had crates, there was a long, low, stone-topped table that they barely fit under that they would live in as a burrow.
Eh, our pit bull and pit bull mix are home indoors all day (separately, for safety) aside from getting walked at lunchtime, and neither one of them has done any damage to the house or furnishings over the years. The mix, Sadie, used to steal socks and take them to her bed, but she never chewed them, she just kept them for comfort. The full APBT, Simone, has been kept indoors since we took her in off the streets at around six or seven months old.
But they’re intensely human-directed dogs, not independent outdoor types.
“Blue Heeler” just is a nickname for an Australian Cattle Dog. The same applies to the term “Queensland Heeler,” a now-obsolete term for a certain line of ACDs.
…I did not know that. It’s funny, because the Boulder Humane Society advertise Australian Cattle Dogs and Blue Heeler mixes… Ahhhh, Americans!
Yup - the guy I “rescued” Tilly from insisted she was a “Blue Heeler” not an ACD. He’s also the moron that didn’t fix her and kept wondering why she was jumping the fence and getting caught by animal control all the time… (She’s actually an ACD/Catahoula mix, but that’s another working dog as well.)
It just depends on the dog. In the last 6 years I have shared a small living space with 6 different mostly-indoor dogs for a year or more, including my two, and none were ever particularily destructive, except towards the dog beds.
Sounds like Grady is bored during the day, there’s no much you can do about it if there’s no one home. Just try to mentally and physically exhaust him as much as possible while you are with him! Sounds like he is running around all day and moving things from place to place, and that’s not enough. Frisbee is a great idea, as is anything else he can focus obsessively on that’s physically strenuous.