So my dog (neutered male, pit bull, 3, I rescued him last year) has been a total rock star lately. He hasn’t trashed my house since I started crating him when I go out, and he’s always been quite happy in the crate. Also, he hasn’t had any pee-related accidents at all except for a few indiscretions the first time I took him to my parents’ place.
So I brought him (crate and all) to my boyfriend’s house for the weekend. Dog and BF are mutually smitten so they were delighted to spend even more time together. At one point we went out, leaving the dog in the crate. And when we returned, there was the dog - at the door, to greet us. He’d escaped from the blasted crate!
I suddenly recalled a time last year, when he was still new to me, and I had a bunch of guests over so I crated him, and next thing I knew he was sitting on my lap. At the time I figured I’d just latched the crate improperly or something, there was only the most minor damage to it, and he’d never done anything like that before. But when I saw his smiling face at the front door last week I realized he’s known how to escape the thing the whole time and just didn’t want to, in my house. FWIW he’s also spent time in a crate at the dogsitter’s place, with no problems at all.
So we patched the crate back up using copper wire and creativity, and went out again with our fingers crossed. Sure enough when we returned he’d escaped again. Thus ensued a prolonged game, where we would put the crate back together, stuff the dog in, and find the dog escaped upon our return. One of the escapes resulted in a scratched-up face for the dog, which made me start to worry.
I figured maybe it was because at my house and at the dogsitter’s, the crate is right beside the front door, so he can see us leaving and coming back. At the BF’s house, the only place the crate can possibly go is in the basement, so he couldn’t see us leaving. So we moved it to a position from which he could clearly see us leaving through the side door, but that didn’t seem to matter. (There is no way to put the crate on the main floor, the house is just too small. I worry that maybe he doesn’t like being in the basement? We live on the 2nd floor so he’s not used to basements.)
The most recent attempt at security involved two 1/2-inch wide zip ties and six or seven loops of thick copper wire. When we got back we found that he had busted the zip ties (just by pulling them - I always knew he was strong! … I can’t help but be a little bit proud of him), untwisted several of the copper wires, and somehow removed a couple more. Fortunately, it also resulted in such distortion of the crate that future escape became impossible. (Ha ha! He’s his own worst enemy!)
So the immediate problem of crate-escaping appears to be solved. (Oddly, he didn’t take the opportunity to trash the BF’s house, the way he always has when I’ve left him alone in mine. But the BF isn’t comfortable just letting him roam in the house; I’m not really either because I have seen the damage he is capable of.)
But the ongoing problem remains - my dog is really distressed to be left alone at my BF’s house!
The puddles: He peed on the floor a number of times too. This is (with aforementioned exceptions) unprecedented in my experience. The first time it happened I took him for a walk in the morning at around 8 (as I always do), and the puddle appeared no later than noon. It’s not like he had to go (this is a dog that has held it in for 15+ hours in the past), he just wanted to!
We’ve spent two weekends there now and it’s always the same story.
In general I try to keep the routine (feeding, walking etc) as standard as possible but obviously it’s never going to be the same. He’s got blankets and toys from home, I can’t think of what else I can do to make him feel at home.
Any ideas?