How do you leave your dog at home alone?

[cheapmeister]

When you go to work, how do you leave your dog home by itself? How do you know it will behave and not damage stuff? How do you know your dog won't bite a wire and electrocute itself?

[thrifthunter]

How do you know it will behave and not damage stuff? How do you know your dog won't bite a wire and electrocute itself?

There is only one way to find out.
If you don't trust your dog to have free run of the house, then keep in a crate or pen.

[theguyz]

We started slowly, in crate, then about 3 weeks in we allowed access to crate and 1 room with baby gates, then a few weeks later an extra room, etc.. then when bad, we revert back to crate for a day. Then resume to freedom.

[cooldeol]

It all depends on how old the dog is and how comfortable he/she will be when left alone. If you do notice any kind of destructive behavior then most likely you dealing with a case of separation anxiety or simply higher levels of unspent energy. It took our dog, Leo, couple of months before he could adjust to the idea of spending time alone. When he was teething, I’ve come home to newspaper shredded all over the house, chewed carpet, sofa and whatever he could get his hands (paws) on. Now, he channels all his energy on his favorite chew bone and just snoozes for most part of the day. As others mentioned, start off with a room or crate and then slowly expand the accessible area for the dog. Just remove any potentially hazardous stuff and give him/her favorite toys (lots of them) to help them occupy their mind.

[thumper80]

Anything more than 6 hrs we try to leave our 1 yr old cocker spaniel roam free . We do make sure it's puppy friendly before we leave and thankfully we have her trained to go on the puppy pads if she can't wait till we get home . Anything less than 6 hr she goes in the crate that is our living room , we used to have it in our bedroom but our neighbors said she would howl and cry for a few hrs . Now shes fine in the living room and lot of times when shes in her bed she isn't in a rush to come out when i open the door . She has destroyed something on us but she's hopefully past that now . However our 9yr old cats do set her up from time to time by knocking things down that they only can get too .

[thrifthunter]

Anything more than 6 hrs we try to leave our 1 yr old cocker spaniel roam free . We do make sure it's puppy friendly before we leave and thankfully we have her trained to go on the puppy pads if she can't wait till we get home . Anything less than 6 hr she goes in the crate that is our living room , we used to have it in our bedroom but our neighbors said she would howl and cry for a few hrs . Now shes fine in the living room and lot of times when shes in her bed she isn't in a rush to come out when i open the door . She has destroyed something on us but she's hopefully past that now . However our 9yr old cats do set her up from time to time by knocking things down that they only can get too .

If she is fine out for the longer times then you might as well leave her out all the time imo.

[fanshu]

if your dog is a puppy and still teething or still learning to go on paper i would definately keep them in the kennel unless you want to go home to a diaster, trust me i know from experience. but now my dog is more matured and trained i let him out until i get home which can be anywhere from 8-10+ hours. all he really does it eat/stare out the window/sleep. in additino i make sure to close all my doors just incase he decides he wants to change it up and leave suprises in bedrooms. leave him plenty of water/dry food, get tall garbage cans so they cant get in, block off the back of your home entertainment system in your case. dogs are very smart, or mine is at least they always remember when you yell/get angry with them and always get you back somehow so have your bases covered even if there well trained. or maybe my dog is just plain evil

[Shaner]

If I'm only going to be a couple hours, my dog stays outside. I live outside the city so she has quite a bit of land to roam around on, plus she has shelter in the garage if she wants. Any longer and she stays inside and has free roam of the house. She'll chew up cardboard or paper, but that's about it.

[jenblaze]

I have a 9 month year old French Bulldog, who is crated all day while I'm at work. He gets walked before work and a long walk right after. In between he usually just sleeps. He's left with a few chew toys and does fine in his crate! I probably won't let him roam the house alone until he's at least 1 years old .. to prevent any accidents (pee), and so by then he'll be a bit more mature and not be inclined to chew on random things (like my wall).

[TruHP]

Our 1 year old dog goes in the bathroom when we are gone. Tried to crate train him when he was a young pup, but I was afraid he was going to break all his teeth off on the crate. I gave up after his adult teeth came in and he started to look like he was going to damage them. We have given him full run of the house and he's really good except for his obsession with Kleenex and toilet paper. He also started to get into the kitchen trash can. So he goes in the bathroom now and we take the toilet paper roll off and put it up high. He can't get into trouble if there is nothing to get into trouble with. He generally doesn't touch any toys we put in there until we come home. He has a water bowl in there and something to sleep on. Worst he does in there is jump in and out of the tub...lol. He's always been really good puppy except for the crate and we tried really hard.. just we lost the battle..lol.

[nyik]

Our 2 dogs are gated inside the kitchen. Large space for them to move around in. They're house trained so they only relieve themselves outside, but in the event they have an emergency, the mess is easier to clean up. We tried having a "emergency bathroom", where we have a litter box, but they just confused that as their regular toilet.

[cho1104]

my two and a half years old little guy stays in the living + dinning room when i go to work.
there are gates at hallway to front door/upstairs and kitchen.
he sleeps on my sofa and does his business in his indoor potty. so far i have no problems with it.
i leave food for him, he also has a water fountain.
usually i turn the light on so he won't get mad at me if i go home after dark.

[cedarpumpkin]

we are currently dealing with the same thing! when it was warmer out, we left our puppy in a run outside with access to sun and shade, and also to a doghouse. she seemed to dig the freedom and could play well on her own. now that it's colder, we crate her and my retired father-in-law kindly comes to let her out for pets and pees at lunchtime.

her crate is in the laundry room and she is fine spending time in there, and since she hadn't had an accident inside for ages, we thought we could give her a bit more room by leaving the crate door open and close the laundry room doors. well, the neighbour came to check on her after 3 hours that day, and despite all the toys and treats we left her, the dog had peed and pooed on every surface, messed all her toys, and shredded every piece of paper she could access.

how did you teach your dogs to be GOOD while home alone? Hey, if you have successfully mastered this and wanted to give step by step instructions I wouldn't object. haha

[shingor6]

My dog is 2 years old, he's an english springer spaniel. When we live, we leave him full access to the house. I don't know if he does anything else than sleeping when we are gone, but we have that house for over a year and so far he didn't break anything while we were gone.

When he was a puppy we left him in the crate and he didn't like it, always crying and he would be really really over excited when we would open the crate.

Now when he come home, he's just so happy and calm.

[rotjong]

Our 4 year old chocolate lab is always in the garage while we are gone, There is a doggy flap to the outside run so she can go outside if she wishes, but I think most of the time she sleeps.Once in a while she woul pull a piece of carbourd out of the recycle bin but that is it.

We also had it a few time that the garage door was wide open when we got home, and puppy was laying nicely on the driveway patiently waiting for some one to come home, she is the best dog ever.