Summit has been crated since we adopted him at the end of October. He was always very good about crating and would run right in and eat his treat then get started on his Kong before I had even walked out the door. Recently he's become resistant to being crated. He's still well behaved in the crate but he looks at me mournfully, won't eat his treat and unless the Kong has peanut butter in it (his absolute favourite) he won't get to work on it until after I leave. If my absence is short enough he may not have even finished the Kong by the time I get home (which is new, normally he'll clean a Kong out in half an hour) and will only start to really work on it when I get home (but then it gets taken away shortly after since he only gets his Kong while we are gone). I think he's trying to tell us something.
So over the last couple of weeks we started to let him sleep with the crate door open at night, and eventually moved his bed into the room at night and he doesn't even go in the crate anymore. This weekend we started gating him into the bedroom and leaving him loose in there with his Kong, something to chew on, and a bit of water. Oh yeah, and his comfy bed.
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| What? This old thing? |
We left him for about an hour and then a half an hour on Sunday night and he seemed to do really well. He was a little confused when I left him the first time, but he did settle and clean out his Kong. So the next morning I figure I'll leave him for half a day while I'm at school and see how he does. I gate him in and he goes right to his bed and lays down, not even concerned about my impending departure. So I feel good about leaving him for a couple of hours and I don't even worry while I'm in class. I go home at lunch to get him and what do I find?
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| That's better! |
That's right. I find a dog in our bed. Now, it's all cute and dandy, so long as he doesn't nest. He's been good about not nesting on the couch, but he nests like crazy in his own bed.
1 comment:
Ha! You can count on nesting! Also thought I'd tell you that my first agility greyhounds didn't start training until they were 5 and 6. My initial goal was for them to simply be able to do all the obstacles... they did. So then I wanted to compete. So their first competitions were at ages 6 and 7. So don't discount his age. He has a lot to teach you. I am certainly glad I had Jes and Teresa to get me started so I would be ready for Katie, Travis, Riley, and Seven. Oh, and drop the "retired". He's a former racing greyhound, but much too young to be retired. :-)
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