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Rate of Trust Too Slow?

2K views 18 replies 8 participants last post by  Deb 
#1 ·
Hey everyone! So, Ronin will be 11 months next, week and we've been working hard on his training and making sure that he's got the basics down. He's coming a long way. Along with doing very well with his Place command that we were struggling with. So my question.

I have been off on vacation for the past week and I've slowly started giving Ronin a bit more freedom around the house. I no longer check on him every couple minutes when he's out of site like I had to before because he was always still getting into things. Lately he goes in the bedroom and chews on his toys and sleeps, not getting into things. I also no longer put him in his crate if I'm going for a shower like before, and he would go and lay on the bed while I was in the shower with no problems. I want to start giving him a bit more trust, but I'm not sure if I should give him more yet or not. I have a lot of people telling me that their dogs are already home alone all day with no problems at the same age as Ronin and that I should give him a lot more trust and freedom. I'm not ready for him to be out alone all day without us home yet.
You all know how much trouble we've had with him and I don't want to give him too much freedom too soon and regret it.

What I would like to do is to slowly start giving him freedom. Next would be leaving the crate open at night and the bedroom door closed when we're asleep. Eventually I would like to leave the bedroom door open and then start to work on leaving him alone for short amounts of time. By the time he's 18 months I would like to be able to leave him home alone. I don't know if that's unrealistic or not. Any thoughts?

Also Ronin is finally no longer having to be at my side every five seconds, which I've been working hard on as well. He was starting to get SA and I wanted him to realize that me being away from him is an okay thing.
 
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#2 ·
I have a lot of people telling me that their dogs are already home alone all day with no problems at the same age as Ronin and that I should give him a lot more trust and freedom.
What other people do with their dogs has nothing to do with you and your dog. Until and unless YOU feel comfortable with giving him more freedom, ignore people telling you that you're doing something wrong. What's right for their dogs in not necessarily right for yours. None of our dogs in the past 30 years have ever had complete freedom when we weren't home.

Dena was great by 3 months old. My husband left shoes on the floor and she never chewed a single one. She didn't need constant supervision, and when I'd go looking for her in the house if she wasn't in the same room I'd find her happily chewing her bone somewhere.

Cassidy was a horrific chewer. We could literally not leave her unsupervised for 5 minutes for a very long time. And once she stopped chewing (my slippers, our bedspread, one of my orchids, a favorite rug....), or so we thought, she had a secondary chewing phase. She was probably nearly two before she didn't have to be watched every single second. At some point we took the door off her crate in our bedroom (I would have loved to eliminate it entirely but she liked to sleep in it), but she still went out to the garage pen with a dog door to an outside run whenever we left the house.

Keefer, Dena's half brother, was never a bad chewer either. But both of them went to the garage pen when we were gone and slept in closed crates in our bedroom at night. She's gone, but at 11 years old, Keef still sleeps in his crate.

Halo, ah Halo. :wild: She will be 8 years old in 3 weeks. She's never chewed conventional things, she prefers paper (mail!), toilet paper, paper towels and kleenex, potholders, and just last week she pulled a woven leather placemat off the dining room table, where it's been for 20 years, and chewed the edge. When she was young, she'd take eyeglasses off table, and walk around with TV remotes in her mouth. Her most famous episodes involved kitchen knives.

Here's an example of her TP art:



Here's the placemat:



Just one of several potholders she's destroyed:



And.....the knife:



Would you ever trust this dog home alone? :rofl:
 
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#4 ·
Hahahaha the knife photo made me laugh so hard when I saw that! Ronin thankfully doesn't grab things like that. He isn't over the chewing faze yet, but isn't chewing as bad as he was even a month ago. I'm going to try tonight with leaving his crate door open and the bedroom door closed and see what he does. If he does well then we'll do it again tomorrow and then start with the leaving him alone with no one home for very short periods of time to start and then work our way up to longer. :)
 
#5 ·
My method is: baby steps.

My boy actually started sleeping out of the crate pretty young because he outgrew it. Breifly he slept in an x pen but there wasn't room in there for him to get off the dog bed so he would wake me up panting because he was so hot.

We decided to just see what would happen if we left him loose in the bedroom, we put away everything enticing (daddy's shoes) in the closets and closed the doors. Baby gated the bedroom door which was a blessing because one night I heard him pacing and then a little whine and I rushed him out and he had to poop. I bet he was around 10 or 11 months then. If I had not had the baby gate he likely would have gone to the back door, whined, I probably would not have heard it and he would have pooped on the floor. He learned from his sister that he could go lay on the bathroom floor when he was hot, then we got him the kuranda with the breathable fabric which he LOVES, now he usually gets in bed with us for half hour to an hour then goes to his kuranda.

Much to my husband's dismay I made sure he had antlers and other chewies in the bedroom (sucks to listen to when you are trying to sleep), but his things were handy when he wanted to chew and he never chewed anything he shouldn't overnight.

I have left him loose in the house when I do breif things outside but not when I leave. I may not for a long time, more because of my female GSD than because of him wrecking the house. Sometimes he messes with her and she can't make him stop and it escalates. He has a 5x9 kennel so I am in no rush to leave him our loose. He can move around, get a drink, have a chew, he doesn't need anything else. He likes it enough that when he got scared two weeks ago that is where he went. My female got her collar caught on the entertainment center and ripped a cabinet door off then ran across the room with the cabinet door hanging off her.

Silly boy was more upset about it than she was even though it didn't happen to him. He went downstairs to take a nap in his kennel because he felt safe there and he was breifly afraid of the entertainment center after that. Normally he would be in the living room with me but he went down to his safe place that day rather than sit next to the dreaded entertainment center.

Anyway I digress...gradually giving more freedom and seeing how the dog does is my thing. Let the dog tell you if he is ready. If he has done anything naughty with supervision then he isn't ready. If he is good with people home leave him alone for 10 minutes and see what happens.

If anything goes wrong just take a step back. I let my girl sleep in the bed with me around 10 or 11 months. I woke up one night to a strange sound. Riiiiiiip. Pause. Riiiiiip. I leaved over the bed and saw she had discovered the moving boxes that were flat and stacked under the bed and was shredding one rip by rip. So....she went back in the crate for a month.
 
#6 ·
I think it depends on the dog. My current pup didn't get into much at all from 9-12 months. I crated her or confined her to the kitchen. Once in awhile I'd leave her out. Around 12 months, she started to find things to get into again once in awhile. So, I leave her confined in the kitchen still. I honestly think it's not much different than crating her. She is always in the same spot and she never plays with her toys that I leave her. When she is in heat, I have her sleep in the kitchen because I have a sensitive sense of smell and her crate is in my bedroom. She was happy to get back into her crate to sleep when it was over.
 
#7 ·
Max was about 8 months old he broke out of the crate of it was unlocked when I was out it was he put a hole in the arm chair. It was soon after that we left him out and went on loose on short little outings. 10 minutes alone 20 minutes alone etc. I would come back seeing he did not destroy the house. Building trust he was great in house loose. 10 months old we went for away for the weekend my mom and dad checked up on him my kids stayed with my mom and dad so they to got to play with him when they checked on him. He was great did not make a mess have accident or destroy one thing. Two weeks later we went a way for a whole week the my dad and mom checked on him and he did great. No accidents nothing destroyed. I think it is individual dog and baby steps.
 
#8 ·
LOL ... well this is a bit different?? Usually the problem dog is free roaming, out of control and destructive and the goal is to stop that because ... "Free Roaming" is a right that needs to be "earned" and not a privilege that is given because he's your dog and stuff. But ... that is not where you are you have a "goal" and a "plan" and your "working your" plan ... congratulations there! :)

Some of us have started with puppies that aside from temporary confinement for "Potty Training" have always been free roaming. You just need to ask a different set of questions. What you are doing (Place and I would also assume Sit on the Dog??) those and a proper structured walk help you train calmness into the dog ... train an off switch.

As long as that is what your doing ... you might already be where you need to be?? But you don't know, so ... break it down and "Proof" the dog. An actual hard number would be a "Two Hour Place" if he can do that ... then most likely * hours alone will be need big deal. :)

But you can break it down ... use a wireless camera so you can monitor him and on weekends ... just leave him loose for 30/60/90 minutes periods, extend the time as fast as slowly as required. Stay reasonably close by and if you see will "nutting up" you can intervene quickly. You are actually train him to be calm, so it's not really about dumb luck. Once a dog understands how they are expected to behave ... that becomes there default behavior! He might "now" already be where he needs to be?? You just don't know ... if such is the case?? "This" would be a viable way to see ..."Technology" is your friend. :) `
 
#9 ·
So far he has the run of the house when I'm home and he does quite well. This morning however he started chewing my shoes so I don't think I'm ready to let him have free roam of the house yet. We are working on place command and we can do about a 30 minute place right now so we're on our way.
 
#16 ·
LOL, I showed the knife picture to my son and he said the same thing, 'at least he's holding the knife correctly'. But then he added, "I hope the dog waited for the owner to say 'thank you' before releasing it." My son, the comedian. *G*


(For those that don't understand, when handing an open knife to someone, you don't release until they say 'thank you', meaning they have it.)
 
#18 ·
I was just trying to get it away from her before she stabbed my leather couch or or Keefer with it! :rofl:
 
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