What's going on in her head?
Perhaps someone can shed some light onto something. When I'm unable to supervise Casey (an 8-month old pup), she stays in a totally enclosed metal pen (top open, but enclosed all the way around) on our main floor (the pen is about 2 meters (8 feet) long by 3/4 of a meter (3-4 feet) wide. It's big enough for her to move around, it's got her dog bed and toys/chew stuff and a water dish. Beyond the playpen is just our house (there are no toys laying around outside her pen, she doesn't sleep on the couch - only her dog bed or the floor, etc., there's little or nothing on the main floor besides a couch/loveseat and our kitchen table and I'm not on the main floor when she's in the pen, I'm upstairs where she is not allowed to go). She has recently been trying her darndest to escape the pen (by jumping over - which is totally impossible for her). I understand that boredom is likely the cause of her escape attempts, but something really odd happened today that I'm wondering about.
I gave her a kong with a treat stuck in it when she was in her pen. About 20 minutes later, I went back downstairs to check on her because she was making a bunch of noise. She had managed to get the kong up and over the side of the pen and it was on the other side (the side that she was not on). There is no way she accidentally pushed it through the pen wall, because the metal bars are too close together for it to fit through (I checked). This means that she had to have the kong in her mouth, and then tried to jump over the pen wall and dropped it over to the other side when she was unsuccessful in her jump attempt.
Why would she go through the effort of jumping over the wall with the kong in her mouth? I could understand if some awesome treat was on the other side of the pen wall that she wanted to get at, but she had the awesome treat....so why bother jumping the wall with it?
Just a query...I'm trying to get into her head.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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Mine don't like when we are upstairs, but we do have a "no dogs upstairs" rule which they follow, most of the time! Jack will woof at us from the bottom of the stairs, though.
They are much happier if we are gone altogether than if we are home and they can't get to us.
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Permalink Reply by Jane Christensen on
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Yes Bev...I tend to forget the nose under the door especially when I'm trying to take a relaxing bath and there's more than one on the other side!
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Permalink Reply by Carla on
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We, like Beth, have a "no-puppy upstairs" rule. Our upstairs is carpeted, while our main floor is not, which is the easiest thing for puppy training (for some reason when we got her, she seemed to think that carpet=pee time; if we brought her downstairs, which is also carpeted and she is allowed to go, she would immediately pee on the carpet...we're working on this now).
Sometimes I'll bring her crate upstairs with me so she can lay in the room while I'm working on my computer, but I'm trying to slowly wean her off me being around all the time so-to-speak. She's been fortunate that I worked from home (I'm an MA student doing my thesis from home) for the past 6 months of her life, so I've been home all day with her. Sometime in the next few months I will be graduating and looking for a full-time job outside our home. I'm slowly trying to accustom her to: a) holding her bladder for a full-day; and b) spending a full-day alone. Up to this point, I've been able to give her exercise, attention and potty-breaks at regular intervals and whenever she needed. Now she needs to learn how to spend the day busing herself. This is the unfortunate, but realistic situation I'm sure many dog owners find themselves in. Thus why she is downstairs while I am upstairs.
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Yes, if you are working on your thesis I agree she needs to learn to stay away. This is the toughest age; they really think they know best about everything around that time!
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Permalink Reply by Joanna Kimball on
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If she has a few months to be with you, why not give her those few months? I really don't think there's any benefit to making her live without you when you're right upstairs.
I've read a lot of your posts and I can see how committed you are to being a good dog owner, but I also see that you're relying a LOT on hard-and-fast rules and NILIF and lots and lots of "don'ts." Cardis are not dogs that generally need a lot of meta-messages about who's in charge, they learn to obey pretty much instantly, and they really, really need their people. And you need to enjoy your dog, not worry about whether she's obeying you all the time. Living with a Cardi should be 98% joy and 2% rules, not the other way around.
Cardis seem to do better with a Rugaas-type approach; they're not Akitas or a breed that needs a lot of squashing.
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While I'm not graduating for several months, depending on how several interviews I have had/do have lined up, I may be starting to work full-time as soon as two weeks from now. It seems both short-sighted and terribly unfair to allow Casey to continue on with our routine as usual for the next 2 weeks, only to suddenly and without preparation have to hold her bladder for a full day and spend the entire day alone.
If trying to ensure my dog's comfort, safety and well-being makes my joyless, then I guess I'm joyless.
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Permalink Reply by Sam Tsang on
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Hey Carla, we had a similar arrangement years ago, when we first got Mocha and Vienna, we both had to work long hours, I was working on my masters and working full time , my wife was launching her own company from home. We lived in a condo and upstairs was straightly for business only, no dogs allowed period. It was hard on Silvia because it was her first dog ownership experience and she felt guilty for "leaving" the pups because they were young, we kept them downstairs in the kitchen in the play pen and crate during business hours. It was very important that we kept them away because we had to focus on business and studies during those hours, one thing that I found very useful was exercise, we always go for a long walk (45 min) before we put them in the pen / crate, it tires them out, yes, they might whine a bit or do something to make you come downstairs, but they eventually get used to it, they have learn to adapt and that daddy and mummy gotta study and work. Most pet owners have a day job and are not at home for 8 + hrs, so teaching my pups to be on their own was very important to us.
8 months is an interesting age, they are not quite potty trained ( they got the idea, but not perfected) and somewhat rebellious, but you'll get there. Writing thesis was probably one of the most stressful stage of my master program, but you're almost there, focus on your goal and go for it, Casey won't hold it against you :)
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I'm with Sam completely on this one. I never finished my master's (barely started it in fact), but I remember when my sister did her Master's in English; by the end of her thesis she was about ready to pop. It's a very time-consuming thing, and your pup probably isn't half as distressed by being confined as she pretends to be.
At 8 months, most pups still can't be trusted unless carefully supervised, and you can't very well keep an eye on her while you're working, and I'm not a big fan of carting a crate around wherever I go just to keep doggie with me (we made an exception after Maddie got spayed and moved the crate into the living room, but that was only because she was being crated almost all the time except for walks). She will get over it, and she'll learn to adjust.
If I am off work, I will sometimes spend a couple hours upstairs working and the dogs are just fine being downstairs. They get used to it. Jack went through a phase where he'd run up after us every time, but we were able to break him of the habit.
You are clearly a dedicated and caring Corgi owner. She'll be fine. Good luck with your thesis!
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Permalink Reply by Scott Wiley on
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Joanna you are completely right. Corgis like to be with their "masters". They do not like being left alone some times. They are such devoted dogs they want to be with their humans when possible. If our dogs are all outside in the yard and they see one of us looking at them through the window they all run for the door and want in with us. We might end up with four dogs on the bed with us on any given night. I will usually have at least one dog with me at all times no matter what I do and if you lock them up it had better be in a dog proof area. Even right now I have three Corgis at my feet waiting to see if I am going to go back outside or do anything fun. They want to be with us and we will take them with us where ever we go. Remember. you can tell a Corgi owner from the fact they have a Furminator and lint rollers in their care and If you look close, there is a pair of antennae ears sticking up in the seat.
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My corgis certainly throw and catch their toys so I also think this is what could have happened!
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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Markley on
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I used to put baby gates up to pen Seanna in the hallway while we were gone when she was a puppy. We would come home to find them pushed over, then when she got older they were still up but she had escaped every time. So we started kenneling her like we did when she was way younger--don't get a soft sided one. She chewed out of that. So we went to a hard sided one, where she hasn't escaped from yet. Funny, 'cause each time she got out she didn't do any damage, probably just went and sat on the couch. I think it was a matter of the minds. It was her saying "HA! I'm smarter than you!". It's the intelligent challenge of the game. We are playing that game now trying to get her to take her meds.
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Permalink Reply by Alice on
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When Finn was little we put him in a pen when we weren't home and he'd always destroy the newspaper and pee everywhere and I could tell he was jumping at the gate because it would end up on the opposite end of the kitchen. His potty training didn't seem to be progressing this way either so we decided he should be in his crate when we were not home instead. He already slept in his crate in our room at night and had never had an accident in it and was so well behaved when crated. Once we switched to this option during the day we could see a difference. When I'd come home from work he was just laying in his crate, very calm and relaxed. When we were home I would just block him in whatever room I was in so I could watch him that way I could catch him if he did decide to pee and he got to spend time with me. If I couldn't watch him for some reason he'd go back in the crate. At that age I think we were taking him out every 3-4 hours to potty so I never left him for longer than that (except for during the night when he'd hold it without a problem). Sometimes Finn would whine if I crated him while we were home but I'd give him a verbal correction then once he was quiet for a minute I go in and give him a small treat and praise him. He quickly got past whining just because he knew we were there.
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