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 Sam Tsang on
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Our corgis are known to swing their toys in the air and try to catch it themselves :)
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Permalink Reply by Tauna and Kota on
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My mom's doxies do this all the time
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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Hi Carla. Corgis are funny little dogs, aren't they?
I don't know for sure what is going on in her head, but when Jack was around that age, the minute we'd let him out of his pen he'd start dragging all his possessions into the living room. He'd bring his toys, then he'd drag his towels. It was like he was saying "I'm in here now, so I want all my stuff!" He wasn't an escape artist, thankfully, but he did like to drag all his stuff out of that pen the first second he had. It makes sense that if Casey thought she was headed elsewhere, she wanted to take her treat with her!
All dogs are different and some are truly content being confined, but others aren't. Jack was very well crate-trained and would stay in crate or pen as long as we needed him to but clearly was happier being out and still does not appreciate being locked up. At that age, they are sort of like 13 year old kids who say "Aw, ma, do I really need a baby sitter???" In other words, they are not to be trusted on their own but they THINK they should be. It sounds to me like she simply wants more freedom (and probably isn't ready for it) and is just trying to take her stuff with her when she goes. If I give Jack a big treat like a Dentastix in his crate, he will frequently just hang out in there with the treat in his mouth til I let him loose, and then he takes it into the living room to eat it there. Not sure why; I guess he just has it in his head that he wants to eat it in the living room/
The bad news is that she can of course hurt herself if she keeps trying to escape, so you might end up needing to find another way to confine her if you can't make her happy in there.
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Permalink Reply by Carla on
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She had more space before (a few months ago), but has recently been proving herself to be untrustworthy, so her space has been limited again due to that fact (we had some bathroom and chewing related incidents). Do you think dogs can remember something like that (that they had more space before, and are now limited again) and have that affect them, or am I over thinking things?
I guess it makes sense that if she was "getting outa here" she would take her treat with her. I just don't understand why she would try to leave (the point of giving her the treat was that she was being confined and I wanted to give her something to do). There's nothing special outside of the pen (our main floor is really just like a slightly bigger pen anyway). She’s probably not really thinking that far in advance, however.
We're definitely aware that she can hurt herself. We've recently begun lining dining room chairs up around the edge of the pen to discourage her jumping (two sides of the pen are in the corner and thus up against a wall; the other two sides are lined with the backs of dining room chairs). She also has a crate, but I was hoping that this would be a better alternative to crating her when I can't supervise. At least this way she can stretch out and move around a bit more than in her crate. Sometimes I just wish I could sit her down and explain to her that until she's trustworthy, it's the pen or the crate so she understands that I'm trying to help her and give her a more comfortable area to relax in while I'm away/upstairs!
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I don't know so much if they can think a complex thought such as "I used to be loose and now I'm not" so much as once they are loose a lot, they have different habits and they like to keep those habits. The fact that you were home and upstairs may have been a factor; mine are ok being confined when no one is home, but if they hear us in the house they want to be around.
Have you tried spreading a little bit of peanut butter or cream cheese in the kong instead of a hard treat? The licking seems to occupy them better (I think they may even find it soothing) and mine are more prone to try to carry away a hard treat; with peanut butter smeared on something they are more likely to stay right where they are. Peanut butter on a kong is my standby and what I use if I want to distract one (say, if we are taking one dog in the car and the other is staying behind and I don't want the one being left to get upset by our departure). It seems to captivate them and they ignore everything else around them.
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Permalink Reply by John Wolff on
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If a dog can connect an action with its consequence, I doubt it'd remember it for long. I've read that isolation as punishment should be used only as kind of a "nuclear option", and never for more than 4 min. or so, and always kiss & make up afterwards.
If she needs to be confined or restricted, how about putting her crate inside the pen, door open? The crate is supposed to be her refuge.
We used to crate the dogs, doors closed, when we were gone from the house, but once we came to trust them not to chew through wires and such, we've left the crate doors open, they come and go freely. Note: there is some danger in this; you've gotta puppy-proof the house, keep all garbage inaccessible and get in the habit of cutting holes in the bottom of snack bags -- we came home once to find Siri with her head stuck in a potato-chip bag, utterly panicked but at least not asphyxiated.
What about a second crate, upstairs? Then she could be closer to you while you're upstairs. We got a second, collapsible crate for Siri so that she could sleep in the bedroom, and it was only a matter of time before we figured out that we wanted the dogs on the bed.
But if she's a pup, you might not want her doing a lot of down-stairs anyway until she's over a year old if you do relax the "no upstairs" rule.
Nowadays, the only time we close a crate door is to protect the vacuum cleaner. :)
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I was leaving her crate in the pen area, but she started making a project of chewing on the plastic ridge around the middle of it. She was taking HUGE chunks of plastic off of the rim and I was afraid she would eat these shards of plastic and cause digestive problems. I put hot sauce on the ridge, which she did not like, but then she just starting chewing on the plastic elsewhere (such as at the entrance, as well as the metal door). Unfortunately, I can't hot sauce the entire entryway/door to her crate, and that didn't seem like the best solution. So I took the crate out, and put in a fabric dog bed which she can chew on to her hearts content without causing any health problems.
As I mentioned, I just feel bad for crating her for so long. The pen seemed like a better option for her, because she can have more space to move around in than her crate, and she can stretch out to sleep (she doesn't like to curl up and sleep, she's gotta stretch all the way out).
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Permalink Reply by Bev Levy on
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I know children go through a stage where they put their toys where they want to go. Such as dropping their toy over the side of a barrier or out of the high chair. I figure a corgi is at least as smart as a 1 year old! Buffy never tried to escape anything but Sparty and especially Izzy would work to escape everything. Just because! I also recommend cheese or peanut butter smeared in a Kong to occupy her a little longer. Also, when they are young it really helps to tire them out before confining them. I know it is difficult but a 30 to 45 minute walk will really help.
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You know, I've tried to tape her doing stuff, but as soon as I put the camera on, she lays down and does nothing. Even if I try to be stealthy with the camera placement, she notices it and then will just lay there and stare at it until she falls asleep. It makes for the most boring videos ever. lol.
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Permalink Reply by Denise Hawkins on
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Our corgi's have always tossed treats in the air and played like that for a while, they can get them fairly high too. We also had one that was a real houdini and could scale things we thought he was too small for.
I would think she tossed it really high and it bounced over the side of the pen.
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Permalink Reply by Joanna Kimball on
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Is there a reason she can't come upstairs with you? It sounds like your main floor is not where you do most of your living, and she really wants to be with you. The whole question won't need to be asked if she can be up with you. She's also unlikely to have accidents or chew if she's in the same room with you.
Right now there are four dogs sleeping on various surfaces around me; the nine-month-old puppy is sacked out on the couch. She can't be left completely out and unsupervised when I'm asleep, so when I go to bed I'll ask her to go in her crate or I'll bring her in the bedroom with me to sleep. The adults (except the terrier, who has to be crated) will stay out in the living room. Because I'm here with them, they're relaxed and sleeping. If I told one of them go to into another room and stay there when we (humans) were clearly doing our thing (TV, reading, etc.) out here, they'd be frantic and would be much more likely to misbehave.
Remember that to a dog, being alone means being in danger. They are creatures who see themselves entirely in community, and proximity to their loved ones is very, very important. They can tolerate being alone if they feel safely contained (which is why crates are so great) and they can get through it if they are distracted enough with toys and chews and so on, but what you're doing is getting them through it or distracting them from it. It's never going to feel good or normal to them. So bring her upstairs and let her sleep at your feet while you're doing evening things; you should find that she's much less frantic to escape if she's had a lot of time with you.
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Closing a door on my Sparty will result in his nose being stuck under the door and a series of little woofs until I give in and open it! He has trained me well. I also think corgis (as herding dogs ) want us where they can keep an eye on us. Mine also follow me from room to room.
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