
Home Alone
  • jarvizjarviz
    Posts: 69
    What kind of mischief does your shiba get into when you leave them at home for extended hours?

    Mine stays busy with her kong for about 30 minutes then sleeps for a few good hours, gets into the trash bin under my desk and chews up whatever's there, and gets back onto my bed till I get home.

    I've been filling that garbage bin up with tissue, paper, and her toys now.
    Post edited by jarviz at 2015-01-12 13:00:13
  • ironmbironmb
    Posts: 10
    Mine literally gets on top of my computer desk, gets into the restroom trash can, and tears up whatever she can. I'll know she did something too because usually when I come home she greets me at the door all happy, but if she did something wrong she'll hide under my bed until i find it.
  • Moxy spends most of the time sleeping either on our bed or in the kitchen. He is a pretty good boy. The worst thing he does is he might have a potty accident somewhere.

    PJ (Corgi) however, she will get into ANYTHING that might have food in it or smell like food. A couple of weeks ago I came home to a bag of Timothy Hay ripped apart in my living room and in the other room, a bag of cat litter (its corn based, so its food!) I can tell when its PJ, and its always PJ. PJ will be hard to find if she did something wrong. She hides.

    Tang is 6 months. I have zero trust leaving him alone, so he goes into a kennel when we can't watch him.
  • My little boy Quake is a very good boy. He spends his time sleeping either in his little bed which is in my bedroom, sleeping under my bed or on his self-warming mat on the wood floor in my bedroom. I leave him some toys to play with and he has access to my bedroom the hall entryway and the kitchen. I make sure not to leave any trash cans that he could be tempted to get into. I also leave some soothing music for him such as "Through a Dog's Ear" or "The Divinity of Dogs". Lately I have also been playing the same music for him that I use for my meditations and he seems to like it.
  • BootzBootz
    Posts: 3495
    I'm confused... Why do you guys give your shiba free roam if they are destructive?

    My two girls sleep when I'm not home. They have free access our bedroom which connects to our bathroom since it's the master bedroom.
  • @Bootz Mine don't have total free roam. There is a gate at the bottom of the stairs, so they don't go up. The upstairs hallway becomes a bathroom if they go up there. So its always closed off. They have free roam of the rest of the house. The reason is, we don't have space for 2-3 large kennels anywhere and the doorways are so wide, gates don't work for all rooms. 95% of the time, everyone is fine and nothing goes wrong. Its usually our fault when something happens. Forget to let them outside before leaving the house or leave a bag of trash or dog food within dog reach.
  • JuniJuni
    Posts: 1269
    Actually Juni has never done anything naughty home alone. I think the worst she ever did as a puppy was to pull out some socks from a half open drawer and left them on the floor.
    She doesn't steal edibles if left on the counter or table either.
    I think if we get another puppy we are in for a shock.
  • RikkaRikka
    Posts: 1501
    Sagan doesn't. He naps or occasionally chews on a bully stick I provide for him before I leave.
  • Kit_Keet_Kit_Keet_
    Posts: 206
    Kit rarely does anything mischievous when she's left home alone. The exception is when food is left readily accessible (and who can blame her for that!) The most recent issue was 100% my fault and I didn't even think about it. I threw a baby shower for my friend, and had the bag with some of the decorations and stuff sitting on the kitchen floor. I came home from work to find little blue "baby boy" wrappers in a trail from the kitchen to the living room with a pile of them on the living room rug. Sasspants pulled out every single buttermint from the bag, unwrapped and ate each one! My fault for leaving treats on the floor; I didn't even remember that they were in the bag.
  • ironmbironmb
    Posts: 10
    I wouldn't say "Destructive" to be the same as tearing up some toilet paper. My dog tries to find food in trash areas and sometimes will tear up some toilet paper. Destructive IMO is considered to be ripping up furniture and tearing up things that aren't able to be cleaned up. No point in keeping my dog cooped up in a kennel for hours upon hours. If i forget to close the bathroom door, then that's my fault.
  • Klaus use to be destructive as a puppy. He enjoyed chewing on my carpet, tables, chairs, couch, etc., so he was always crated when we went out. We have started to give him more trust as he has seemed to pass that stage and now is quite good when we are gone. The most he has torn up in a while was a piece of paper towel we left out and the cat knocked on to the floor.
  • We leave Nym in an expen in the hallway with a camera on it. So even though I can't be with her I can see her... She chews on toys and sleeps mostly. We keep her in the expen not because we don't trust her... we don't trust us to not have everything picked up and away from her tiny little paw/mouth reach.

    We've only let her have open range once or twice when we're gone for 20 mins max. We tried keeping her in the kitchen with a gate to keep her from having full range, but the clever little thing figured out how to open the gate.

  • If we are going to be gone for a few hours, Zuki stays inside and gets the roam of the house. He has never been destructive.

    We built a kennel in the garage that has a dog door to a run outside. He will go out there when we are going to be gone longer. The garage is heated and we also have a infrared heater in the top of his kennel. We have cameras in the garage and out in the run. He usually just sleeps all day.
  • jarvizjarviz
    Posts: 69
    @larryeliz how do i get my dog to just sleep all day haha
  • ObizaObiza
    Posts: 69
    Rusty is generally good when left alone in the house. If it’s over 5 hours such as on workdays he actually has a garage setup with a dog door to the yard like @larryeliz. So far he’s taken some crushed soda cans out of our bucket in the garage and started to empty a bucket that had brackets in it (he was convinced something was inside that bucket so we finally had to put it in our shed). If he’s inside he’ll find a place to nap on the main level and then run to the door the moment he hears the garage door open. If we’re staying at a friend/families place he finds the most comfortable bed that’s accessible and lays on it like a turd because he knows he’s not allowed on ours! :P

    I thought he was a good behaved angel until today. My husband usually takes Rusty outside and feeds him and then comes back upstairs to shower in the morning. So Rusty will eat and then follow him back up and sleep in his dog bed in our bedroom until I wake up to walk him and put him in the garage and leave for work. However my husband has been leaving earlier this week so instead he’s gone straight to shower and then takes him out/feeds him and leaves right away. So Rusty has no incentive to come back upstairs. Our floorboards aren’t insulated so sound travels pretty good in the house. I could hear the rustling of a plastic bag and sure enough there he was in the kitchen. The garbage drawer pulled out and trash all over the floor. (We are partly at fault - we forgot to take it out last night and it had roast fat/juice in it so I’m sure it smelled really yummy to him). But we’ve had it sitting open with meat scraps in it before and he won’t touch it because he knows we’re right around the corner on the couch. The stinker thought I was either gone or so deeply in sleep I’d never know! Dogs sure do keep us on our toes.

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