Puppy broke out of her overnight crate and just… chilled unsupervised

[funktionz]

@jwyattharp My pup has also been good since the beginning. She has never destroyed anything unsupervised and before she was potty trained she would only pee on the mat.

 

[pitcharan]

@jwyattharp My chocolate lab was similar and could sleep out of the crate from about 4 month sold. Cut to my yellow lab who is now 6-months: I tried leaving the crate door open the other night figuring that A. She's used to sleeping in her crate so will just zonk out there per usual B. She never wants to be too far from me so wouldn't get into too much trouble and C. Is a good sleeper so will just ya know...go to bed. Instead she immediately left my room. I gave her a few minutes but had to go searching for her. Found her in the dark basement all by her onesies seizing the opportunity to eat cat poop without my bossy self tripping her up.

 

[jwyattharp]

@pitcharan Hahaha, labs are a whole other deal

Even with my dachshund I had to close a few doors and take out all the wires and charges from her reach, but she was chill. But Aurora is just really different, she never even chewed any of the chargers or cords. I started to put them all away, one day I forgot and thought they would be ruined, nope, not a single bite. Then I started leaving them and still, all ok. She’d rather play with the stuffing from her toys, that’s usually her mission for every day: rip up the plushies to get the stuffing. I’ve been honing my seamstress skills so far by fixing them all up hahahah

 

[brokenjoker]

@jwyattharp My puppy is destructive. The worst I’ve ever had. I’ve never had to throw away furniture because of a puppy. Well I threw away a wooden tv table at 3 months. He had chewed a leg off a tv table. I have two chairs and a loveseat which will be trashed in a year or so. He has chewed the upholstery. if replaced now, he will just destroy the new ones. I am not sure there is a single piece of furniture left in my open concept kitchen and living room that Giancarlo hasn’t chewed on.

 

[jwyattharp]

@brokenjoker That’s tough! I had a labrador that was like that hahaah, back then I didn’t know half of what I know now, but one thing that I still have trouble with is to get my mind off of things and restart. Even now, Aurora gets up super rambunctious because yaaay, new day! And she barks and runs in front of me, I’m not a morning person, and she learned not to wake me up, but I’m still cranky. I have to literally step out (be it in the bathroom or balcony hahaha) and take a few deep breaths and try to tone out the noise. No one will die if I take 5 minutes without looking. Then I try to “recenter” myself and get back with a smile and even if I have to tell her to tone down I try to do so in a calm voice, but serious (not mad) face. Sometimes I catch myself angry at the world and honestly it’s just because I haven’t taken a deep breath and looked at the sky or something, and it’s hard when you’ve had a puppy barking non stop for 20 min, a dog peeing outside the puppy pad and another dog that has a physical injury trying to jump on your knees asking for food. But me being angry and distracted only makes them worse, so once I get back to normal they are much more willing to obey me and follow my cues.

Also, something that helped me to get Aurora to actually use her chew toys was getting those wet food varieties of her own kibble, spread something on the chew toys and put it in the freezer. She didn’t stay there licking them for long, but I did this a few times and it was enough for her to pick them up on her own. But I only did it with the kong chew ones, those are the crazy indestructible ones that last more than a week (so far she was only able to make a scratch in a normal kong for puppies, but the ones I use are green and blue and only for chewing and not for filling). And sniff mats, loooots of it. Dog going crazy? Sniff mat, still crazy? A little bit more? Still crazy, wait 30 min, no sleep? More! And we keep at it hahaah.

 

[bkchristian]

@ecaush If we didn't have another dog and cats I would 100% let our 6 month old girl sleep outside of her crate. I'm worried about her bugging our other dog in the middle of the night or chasing the cats. She LOVES sleeping on the couch and does so all day unsurprised while my husband works in his office.

 

[ckaf]

@ecaush Our first dog broke out of the crate during the day and just chilled. 3 months old, a couple puddles, no poop. Just chilled. Next day, same thing, no pee, no poop. So we just closed every door in the house and she just been chillin since

 

[ecaush]

@ckaf That’s great, even more so for such a young pup!

 

[allied_spice]

@ecaush This happened to me twice. I searched my apartment up and down looking for accidents. I was so proud to find nothing. Keep it up!

 

[barbraa]

@ecaush My little monster would cry and scratch at his crate door to get out. One night he figured out how to open it, but he didn't even leave the crate lol. He just hung out in there with the door open

 

[adkchappy]

@ecaush I recently had a similar realization. My 5mo lab mix absolutely hated being locked in the crate. Doesn’t hate the crate when he chooses to go in, still sleeps there,but would freak when we closed it. I finally said to my partner that I wasn’t going to lock the crate and see how he did. Little dude didn’t cry, bark, potty, nothing. Turns out he just hated being locked. It’s such a relief seeing them grow up but I’ll miss him being a little dingus

 

[bethaven]

@ecaush When I moved to a new place, I had to put the lab puppy (at the time 3.5ish months old) in her crate while I grabbed something from the grocery store. Was gone for probably 30 mins. Came back and she was sitting by the door to the patio. I must’ve accidentally not locked the door to the crate. I stood there in shock for like a minute before I started carefully inspecting every inch of the place. Didn’t do any damage or anything whatsoever other than I assume walk around and lay by the floor mat. Now at 5 months I let her free roam a smaller living room area that’s puppy proofed and monitor on the Furbo camera.

 

[ecaush]

@bethaven That’s great! Since then I’ve also started giving her more freedom, for example leaving her unsupervised in the living room while I work upstairs, with a Wyze cam so we can keep an eye on her. And surprise: so far she mostly slept and played by herself! She did start to chew the carpet at some point (which she knows very well is not allowed) so I wouldn’t leave her with no supervision at all (like leaving the house), but it’s still a big improvement from a few weeks ago.

 

[bethaven]

Side note: she has never displayed any tendency to shred anything or destroy stuff so the only thing I really have to seriously monitor is her trying to eat tiny bite sized things.

 

[ferrick]

@ecaush Came from the singleton post to see your baby. She's darling!!!

 

[ecaush]

@ferrick Aww thanks!