Every weekday, everyone in my house goes out to work or school. Everyone is gone by 8:30 AM, and no one is home until about 4:30 PM. This leaves our pets without us for a whole 8 hours.
We have four pets, but three of them are completely fine without us at home. What I'm asking about is our fourth pet, a 1-year-old dog (I believe she's a black lab). She is very high-energy. When you leave her for more than 10 minutes and then come back, she will actively jump on top of you and playfully nibble at your hands. She also gets very distressed whenever she's left alone for an extended period of time. In fact, she's broken or chewed up a lot of things of ours when she was left home alone for a few hours. Some of these items include the power cable to our cable box, multiple pillows, and even her own cage.
Which brings me to my next point: my mother has resorted to getting her a cage (about 1.5 by 0.75 meters), putting the cage in our garage, and leaving her in there for the day. The worst parts are, she only gets a water bowl, the lights in the garage are shut off entirely when we aren't home, and during the cold days, she doesn't even get a blanket or anything.
I absolutely hate having her in there, especially for so long, but I can't really do much. I've let her out and let her stay with me in my room during the days I was the only one at home, but always kept freaking out and jumping all over me, even when I needed her not to. I don't want her in there like that, but I physically can't have her in the main house. The hard part for me is when I keep her in there when I'm home, I can hear her barking and crying for at least an hour or two. It breaks my heart. I'm just looking for advice on some sort of solution I can come to to at least not have her in such misery.
We have four pets, but three of them are completely fine without us at home. What I'm asking about is our fourth pet, a 1-year-old dog (I believe she's a black lab). She is very high-energy. When you leave her for more than 10 minutes and then come back, she will actively jump on top of you and playfully nibble at your hands. She also gets very distressed whenever she's left alone for an extended period of time. In fact, she's broken or chewed up a lot of things of ours when she was left home alone for a few hours. Some of these items include the power cable to our cable box, multiple pillows, and even her own cage.
Which brings me to my next point: my mother has resorted to getting her a cage (about 1.5 by 0.75 meters), putting the cage in our garage, and leaving her in there for the day. The worst parts are, she only gets a water bowl, the lights in the garage are shut off entirely when we aren't home, and during the cold days, she doesn't even get a blanket or anything.
I absolutely hate having her in there, especially for so long, but I can't really do much. I've let her out and let her stay with me in my room during the days I was the only one at home, but always kept freaking out and jumping all over me, even when I needed her not to. I don't want her in there like that, but I physically can't have her in the main house. The hard part for me is when I keep her in there when I'm home, I can hear her barking and crying for at least an hour or two. It breaks my heart. I'm just looking for advice on some sort of solution I can come to to at least not have her in such misery.