When you leave for work, what do you do with your dog?

[Hugo]

I leave mine free in the house, but close all the doors to the rooms, otherwise he finds something to destroy and goes to town on it. :dead:

So he has free access to the kitchen/dining room, stairs and hallway.

What about you?

[Terri]

I'm very luck in that I work from home, I do a wee bit of bed and breakfast in the summer and the rest of the year I'm a kept woman ( at least that's what my husband tells me ), so my dogs are with me 24/7. I am also a very sad person in that if I need to go out I won't until someone is here to watch them :o. In her entire life Ailsa was only left in the house once and that was the night of my youngest daughters engagement party, I did though get my wee sister to bring her German shepherd dog to keep Ailsa company :lol:. I also missed my eldest daughters wedding, she got married in the states to an American a couple of years ago and I wouldn't trust anyone else to watch Ailsa, my oh went on his own. I actually got Abby as company for Arran so I could go out and leave them but seven weeks down the line I've not managed it yet.

Terri

[elaine2004]

Jewel was never a problem with being destructive or anything. But she was never alone, she had her big sister Tasha my mixed breed for company they were excellent together.:smile2: When Jewel passed Tasha now occasionally will have an accidentso we put items on the furniture and beds so she will not get on just in case. I also bought her senior diapers for pets but I found that these just encourageher to pee pee in the diapers.:eek2:
When the new Puppy comes she will be confined to certain rooms when we aren't home until she is house broken.:yes:

Elaine

[tehluhlah]

Smoke and Apollo stay together in the kitchen with a baby gate to keep them out of the rest of the house. They are both pretty young (1 year and 5 months) so they would be hard on the house if we let them roam the whole thing :wink2:

Apollo also can't hold it all day just yet so he needs to stay on the tile with his potty papers until he is a big boy.

[Chris]

We have a doggie door, so the girls can come and go as they please. Early on, we had a few tragic pillow incidents -- obviously Layla thinks pillow corners are aesthetically displeasing :lol: -- but now we're pretty safe. Once in a while, we come home to a TP Party, and the floor looks like Mardi Gras, but I can handle that!

[Scotland's Shelties]

Both my girls have free reign in the house, they are very seldom left alone at most two hours each week until I go shopping.

When I did work I could take the girls with me, that was the ideal situation.

Linda

[Sheltie Mom]

I have a 6 year old and a 3 year old Sheltie. They are both females and I leave them in the whole house when I am gone...The 3 year old I got from the Wisconsin Sheltie Rescue when she was a year old. Her former owners gave her up after a year because she chewed every leg of furniture in the house and also the wall paper on the wall. :smile2: Lisa Martin the founder of Wisconsin Sheltie Rescue went to the home and saw what Tiffany chewed. So when I got Tiffany I was prepared to leash her to my leg. I never did. But when I was gone and at night I caged her in the bedroom with me. After 6 months I started to trust her and left her out of the cage. To my surprise she NEVER EVER chewed anything in my home. She had plenty of toys and another Sheltie to be with. What a shame her first owners did not believe in cage training ...they gave her up instead. She is such a friendly Sheltie they sure missed the boat by giving her up and I am so lucky to have her.
Mae from Wisconsin with Tiffany and Maggie
:winkgrin:

[Snowy]

My Sheltie Snowy and the cats stay upstairs while we are gone (only two hours a day, since my husband and I work different shifts), and our
sheltie mix and cairn stay in the furnished downstairs, as they are a bit more...um...creative with their alone time, and there is less to tear up down there!



The worse that happened upstairs is when the cats unrolled all the paper towels onto the floor, and Snowy (a paper shredder) turned them into fluffy bits all over the house:rolleyes2:

[blacknblue]

I only work one day a week (weird, I know). They are baby gated in the kitchen on that day. If I am running errands they are in the kitchen or sometimes in my bedroom if I'm going to be gome less than an hour. We are working toward free run of the house, but they are just over a year now and not quite ready yet. My Border Collie is crated when I'm gone, he has proven to be a heavy chewer, but he's still very young too, so it won't be forever.

[Miss Sheltie]

Both of our girls were crate trained. As they got older, we began leaving them out longer and longer to see how they'd do. One girl is very responsible -- other than the infrequent wall-chewing, she's an angel, satisfied to bark at squirrels through the window.
Our other girl... well, she can be a handful. She's pretty good, but we have to close off the bathroom doors. I swear, as soon as she hears the garage door go up, she's heading for the bathroom trash to shred tissues. :mad::lol:

Fortunately my husband and I have alternating schedules, so they are never left unattended longer than an hour, two tops. And as long as they have their toys and chew sticks, they are fine unsupervised.

[Miss Sheltie]

The worse that happened upstairs is when the cats unrolled all the paper towels onto the floor, and Snowy (a paper shredder) turned them into fluffy bits all over the house:rolleyes2:

Our cat did the same thing for our little bear once! Its funny how the cats and dogs will conspire when left to themselves! :lol:

[mrssoup]

Darius is in his kennel because he isn't 100% potty trained quite yet. But my husband works only a couple blocks away and so he comes home for lunch to let him out. He has started leaving him out with full roam of the house after lunch. We also have a 5 year old mini schnauzer and she always has full roam and we think that she is keeping him in line. :lol:

[Linz583]

Luckily, I work at a vet's office so the boy gets to come with me (like it or not) when I go. If my husband is home, Gabe will stay with him since I work long hours (11 hour days Monday and Friday, 13 hours on Tuesday). Those long hours pay off in that I get Wednesday AND Thursday off and I'm free to spend plenty of QT with Gabe. If we're both out, he stays in his crate in the bedroom. We got him in November at 1 1/2 years of age and while at the moment he seems reliable with housetraining, he's had relapses before. Also, he likes to chew on inappropriate things when he's not supervised--drawer pull knobs, pillows, comforters, Mom's underwear.... So yeah, he's kept crated. :biggrin2:

[forthe luvofshelties]

My shelties have free roam now. Up until we got Jackson, Bella had to be crated anytime we left the house. However, now that she has a playmate she can be left out. I do shut my bedroom door, as my shoes fear her:lol: She has been known to eat shoes in the past, but no problems in a LONG time. Our shepherd stays outside when we leave, since he can get out of any crate we have ever tried, and will eat the blinds while we are gone. My yard is fenced in , so he hangs out there. I also work nights, so they are very rarely left home alone for very long.

[Calliesmom]

Callie and her mutt brother get to stay in the living room/kitchen area. They have a doggie door and Callie likes to spend a lot of time outside but they are both usually at the front door when I get home. They are actually a team in that mutt Happy will get high stuff down so Callie can go to town on it- Happy probably helps with that too.

[SandyLuv]

Usually, My sheltie Sandy is eather inside sleeping, or outside playing with her sister, Lacey (not a sheltie).

[Spak]

We crated Ginger when she was a puppy, but for the past nine years she's had the run of the house. She's never been a chewer, and never has accidents. She's rarely left alone for longer than four hours (my mother is in and out during the day, as she works a two-hour morning shift, two hours at lunch, and four hours after school at the elementary school just down the street), but we can trust her to stay home alone for up to ten hours if need be.

[chim41chim]

What I do when I go to work is put Luke in his crate or cage (he's got a nice big one) just so he'll stay out of trouble, give him his cuttle bone and a toy or two and leave the radio on so he'll hear voices.

When the weather's warmer, my husband and I will put his igloo out on the deck and lock the gate to the yard and he'll have lots of room to hang out (with his water dish, of course, lol), when we go to work. Of course, if the weather will be bad, we'll leave him in the crate or cage.

I'm looking forward to the time when we all can take him for walks on a regular basis.

Luke was born 01-28-07 and is sable and white--so pretty. :yes:

One of these days, I'll put a picture of him on this website. :rolleyes2:

[Luna]

Luna dislikes junk mail and magazines. She only shreds those items when she's mad because we've locked her in her room while we're out working or running errands.

[sreeja]

I usually keep him in my relatives house.They are taking care about him.He is so happy ti being there.If we are out for some hours then he will be in outside of the house by taking care of the house.

[Cheje-Lyn]

I had to choose other, since we have a multiple dog household. I don't work outside of our home, so the dogs are rarely alone, but when they are, Koty and Dreamer have free roam of the house or are put into the bedroom (like when I know we'll be carrying several things in when we return), and the girls are crated. They like to chew things, so they can't be left out at this point. The puppies, of course, are crated in a large X-Pen while we're gone.

[OntarioSheltie]

Right now Sadie is crated while we are at work, she is eight months old and not really old enough to be trusted out of her crate for the entire day.

That being said, we plan on leaving her out of her crate once she's a year old and have been conditioning her to do so. When we go out on weekends (from anywhere between 1-6 hours) we don't crate her and the house isn't destroyed when we get back.

I try and leave her things to occupy her, I put lots of toys out, give her a bone to chew on and some peanut butter in her Kong. I try not to let her see that I've put peanut butter in her Kong so that she finds it at some point after I've left.:cool:

[LuvMySable]

Jack stays in the kitchen when I have to go out. It's rare that he is alone for more than about 2 hours at a time. There is a tile floor and we put baby gates up. The room has been 'proofed' and is perfectly safe for him. He can get to his crate in the laundry room if he wants to. I think he just sleeps when I am gone!

"Shelties are Love"

[scottermac]

Marcus was kept in a crate until he was about 6 months, from 6 months to 18months I kept him in a play pen. From 18 months till about 2.5 years old, he was confined to the kitchen. At about 2.5 years old he figured out that he could jump over the baby gate. Since then he had access to most of the house.

[mcguiregirl2248]

All 3 of my girls go in their crates. Marlie can't be trusted, she likes to find things to chew on when she is bored. Zoe has the kidney issues and will sometimes have accidents so I don't want that happening on the couch. Rasha, I think would be ok but since the other two are crated it's only fair. They don't seem to mind and they know what time we leave everyday, they even put themselves in their crates before it's time. Dogs are so funny!:smile2:

[Cindy]

When Gavin was a puppy I put him in the kitchen with his crate behind a baby gate. As he got older, and understood the whole potty thing, the gate moved to give him space. He was pretty good about not pushing the gate over, but any strange noises (UPS man) and he would bust out. After he was a 10 months-year I gave up and let him roam. He still will chew up paper towels and toilet paper if he can find them, and his potty bags (if I leave one by the door).
Other than that he's pretty good. Accessible trash is always torn open (my fault, I know).

He gets lots of toys to keep him busy. He will carry my shoes around (and LICK them) so sometimes I fin them in his 'doggie den'. I often find my PJ bottoms
dragged around the house, too. I think he curls up next to them and licks them when I'm gone.

Cindy

[sablemable]

Sparky can be trusted to roam freely if left in the house, but Disco, who will start chewing everything in sight and Max, who will leave little "packages" about, have to be crated.

Our 2 late Shelties, Rusty and Taylor, could be left alone in the house. However, we caught heck from them when we returned. Rusty would literally throw himself at me and Bob and Taylor would circle us, barking angrily! :biggrin2: Taylor would also, when finished with his verbal reprimand, go to a remote corner, lay down with his back to us and grunt. :lol:

[Sheltie Mom]

My Shelties are free to roam the house when we are gone..When they were younger I caged Maggie till I knew she could be trusted. :biggrin2:And when we got Tiffany ( from the Wisconsin Sheltie Rescue ) we caged her when we were gone till we thought she could be trusted..she was a chewer in her first home but has never chewed here..( her first home did not believe in cage training. Instead they decided not to keep the Sheltie ) she is really a nice dog and they missed out on a lot of things. She is a great companion. Not a chewer here...and roams the house with Maggie when we are gone..:yes:
Sheltie Mom