Reply to Did your busy dog ever outgrow needing a crate when home alone?

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[quote=Anonymous]Our previous rescue was a pretty anxious, busy dog, but we found out that he did totally fine home alone if he had access to our bed and could just nap on our pillows while we were away. He probably had confinement anxiety and only light separation anxiety.

Our new rescue is a very smart, busy dog who we have to crate when we're not home. He's a herding/hunting mix, so we shouldn't be surprised. Left to his own devices, he will find infinite ways to entertain himself, including successful experiments with unlocking doors. I don't know if he actually wanted to escape or just sees the deadbolt as one more puzzle to solve. We are in a small, open-layout house, and we don't have a space like a mudroom or a laundry room where we could create a safe space for him.

Anyway, we're fine crating him, but it means that we don't leave him long because it seems cruel to do it for stretches longer than 2-3 hours and he definitely gets up to antics in his crate with interesting puzzles, safe treats, and safe toys. We give him a great mix of sniffing time, exercise, play, and work when he is not in his crate, and worked hard to find the balance between tired and exhausted (like a toddler, he behaves badly when he is overtired). We also had to put extra locks on his crate, because he figured out how to unlock it from the inside- I'm pretty stressed about what would happen in a fire or other dangerous situation, but the risks he poses to himself uncrated are far more tangible.

He's 18 months old. It's been so longer since I had a younger dog (our old dog died at 14!). Do dogs who require this kind of containment and supervision grow out of this, or should we get used to it? [/quote]

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