Hi y'all!

Kingsley is about 14 months old now and has never been left home alone for longer than 5 hours. Every time we leave him, he's crated, and he does fine. No complaints from my neighbors or anything.

Husband is leaving town for a week and a half (or so) and I really want to avoid paying $20/day for 5 days then switch to $30/day + night for 5 days when I join him in NYC. The total cost would be $250.

I leave for work at 6:45am and then get home at 3:45pm for a total of 9 hours away.  I'd hate to keep him in his crate, though, you know? Even though he typically doesn't wake up until close to noon, and then naps on and off all day. I feel bad. Poor guy.

I'm thinking about leaving him in the kitchen. He'd have a lot more space and have access to his water bowl. I can move his crate down there so he can have his little space to sleep in there if he chooses to.

I could also leave him in the mud room. The front door is a window, so he'd do well just staring outside all day (the way he does when we're home sometimes). But there is just too much for him to chew in there, including carpet, shoes, and a motorcycle. Maybe if I have time before Monday I can clean out the room and make it dog proof? I don't know.

Do any of you have experience with leaving your husky at home for that duration of time? Should I be as anxiety-ridden as I currently am?

Here's a picture just so this isn't all text only.

Any chance you can get up early enough to give him good, long, vigorous walk? Then, maybe you can crate him for the day, when you get home, take him to the dog park for a good romp (Ithaca dog park is huge!). You could also cover the crate to simulate darkness to promote sleep (as long as he won't get too hot.)

Or, as we used to do (this was 40 years ago with my first husky - a holy terror hell bent on death and destruction) - have a totally husky proof area (no cupboards she could get into, no medications, cleaners, chemicals, electric wires etc, etc, etc) - then, we would leave a baited trash barrel for her to destroy (cereal boxes, newspaper, chewies, tuggies and anything else with dog appeal but safe - an empty tuna can with lid only partially removed is NOT safe - a very funny, expensive but ultimately no big deal stuck on her snout). After "destroying" and strewing everything in her trash "gift" she would just sleep until we returned.

Perhaps you or maybe a friend can take him for mid-day walk?

Just thoughts - I read that many people leave dogs crated for full work day with no problems.

Solution! A coworker of mine that comes in at 11am has volunteered to leave for work early and stop by my place to let him out of the crate, feed him breakfast/lunch, take him outside, and then move him to the kitchen. I'm going to *try* to set up a ustream (live stream from my computer) of him tomorrow. They offer a free 30-day trial otherwise it's $99/month (f that). EEEEE FRIENDS!

amymeme wrote:

Any chance you can get up early enough to give him good, long, vigorous walk?  Then, maybe you can crate him for the day, when you get home, take him to the dog park for a good romp (Ithaca dog park is huge!).  You could also cover the crate to simulate darkness to promote sleep (as long as he won't get too hot.)

Or, as we used to do (this was 40 years ago with my first husky - a holy terror hell bent on death and destruction) - have a totally husky proof area (no cupboards she could get into, no medications, cleaners, chemicals, electric wires etc, etc, etc) - then, we would leave a baited trash barrel for her to destroy (cereal boxes, newspaper, chewies, tuggies and anything else with dog appeal but safe - an empty tuna can with lid only partially removed is NOT safe - a very funny, expensive but ultimately no big deal stuck on her snout).  After "destroying" and strewing everything in her trash "gift" she would just sleep until we returned.

Perhaps you or maybe a friend can take him for mid-day walk?

Just thoughts - I read that many people leave dogs crated for full work day with no problems.

Would this not encourage the dog to perform this type of behaviour more often if you're letting it get away with it as it's a "gift" ?

One would think, but Sasha was such a brat (in retrospect, I suspect she had separation anxiety) for so long that we did this in self-defense. It seemed to work - I found out one day by coming back to get my purse that she did all her naughties in the first few minutes and then went to sleep. By leaving a trash bucket with paper things, we prevented the mess of garbage strewn, she dumped it to say "how dare you leave me" and all was good. This was 40 years ago - I'm not sure crates were widely used in those days.

Ustream is free. The pro account costs $ but the have a free option. I use it for Dizzy when he has to be home alone all day.

Good you found another solution! All I know is I regretted trusting my first two dogs until about 2. They would be good for days and then I would come home to missing basement stairs one day. True story. Crating just saves the headache. Also is you give more freedom I woild start with small timeframes.

wpskier222 wrote:

Ustream is free. The pro account costs $ but the have a free option. I use it for Dizzy when he has to be home alone all day.

seriously? how do you set it up? do you have your home computer just on all day and then you watch him from your phone/work?