Danielle had a good question that I have also been wondering, at what age can you start trusting your Husky to not destroy everything in your house while you are gone with out having to crate him or her? Ken and I tried "testing" Sierra (6) and Jack (1) one morning while we went to the gym might have been gone just over an hour, we closed all the doors up stairs and they had run of the living room and kitchen. We thought we picked up everything we thought they would eat and left. Well I had trouble opening the door when we got home and when I got it open my mouth just dropped! they found the bag of newspapers we keep in a bag to take to recycling and tore them all up, we had an empty cardboard box they destroyed, my orchid was knocked over the small cactus from the grand canyon was laying on the rug with dirt everywhere, the patio plant in the kitchen corner had a hole dug in the dirt, it was like a tornado went off in our house! It has been two months since that happened and im not sure when we can "trust" them again! we have a large opening to the kitchen so to but a gate up and leave them in there will not work cause the gate would have to be custom so that is out of the question, I know I should not "feel bad" about crating them but 7 hours seems so long, I would leave them outside in the dog run we have but we keep getting afternoon storms and I don't want them out in the rain surrounded by metal during a lighting storm, we have left them for a max of 4 hours in there and they had started trying to dig out. Any suggestions or pointers would be great.

Hmm... well, I would honestly say never! I know that sounds mean, but we tried it with Koda for a while and it was too much. He would just find things to get into.

However, I will say the experience of us coming home to a torn up house and getting angry with him, I THINK, made him appreciate his crate more because he's been awesome in there.

All I can suggest is to make "crate time" a great time (sorry ) by giving them a special treat while they are in there. I assume this is when you are at work? My suggestion would be to buy a few kongs (so you can rotate them) and give them a frozen peanut butter kong before you leave for work every day and leave them a water dish (or water bottle). Only give them a peanut butter kong when you leave for work (ie- leave them in the crate). This way they are occupied for a few hours, have water and see being in their crate as being a great wonderful time. I'd also leave a bone or two in there.

If they only get these awesome treats when you leave them in there and are not home, then they won't mind so much. Koda has learned and he's a year and a half now. You also have to make sure that when you do come home, they get lots of lovin' and exercise

Sorry if that isn't the most helpful advice, but I just don't think we'll ever trust Koda out of his crate and I know many owners don't.

Don't listen to Linzi, she is the exception

I have tried a toy like the Kong from wal-mart and they want nothing to do with it, I have never put anything inside it thought. They have water dishes and a blanket and a rawhide with them and they only get this one kind of dog bone treat when it is time to go into the cage. It is great every morning b4 I leave I go get the bones and they know and go right into their cage no fuss at all. I just feel bad they are in 2 separate crates and can’t interact the whole day, when we get home it is so funny they give us love and we give them love and then they attack each other with all there pent up energy. I have to tell them to “take it out side”! And they run out and start it all up again. I’m just so used to growing up with just leaving the dog hang around it just is weird to have to crate them but I know it is most likely safer that way for us all.

We tried Sioux at barely a year old...



After that he was crated. He still busted out of a cornered crate that was locked. I ended up shoving the crate at the end of a hallway blocked in on three sides with a treadmill and toolbox in front of it. Plus a 25 pound weight on top with 9 gauge fence wire reinforcing the welds. He still got out. So I came up with a plan (he was the first dog I had to learn things for, then we got four more).

I used my vacation time and worked on it for a week. Starting out, I would go through the routine as if I were leaving like any other day. Except I left him loose in the house. Drove the car a few blocks away and walked back. Then, spying through the windows, I waited for him to make a move. It didn't even take five minutes before he started clawing at cabinets. At this point I simply burst through the door with a loud "HEY!" and nothing else. Totally fried his brain. The first day I did this three times with a very short wait time. Then next day I did it twice, with the first round taking 30 minutes and the second taking 1.5 hours. You probably get where I'm going with this, by the end of the week he was up to seven hours without incident. Two hours more than I needed of him. Just be aware of line of sight and things on the ground outside the windows that would alert the dog to your presence. It was a boring week of hanging outside my own house, but it payed off. All of my dogs can stay inside without incident for up to eight hours. (Knock on wood, it's been over two years since I worked on the last dog.)

Im sorry but im laughing so hard right now just picturing you creeping around your house and busting in yelling! Im sure you neighbors were wondering what was going on! I’m sorry for the death of your sofa im glad we did not walk into something like that since we have just bout a new living room set in Nov. (b4 the dogs) did you do this with all your dogs or did they just learn to be good cause your oldest was behaving him self. Maybe I could hire you to creep around our place?

I've seen Victoria on "It's Me or the Dog" do something like that except it she normally uses a camera and microphone. And it did seem to help.

jbealer wrote:

...did you do this with all your dogs or did they just learn to be good cause your oldest was behaving him self.

Bubba and Coco required nothing. And Coco was an outside only dog when I adopted her. The rest got the "surprise, Dad!" treatment. I also thought ahead and told the neighbors what I was doing, lest one of them see some dark skinned guy lurking around this house.

jbealer wrote:

Maybe I could hire you to creep around our place?

¿How much were you thinking you would spend on a service such as this?

Well right now home dog trainers are looking for $500+ for life time training for just a few hours of training us to train the dogs and we can't afford that so I would think we could not afford you since we would at least have to pay you for the time you would be missing from work. I bet there are people out there that would pay it so I would put your name out there, instead of the dog whisper you could be the dog yeller!

Holy hell Harrise...they showed no mercy on that couch

¿THEY? It was just this guy...




jbealer: I don't "work" per se. More of a "stay at home" doggy dad.

How old is Sioux he has a build like our girl Sierra bet they would get along, Jack looks so skinny next to her. Where are you at in Co again? I bet being a doggie daddy is fun except when you have to do a list like you did today, not so much fun.

Oh Harrise Sioux is gorgeous.

I know you guys don't want to hear this but we have never had any trouble leaving Dino on his own at home - we have never left him for longer than about 2 - 3 hours anyway but he generally lays in the hallway and sleeps. The worst he has done is chew up some junk mail that came through the front door! Last Monday I popped to the shops for about 1/2 hour and left Dino and Ava together on their own for the first time and when I came home he was asleep in the hall and she was asleep at the top of the stairs. Hopefully this is the way things will carry on - and as I said we are fortunate that we don't have to leave them on their own for hours on end.

hi everybody me and thor are new here how is everybody

my dog thor has been left at home for 8 hours while i was at work probobly ten times in the last month and a half because normally i'm in the field and he will come with me but lately there is no field work, anyway

he has never bitten or destroyed anything IN my house but he is a verygood escape artist

on one occaision he figured out how to open the windows in my house (they are all the same) and about fifteen minutes after leaving my house my neighbor called and said thor was on her front lawn

another time he tore the doorframe off my front door( wich wasn't so bad i just nailed back up and now he knows that doesn't work and he hasn't done it again)

and yet another time i had hoped to leave the window in my second story room room open (to try and keep it cool) so i made sure the door to my room was closed, well all the interior doors in my house have lever type handles and now thor can open them with ease, i came home and he was perched on the windowsill with his paws hanging over the edge like a cat! (wich really had my heart racing)

other than these incidents he has been a perfect pup...

Welcome to the life of a Siberian Husky owner! Congrats You've been initiated into the club! Glad Thor is okay too I would have had a heart attack if I came home and saw Koda hanging out a window, second story or not.

harrise wrote:

We tried Sioux at barely a year old...



After that he was crated. He still busted out of a cornered crate that was locked. I ended up shoving the crate at the end of a hallway blocked in on three sides with a treadmill and toolbox in front of it. Plus a 25 pound weight on top with 9 gauge fence wire reinforcing the welds. He still got out. So I came up with a plan (he was the first dog I had to learn things for, then we got four more).

I used my vacation time and worked on it for a week. Starting out, I would go through the routine as if I were leaving like any other day. Except I left him loose in the house. Drove the car a few blocks away and walked back. Then, spying through the windows, I waited for him to make a move. It didn't even take five minutes before he started clawing at cabinets. At this point I simply burst through the door with a loud "HEY!" and nothing else. Totally fried his brain. The first day I did this three times with a very short wait time. Then next day I did it twice, with the first round taking 30 minutes and the second taking 1.5 hours. You probably get where I'm going with this, by the end of the week he was up to seven hours without incident. Two hours more than I needed of him. Just be aware of line of sight and things on the ground outside the windows that would alert the dog to your presence. It was a boring week of hanging outside my own house, but it payed off. All of my dogs can stay inside without incident for up to eight hours. (Knock on wood, it's been over two years since I worked on the last dog.)

Holy crap! Well, I think we all should call you the Dog Whisperer!

Haha my bad...from the looks of it I would of thought it was a pack

I left Sitka home alone when I first got him. I came home to $1,700 worth of damage. After that he got the kennel.

In the last half year he's been routinely out of the kennel while I'm gone. A couple times he's been alone for up to 10 hours and he just lays in the window and sleeps. But he's also calmed down quite a bit from when he was younger so I feel a bit more confident in him.

Quote :

I came home to $1,700 worth of damage

WOW.

Ruger wrote:

Quote :

I came home to $1,700 worth of damage

WOW.

Thanks so much honey for telling me to get a crate the day I got Gunny!

The Dentist wrote:

Ruger wrote:

Quote :

I came home to $1,700 worth of damage

WOW.

Thanks so much honey for telling me to get a crate the day I got Gunny!

I'm looking out for you!

Isabel has been crate-trained since day one and does great with it. Why change a good thing?

If curiousity is fatal to cats, it's like death on crack to Huskies. Sibes are entirely too smart for their (or my) own good at times. If left to their own, they are master escape artists, destroyer of all things sacred and valued, and deadly in the art of hunting (whether they are hunting a squirrel or a Smartwool sock.) That being said, they are an absolutely phenomenal breed that does great with plenty of interaction and good solid training. However, due to their nature, they should have defined boundaries. I find that Isabel thrives in these boundaries. Without boundaries (and this applies to all of us) we are accidents waiting to happen. Look at it like the painted lane markers on the road. Is it too much to ask oncoming traffic to stay in their lane?

The first month and a half we had to crate Roxy for all the reasons the crate proponents stated - she was destroying stuff and couldn't be trusted. For about the last three and a half months, we haven't been crating her, and she has been doing wonderfully. I think for the most part it depends on the dog, and how much trouble they could get in to while un-crated (we have very little in the way of furniture / decorations downstairs where she stays while we are gone to work).

Well i am still on the mission of getting our 2 to not have to be crated all the time. i feel with a clean home "no papers, food,trash, and what not's" laying around i can trust our two. the issue i am working on is for how long. i have left them for up to 2hrs and that is after having a walk to calm them down after being crated for 8 or so hrs. i also feel that time with us in our home is also a advantage, when we left them alone and things got trashed we did not have them for very long, after 1.5yrs i feel i can trust them better. last night was the first of many test, i am prepared to walk into a mess which is why i remove anything of real value before doing this, nothing like setting them up for failure. i got home from work let them out of the crates then i had to rush around and get ready to leave for the gym, i felt bad locking them up again so i wanted to leave them out and see what happened with no exercise and just letting them chill before i left and were feed dinner. i gave them each the same bone they would get if being crated and had a "talk" with them about being good and that i would not be gone long and gave them the bone and left. about 3hrs later i got home and everything looked great the only thing touched was their toy bin. i was so happy, wanting to make sure it was not a fluke i might attempt the same thing tonight as i will be leaving the house and ken will be showing up about 2-3hrs after i leave. im not sure if i will ever feel good about leaving them out for 8hrs but for heading out to a movie or something 2-4hrs i would like to be able to leave them out, who knows maybe they will be good for longer, i just know that if anything does get eaten while they are left out i have on one to blame but my self for trusting them. here's to hope

Ours have JUST gotten to that point Jenn If we shut all the doors, that leaves them the kitchen, living room, and hallway. I put TV trays/chairs in front of the couches so they can lay on them but not wrestle on them and make sure all the doors are shut and no garbage/things of value left out. We've been successful consistently now for about a month leaving them alone for up to 6 hours! I wouldn't do this during the day... the longer stints are only at night after they've been in the house with me all day. But we're excited that we can run to the store and not have to crate them.

Only works with puppy proofing the ENTIRE house though!