Hello All! I work from 9am - 6pm and have an hour commute both ways. So I'm out of the house from 8am-7pmish. I would totally feel guilty leaving Luna in her crate for that long but I also do not want her destroying the house. I usually have someone take her out and watch her throughout the day but on days like today when I do not have anyone to look after her I just left her out and crossed my fingers. What do you do when your gone for the entire day at work and have nobody to watch your baby?

Well back when we crated ours we would be gone from 5-9hrs a day depending on me and my husbands work times. they were ok if it did not happen to be 9hrs all the time. walks before and after work were a must.

now we do give them free run of the lower part of the house with tile floors and EVERYTHING we value OUT OF REACH, they will find that ONE thing we forgot to move and eat it.....

I work from home, so Ginger was rarely left alone. We did the opposite of most people because I work from home...meaning, we were able to get Ginger settled in her new home for a month before we started using the crate, as she did not like her crate that was sent home with us - it was the hard plastic crate. We bought the wire crate for her, but she did not want to go in that one either. So once we got her comfy in the new crate, we would leave the house to go outside and do yard work and started at 15 minutes, then 30 minutes, then drove off and came back in an hour. We built this up until we could leave her in her crate, she being comfy, for several hours.

Then Storm came, and he did not like his crate at all when we left the house.

So we bought a web camera ($50) that has a free app for our smart phones, and we left them with free roam to the downstairs, and watched as we ate dinner or ran errands....no incidents.

We consider ourselves extremely lucky because we can leave laptops, power cords, and nick-knacks around without issue. But we still do take precautions!

We have an almost dog proof porch. It jut has painted concrete on the floor and we leave them out there with their crate doors open. If they do have an accident (which they haven't thankfully except for throwing up one day), it wouldn't be that big of a problem since it's easy to clean up.

Similar advice here. Dog door, lots of chews and toys, webcam, exercise, and dog proof valuable items. We add in doggies day care once or twice a month and dog park on most weekends. Been fortunate this setup has worked well even with foster dogs. I have had issues with counter / table surfing until I found these http://www.jefferspet.com/product.asp?pn=SNA-S1&crcat=Direct&crsource=GBase&crkw=Snappy+Trainer. I bought four or so and put them randomly around and within a couple of weeks no more surfing.

So Luna went an entire 8 hours by herself. No accidents and nothing was destroyed!!! So proud of her!

Also helped leaving about 10 toys out for her to play with! haha

Niko could never last that long in a crate during the day....he would go bonkers.....I get to stay home with him 90% of the time. If we are gone for extended times of the day we keep him in the bed room with lots of toys and a rawhide. Just make sure to secure any and all electrical devices.

cmanding wrote:

I work from home, so Ginger was rarely left alone. We did the opposite of most people because I work from home...meaning, we were able to get Ginger settled in her new home for a month before we started using the crate, as she did not like her crate that was sent home with us - it was the hard plastic crate. We bought the wire crate for her, but she did not want to go in that one either. So once we got her comfy in the new crate, we would leave the house to go outside and do yard work and started at 15 minutes, then 30 minutes, then drove off and came back in an hour. We built this up until we could leave her in her crate, she being comfy, for several hours.

Then Storm came, and he did not like his crate at all when we left the house.

So we bought a web camera ($50) that has a free app for our smart phones, and we left them with free roam to the downstairs, and watched as we ate dinner or ran errands....no incidents.

We consider ourselves extremely lucky because we can leave laptops, power cords, and nick-knacks around without issue. But we still do take precautions!

Can you tell me the make/model of the camera you bought?

Thanks!

That's what I was coming here to ask.

artoaky wrote:

Can you tell me the make/model of the camera you bought?

Thanks!

http://www.amazon.com/Bambino-Wireless-Internet-Monitor-required/dp/B003104LP6/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1329868316&sr=8-3

It doesn't require anything to create an account, and the app is free for both iPhone and Android phones. The app is called Seedonk.

Perfect!

Thanks!