Dog Days

It has been one of those weeks. Not sleeping well (if at all) the last couple nights - maybe worrying about what to do with Romeo who seems to have developed full-on separation anxiety somewhere along the way. After paying $27 to the Hillsborough County Library for a book I didn't really enjoy anyway and losing several items of clothing along the way (random socks, a sandal), I started keeping him confined to the bedroom, making sure to do a sweep to remove anything that seemed to be even remotely chewable. This seemed to work for a few weeks until the day I came home to find my bedskirt & mattress cover in shreds (luckily the mattress itself was spared). So on the advice of numerous books & Kathy (the trainer I take them too), I broke down and purchased a crate.

They technically have a crate already and I *know* that dogs do not feel the same about crates as I do/would...but it's one thing, in my mind, to have a safe space available for them to hide and another altogether to confine a dog for multiple hours - especially given the typical length of my work days. But Kathy assured me that this is temporary and once he believes that this is his home (she says it usually takes a year before they fully regain their confidence), I should be able to dispense with the crate altogether. So I purchased an extra-large one wire one, supposedly indestructible, even for GSDs, and began crating him. For a while, all went well. He likes the crate and even goes in there at other times to chill out or gnaw on bones.

Then last week, there were several harbingers: first i noticed the water bottle dislodged from the holder two days and then came home last Thursday to find the bed in the crate all torn up. (I have noticed that he is worse on Mondays & Thursdays so am wondering if his fears are connected to the garbage truck?)

Then this week, Romeo discovered a way to break out of the indestructible crate entirely. I am assuming that either the GSDs cited in the reviews were older, calmer dogs or that they had only tried to chew through the crate. At first I couldn't even figure out how he was getting out because to all appearances, the doors are all closed and the crate appears intact. Then I realized that he is maneuvering it so that the elaborate hooks, etc are detached until he gets a corner worked loose that he can squeeze through. Genius.

So far this has been the extent of his endeavors, and aside from a very scratched up nose on his part, there haven't been any casualties but I fear the day that he adds back the random destruction of household objects to his routine.

Today I tried reinforcing the crate joins with picture frame wire. We'll see how Houdini does with that one!