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I'm sorry this is so long, but here's the whole story.....
We adopted a dachshund/beagle mix from our local shelter about 3 weeks ago. She is approx. 1 year old and the sweetest, smartest little thing. We bought a crate for her to stay in at night and while we're at work, with plans to eventually allow her to sleep with us and introduce her to a playpen and then our very large kitchen when she's left alone.
She had a few minor accidents in the crate, the first night mostly due to anxiety of not knowing where she was (we picked her up in the evening so she only had a few hours with us until bed time), and then the following few days until we got her feeding schedule sorted out to the point where she had to go at times when we were awake and home to let her out. But after the first week or so, she was relatively accident free.
We first put her crate in the living room with a bed and her water dish. We fed her in there and taught her to lay in it in the evenings. She goes in it on command ("go in your bed"), and after about a week we moved it to the kitchen since that's where we'd like to eventually leave her, but with access to her crate since it has now become her "safe place." She did fine with the move and we began letting her in the kitchen with her crate open for short periods of time, but confined to her crate during work hours.
We had her for two weeks before she was scheduled to return to the shelter to be spayed. She came home last week with a cone collar and instructions to leave it on for at least 7 days. Unfortunately, she couldn't fit through the front door of her crate in the cone, and couldn't turn around once she got through the side door, so we weren't able to confine her to it while she had the cone on. Luckily we had already purchased a playpen, so we put her bed from the crate in the pen and set it up in the kitchen. She is TERRIBLE in the pen, she doesn't want to go in it willingly, refuses to lay in her bed, etc. I try putting her favorite toys, kong, chews, etc. in there, but as soon as I put anything she really likes in it she runs in, grabs it and bolts out with it; like she doesn't want her favorite things in there. When she's left alone for any length of time in it she goes to the bathroom and smears it all over the floor. She pees on her bed and on her toys (she even pees on her kong and favorite chews), she whines, barks, cries, and yesterday when I came home she had smeared her mess all over the gates of the pen and even managed to fling some so far out of the crate that it was on the walls of the kitchen. I don't have a camera, but I think she's pretty restless the entire time we're gone, because I can hear her crying from well down our street when I pull up.
Her cone came off yesterday, so I put her back in her crate and she seemed sooooo happy to have it back. I still had a water dish on the kitchen floor for her, but as soon as I opened the door and filled the dish that attaches to the side of the crate she went in and drank a full dish of water and took her chews in her bed in the crate. I left her in it last night while I went on a short trip to the store and she was quiet when I left and quiet when I came home. This morning, I fed her in the crate and when I turned around she was sitting in there with the door open kind of just waiting for me to close it (I had to call her to come out and go outside for a last potty break). She was perfectly quiet and content with her peanut butter filled kong when I left (which she would have ignored in the play pen and then peed on it when I left).
My question is, do you think she'll ever be comfortable in the pen and/or kitchen without being confined to her crate? She's alone for 7 hours while we're at work, and I'd really like to give her some more space to stretch her legs and play with her toys, but she genuinely seems distressed by it.
I'm hoping that now that she's out of the cone and fits back in her crate, we can re-establish the good routine we had created before she got spayed, and then reintroduce the pen, but with the open-door crate inside of it.
I'd love to hear your thoughts. I think the crate is a great tool, but not something I wanted her to be confined to for 7 hours a day her entire life. However, at this point, that seems to be the best for her mental health and well-being.
We adopted a dachshund/beagle mix from our local shelter about 3 weeks ago. She is approx. 1 year old and the sweetest, smartest little thing. We bought a crate for her to stay in at night and while we're at work, with plans to eventually allow her to sleep with us and introduce her to a playpen and then our very large kitchen when she's left alone.
She had a few minor accidents in the crate, the first night mostly due to anxiety of not knowing where she was (we picked her up in the evening so she only had a few hours with us until bed time), and then the following few days until we got her feeding schedule sorted out to the point where she had to go at times when we were awake and home to let her out. But after the first week or so, she was relatively accident free.
We first put her crate in the living room with a bed and her water dish. We fed her in there and taught her to lay in it in the evenings. She goes in it on command ("go in your bed"), and after about a week we moved it to the kitchen since that's where we'd like to eventually leave her, but with access to her crate since it has now become her "safe place." She did fine with the move and we began letting her in the kitchen with her crate open for short periods of time, but confined to her crate during work hours.
We had her for two weeks before she was scheduled to return to the shelter to be spayed. She came home last week with a cone collar and instructions to leave it on for at least 7 days. Unfortunately, she couldn't fit through the front door of her crate in the cone, and couldn't turn around once she got through the side door, so we weren't able to confine her to it while she had the cone on. Luckily we had already purchased a playpen, so we put her bed from the crate in the pen and set it up in the kitchen. She is TERRIBLE in the pen, she doesn't want to go in it willingly, refuses to lay in her bed, etc. I try putting her favorite toys, kong, chews, etc. in there, but as soon as I put anything she really likes in it she runs in, grabs it and bolts out with it; like she doesn't want her favorite things in there. When she's left alone for any length of time in it she goes to the bathroom and smears it all over the floor. She pees on her bed and on her toys (she even pees on her kong and favorite chews), she whines, barks, cries, and yesterday when I came home she had smeared her mess all over the gates of the pen and even managed to fling some so far out of the crate that it was on the walls of the kitchen. I don't have a camera, but I think she's pretty restless the entire time we're gone, because I can hear her crying from well down our street when I pull up.
Her cone came off yesterday, so I put her back in her crate and she seemed sooooo happy to have it back. I still had a water dish on the kitchen floor for her, but as soon as I opened the door and filled the dish that attaches to the side of the crate she went in and drank a full dish of water and took her chews in her bed in the crate. I left her in it last night while I went on a short trip to the store and she was quiet when I left and quiet when I came home. This morning, I fed her in the crate and when I turned around she was sitting in there with the door open kind of just waiting for me to close it (I had to call her to come out and go outside for a last potty break). She was perfectly quiet and content with her peanut butter filled kong when I left (which she would have ignored in the play pen and then peed on it when I left).
My question is, do you think she'll ever be comfortable in the pen and/or kitchen without being confined to her crate? She's alone for 7 hours while we're at work, and I'd really like to give her some more space to stretch her legs and play with her toys, but she genuinely seems distressed by it.
I'm hoping that now that she's out of the cone and fits back in her crate, we can re-establish the good routine we had created before she got spayed, and then reintroduce the pen, but with the open-door crate inside of it.
I'd love to hear your thoughts. I think the crate is a great tool, but not something I wanted her to be confined to for 7 hours a day her entire life. However, at this point, that seems to be the best for her mental health and well-being.
