Dog in Kitchen trashcan

[Sean McKillop]

I have a 3yr old Germon Shepard mix that I adopted from the animal shelter six weeks ago. I was at home all the time with her for the first three weeks recovering from surgery. I then started physical therepy and had to leave her home alone for about 2 hrs a day. When I came home she had been allover the furniture, so I started putting things on the furniture to keep her off. She then started to take things from my kitchen counter, such as 2 1/2 pounds of chicken brest thawing in the sink (I only found the empty bag). She has also ripped a window screen out of my livingroom. She howls, crys and barks when I leave the house, no one else only me. But the last straw was when I came home to the kitchen trash cans contense all over the house, from the kitchen, LR, hall, BR and the bathroom. It was all over the furniture and the beds. She now is kept tied up in the yard and I have ordered a crate for her to stay in when the weather is bad. Does anyone have a cure for keeping dogs from acting out this way? she is a great dog and pet and we love her, but I do have to go out.http://www.doggiebagonline. com/forum/newthread.php?do=new thread&f=22#

[Marsha]

The only solution I have had is using a crate. We crate ours inside when we're not gone. Keeps him out of mischief. The dog we had prior to this one, we used the crate also. We had him for 13 years, and he was eventually able to stay in the house without being crated for as along as we needed to be gone. I don't remember when this transition occured. Our present dog is 10 months old, and we don't seem to be close to that point yet. He can get into mischief when we're upstairs and he's left downstairs alone!! I think one day we'll be leaving him out, but I think it's probably still a year or so away. I don't understand why one day they can be left out of the crate without a problem. I chalk it up to both maturity and the fact that they've been crated; therefore, they're not able to get into trouble and never get into a habit. I'm assuming that it's the same way we have to keep so much stuff put up away from his level or it will get chewed up. I remember this with our last pup. At some point, those items didn't seem to interest him anymore, and I'm waiting for the day that we don't have things chewed up that someone forgot to put out of Spanky's reach.