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Keeping your young dog outside in kennel when at work?


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My first dog was strictly indoors. Old owners spoiled the dog. Shes now a huge trouble to get home to and let out before she pees everywhere, and that's every couple hours.
And could never be boarded, crated, left alone in any pen without chewing or whining, or digging. The works.

Im planning on having my next dog left outdoors in a kennel run while I am at work. and so hes free to use bathroom anytime he needs. No waiting for owners to show up.

Any of you leave dogs outside in runs while you are at work?
How do you start a puppy to enjoy outdoors in runs?

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You should be aware that, in addition to nuisance behaviors that can develop with dogs that are left outside unsupervised, there are organized groups of people who go through areas stealing dogs.

 

I shudder to think where these dogs end up. Most likely as bait dogs.

 

There's also been national news coverage about people stealing dogs essentially for ransom. They steal the dog and wait for the reward posters to show up. Sometimes people get their dogs back, sometimes they don't.

 

There was a youTube video a year or 2 ago showing a couple guys stealing a dog from its yard. It took less than 2 minutes.

 

These reports come from all over the country, in all kinds of environments. Urban, suburban and rural. No one being able to see your property just means no one can see the vans drive up.

 

It's your choice if you want to risk it.

 

Me? I'd never forgive myself if I came home and my dogs were gone.

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I think if you raise your puppy correctly and teach him what you want him to know you won't have the problems you've mentioned. As you say, your old dog was spoiled by her previous owners, which I would say means she was never trained or properly taught doggie social graces.

Bottom line, if you can train a dog to stay quietly in a kennel, you can darned sure teach them how to accept being boarded, crated or left in any pen without chewing, whining or digging, or peeing in the house. (Have you had your current dog checked for a urinary infection, btw?)

 

Finally, whether anyone could advise you kenneling a dog would depend in part where you live. If you live in town, know that kenneled dogs can develop habits that you won't know about until the neighbors complain - and you'll be right back where you started, having a dog with bad habits that you don't want. Also, besides dogs being stolen from yards in towns, I've lately read several accounts of stray dogs breaking through fences to attack kenneled dogs. A kenneled dog is a trapped dog.

What I'm saying is, confining a dog to a kennel is not a solution to undesirable behaviors. You can't get a puppy with the thought of, "I don't like how my current dog behaves in the house when I'm gone, so I'm just going to kennel my next dog so I don't have to deal with that." A puppy must be trained to the way you want him to go.
Respectfully,

Gloria

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kenneled dogs can develop habits that you won't know about until the neighbors complain

 

Oh, just ask me how I know that can be true.

 

Many years ago I left my dogs kenneled in good weather. They were quiet when I left for work in the morning and quiet when I came home.

 

So everything's fine, right?

 

Till the day I came home and found a message on my answering machine of my dogs barking for about 5 minutes straight. :o

 

Since then they've stayed inside without issues. ;)

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Your dog can and will get used to whatever environment you choose.

 

I live in a farm area and no dogs get stolen - so depends where you live, I suppose.

 

Nothing wrong at all with leaving a dog in an outside kennel. Nothing wrong with leaving a dog inside all day. Whatever works for the pair of you is what is right.

 

I have seen many people create kennel/run spaces that attach to their residence via a doggie-door - seems a perfect solution, really. My dogs have the run of in or out while weather permits and in the winter they tend to be happy to stay inside more, naturally.

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You can train your dog to behave in the house, whether in a crate or not. It just takes the dedication to doing it.

Planning to leave the dog outside instead of training the dog is, IMO, a poor choice.

If you need help/advice while training your dog, these forums are a great resource. So is Google.

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So, anybody know any other ways to create a positive association with being kenneled when not home?

Other than feeding in kennel run + favorite toys.

And with a puppy?

 

A puppy needs interaction with other living creatures not isolation. If you can't provide that think twice about getting one.

 

It was my grandaughter's christening today and I didn't want to leave my pup confined for 5-6 hours. He isn't safe to be left free with my other dogs because of the potential for inappropriate chewing so I left him at the kennels for the day where at least he would know there were other dogs and people around. Good experience if he needs to stay for longer.

 

Wasting the vital formative period of a dog's life by depriving it of learning experiences for long periods is little short of criminal imo. If you absolutely have to have a pup and need to go out to work you need to find an alternative to confining it on its own otherwise you risk ending up with one seriously screwed up pup.

 

I can give you a concrete current example. Someone I know has a pup born on the same day as mine. It spends most of the day confined while she is at work. When released it is on the go all the time and has no dog manners at all.

 

In contrast my pup has an off switch and meets and greets all strange dogs very respectfully. He spends almost no time confined or isolated during the day because I am there to watch him. Also helps with house training.

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There is nothing wrong with kenneling a high drive dog, or any dog while you work. I see plenty of dogs that are kenneled when handler owner is at work, or not around to be completely dedicated to watching the dog at the time. Top ringsport handlers kennel their dogs each day. Some many for hours a day, from puppy hood. As long as the individual dogs needs are met, i do not see the harm in a kennel run.
Obviously leaving any dog to solitary confinement, for excessive periods of time. Or in a way that is not suitable to that individual dog's needs, is clearly abusive.

I do not seem to find much relative advice on this forum. I do not think i am suited to the atmosphere of this board.
I tend to receive completely irrelevant responses that imply i am not an adequate handler/owner, or that i am too demanding of my dogs, or are neglectful of my dogs needs.

Preferences in kenneling my puppy lead to off topic conversations about neglecting my puppy's needs for socialization and interaction. And to questioning of choice to get a puppy.
Asking to learn about proper use of verbal directions lead to people questioning if i am to be too demanding on my puppy.

And i simply do not have time nor the patience to weed out the incredibly helpful posts, from the ones that are irrelevant.

I appreciate everybody who has answered kindly, without extreme assumptions. And i thank you for the time you spent reading my posts and answering my questions to the best of your knowledge, while staying on track.

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Wow, sorry to go "off track," but you've been here, what, two weeks and you're already lecturing folks for not behaving here like you wish them to behave?

 

Topics often go off on tangents (or not), and, yes, people make assumptions when inadequate information is given.

 

I'm sorry that you have found this forum and its members so disappointing. Perhaps if you keep looking you will find a forum whose members meet your exacting standards. But before you go, maybe you'd like to read the thread titled "I must say," also in this General Discussion section. If you haven't completely made up your mind about us, then you might find it a nice little read.

 

I kennel (indoor crates and outdoor--under a building--runs) both dogs and puppies when I'm at work, FWIW.

 

J.

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Yeah, I hear ya.

 

Listen, it's your dog and your life and the very fact that you are on here seeking information should be a general heads up that you're concerned to make the best decisions for your dog.

 

If we all waited for the perfect time to have a kid or only let people with the perfect credentials have a kid, there would be virtually no kids and we'd die out within ten generations. Same with puppies. Sure, there are perfect conditions and perfect scenarios and very few of us are fortunate enough financially, vocationally, situationally, etc. to be able to come anywhere close to them.

 

Get your puppy, respect your puppy, have reasonable expectations of it, treat it kindly and fairly and decently and everything else will be forgiven, worked around, not known it's being missed and plain old unimportant.

 

Listen to no one or nothing that advises you that you are unfit or unready for a puppy and/or that a puppy will not thrive under your care. If you are determined that it thrive, it will.

 

I could take you to some working farms around here that might melt your brains, given some of the things I read. Working dogs are often kenneled for long periods of time and receive nothing like some of the "pampering" you read about from pet owners. Dogs are dogs and their happiness is tied up in their relationship with you. Take care of that, attend to his basic needs and you're set to go.

 

Good luck,

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Forgive me if I was one of the ones who came across as irrelevant. We only know what we read, and I read your initial post as saying you were unhappy with your old dog's behavior in the house, so you intended to leave your puppy outside when not home. That sounded to me as if that would be your solution to avoiding the problems your old dog has.

Without knowing more than what you said, I could only respond to what I understood. We get all kinds of people here and sometimes they arrive with erroneous ideas or information.

~ Gloria

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I guess when I have had pups and young dogs I got of easy because even though I worked and knelled them, I always had someone who could go over to the house during the day to check on the pup and put it out for me once or twice, then the kids would get home from school, they would take the dog out and tend to it tell I got home.

 

 

Do you have a friend or neighbor maybe who could come over to put the dog out to potty once a day maybe?

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Oh, I should have also added that I generally don't leave puppies outside, preferring to crate inside, just for safety and security reasons. Adults I will leave in runs as long as the weather is decent. In bad weather of all sorts, I prefer to crate a dog in the house. Right now, I have three older dogs (incontinence issues all, two being kept for a friend while she's on travel) and a middle aged dog in runs under an open building. Three additional dogs are crated in the house, and three others are free in the house. For me crating or kenneling depends on the dog, the weather, and other factors.

 

J.

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I can see how I have left out some information. But to simply assume the worst, instead of asking. :(

Has anybody thought to post questions instead of terrible assumptions. Simply typing "how long will the dog be left in the day?"
This would prevent posts like "can you have a neighbor come lef dog out in middle of day".
I work all dog related jobs. Except for one part time job.
My puppy will be left home 5 hours a day only 3 days a week. The rest of the days I can take my puppy with me to the training facilitates, grooming shop, and other dog related jobs I work.

When I speak to other performance people, or working dog people online, i do not assume and type up the most negative things before asking. Because most of the time I find they are simply asking a question to conform what they had in mind, from many days of researching their topic. They are just looking for approval from other dedicated trainers, or maybe some pointers of how their peers work out kinks with their dogs.

I will try to be more thorough with my original posts to prevent any of this in future.

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It's always helpful to provide adequate information up front in order to avoid confusion and people asking for more information upon which to make recommendations.

 

People here, at least, aren't likely to offer too much in the way of advice without having sufficient information. Otherwise it'd be offering advice that could be much less than helpful if it's just a stab in the dark.

 

But, really, I don't see anyone assuming the worst in this thread. I see people offering considered opinions and responses to your questions. If you only want confirmation of what you already believe, I'm not sure why you'd want ask the questions at all.

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Thank you GL. It never ceases to amaze me how new people come to a place like this and then presume to attack everyone else for not conforming to the new person's preconceived notions of how things should be (especially on a long-established forum like this one, where anyone spending any time reading past posts would know just how conversations evolve here)....

 

I just went back and re-read this entire thread. I generally didn't see ridiculous assumptions, and although I did see some assumptions being made and some issues being raised, a majority of the posts were clearly trying to be helpful and simply pointed out things to consider if one wants to kennel a dog while one is away at work.

 

Warning: Going off topic (so read no further if you want only information related to the original question(s)), though there is a point to these comments, believe it or not:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Recently on another group I'm on two different people posted things about their 12-week-old pups. One mentioned that her husband finally had a running partner and the pup had run a mile and a half with him just that day. The other was a question about how to get the pup interested in catching frisbees at 12 weeks old.

 

I didn't see responses to the latter, but several people cautioned the former person against having a pup engage in high-impact, repetitive activity at such a young age. The OP could have gone all "why are you assuming the worst about me" or "why are you bringing up something I didn't even ASK about?" or similar, just like here. But, thanks to those people caring enough to post their concerns and to the OP for actually being open-minded and understanding that the people posting were actually posting from a place of caring (when all she had wanted to do was brag a little), instead information was exchanged and others reading might now understand the issues with high-impact, repetitive exercise for puppies. The OP chose to not take offense where she could have and instead responded by thanking people for their concern and adding more details about the situation with that pup. It's a shame that threads with new members here can't more often follow that same path.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

J.

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I spent a whole bunch of money putting in two really nice kennels with a privacy fence. The dogs were in it one day. Tomte barked all day long. After that I used the kennels for storage and then later gave them away.

 

The dogs I have now are really barky. I know they would drive my neighbors nuts if I left them outside. They bark at everything but especially the squirrels that go back and forth high up in the trees across my backyard. I swear those squirrels actually hang by their heels and tease the dogs.

 

Joey stays in his crate when I'm gone and the two older dogs are just fine out in the house.

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