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02-02-2006, 09:17 AM | #1 |
Donating Yorkie Yakker Join Date: May 2005 Location: Missouri
Posts: 248
| Pen guilt As most of you know, we got our new yorkie baby about a month ago. Bella's going to be 12 weeks on Monday. I work from home during the day, so even though I'm home and can check on her constantly, I have to keep her in her xpen because a) I can't supervise her all the time and b) I don't trust her with our shih-tzu because while she loves to play with him, he's not really liking it too much. She's a very rambunctious puppy with ALOT of energy. Which means she has a wild nature and, at times, gets a little TOO wild even with herself (she ran into a bedroom door the other morning because she was trying to get in the room, it was dark, she didn't see that it was closed). I want her to be careful, I don't want her to hurt herself or GET hurt playing with Spanky (shih-tzu). Her pen is pretty roomy for her, has her puppy pads, food and water, plus a TON of toys and her bed with her blankie. Sometimes I can hear her during the day randomly playing with her toys since a couple rattle and one squeaks. She doesn't really yelp/bark too much now that I keep her in the BIGGER pen as opposed to her little playpen that she sleeps in. I kept her in that to keep her closer to me (it's back here) during the day, but she would yelp alot and just destroy it so I figured she'd be happier in her bigger pen in the living room. She seems to be but I feel like such a heel because I have to keep her in her pen and she can't have full run of the house. I know I do it for her own protection, but I STILL feel horrible. She's out most of the night when there's more than one set of eyes to keep a watch over her and mediate between her and Spanky, and in the morning she runs as well. I let her out periodically throughout the day when I can take a break and either let her run all over the living room or I hold her and play with her with her teething chew toy. I STILL FEEL BAD!!! Does anyone else have to pen like this? It would just help so much if I knew I wasn't being a bad person doing this to her, and that she wasn't sad.
__________________ Carrie & Isabella Kelli - 1995-2005 - Always in Our Hearts, Babygirl. Bella's Dogster Kelli's Dogster |
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02-02-2006, 09:20 AM | #2 |
Donating Yorkie Yakker Join Date: May 2005 Location: Missouri
Posts: 248
| I should mention too the Spanky issue won't be so bad when he goes home for the Spring/Summer in either March or April. He's actually my grandparents dog, but we watch him during the winter since we have a fenced in yard and they can't walk him when it's cold/snowy/icy out.
__________________ Carrie & Isabella Kelli - 1995-2005 - Always in Our Hearts, Babygirl. Bella's Dogster Kelli's Dogster |
02-02-2006, 10:09 AM | #3 |
YT 500 Club Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 776
| Pixie has a similar set up at home... She stays in there all day while we're at work. She's out most of the time we're home. If hubby and I are both busy doing something (running errands, cleaning, whatever) she'll be put back in her area. Like you, I don't like her running around unsupervised. There's too much she can get into and she tends to chase the cats if we aren't looking.... On average, Pixie probably spends 10 hrs or so in her pen each day. We bring her out as soon as we get home and unless we're cleaning or something, she's out the rest of the night (sleeps in bed with us) and then is put back in her pen when we leave for work in the morning. Eventually she'll have free reign of the house (whenever she's potty trained and can be trusted not to cause trouble anyway!) but this is how it's going to be for now. I think as long as you spend plenty of time with them each day and they have toys to amuse themselves when you can't, they're fine being confined for a few hours. Doesn't sound like your pup is stressed about being locked up so I wouldn't worry about it too much... |
02-02-2006, 11:11 AM | #4 |
Donating Yorkie Yakker Join Date: May 2005 Location: Missouri
Posts: 248
| Thank you for your response! It does help alot to hear that other people need to do this. I'm also waiting until we have her potty trained outside and where she's a little older and hopefully a little bit more mellow than she is right now, lol.
__________________ Carrie & Isabella Kelli - 1995-2005 - Always in Our Hearts, Babygirl. Bella's Dogster Kelli's Dogster |
02-03-2006, 11:54 AM | #5 |
Yorkie Yakker Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Houston
Posts: 25
| This describes me and my pup exactly as well. I've had Mia since December have the puppy owner guilt as well. During the day when I'm at work she's in her larger pen area, at night the smaller play pen. When I'm home she is let out, but one of the things I worry about is having a half trained dog. In the pen areas she uses her pads wonderfully. When I let her out I restrict her to one room at a time. These rooms are typically small as well and I'm always with her in them as we play and spend time together....but in these small rooms she forgets about the pads completely! I constantly remind her to "go potty" and show her the pad, but it never fails. So this is some of the guilt I feel. Does anybody else have a pup that does this as well? Misty |
02-03-2006, 12:16 PM | #6 |
Donating YT 10K Club Member | A parent's worse nightmare....GUILT. Next ya know she's destroying the house, but heaven's no it's not GUILT ya feel. She's probably not as unhappy as you think I think she's fine, shoot Trace didn't realize there was more to our house than TWO rooms And while not in a pen in those rooms, he's not allowed to roam the house cause who knows WHAT he'd find to destroy. Actually I can name a couple of those whats, so as long as he's Trace the viking....plunging and pilleraging...he stays put.
__________________ Deb, Reese, Reggie, Frazier, Libby, Sidney, & Bodie Trace & Ramsey who watch over us www.biewersbythebay.com |
02-03-2006, 01:50 PM | #7 |
No Longer a Member Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 47
| Don't feel badly about keeping your pup in the pen. We kept Sophie confined to the kitchen for almost a year. The kitchen has a very large opening into the dining room, so we were lucky to find a wide-enough gate to close it off. It's a good-sized kitchen, so there was plenty of room for Sophie to walk around, play, etc. We also kept her crate in the kitchen where she slept. We were not comfortable giving her run of first floor yet(my house has three floors) because we didn't know if she would be a chewer and we certainly didn't want her getting hurt. Sophie turned out not to be a chewer, and she was also pee pad trained when we got her at 12 weeks, so we really lucked out. We gradually gave her more freedom and every once in a while would let her out into the dining room where she would do ecstatic high-speed victory laps around the table. Then we would leave the gate open so she could come and go whenever she wanted. She wouldn't climb the stairs because she was still small and was afraid of them. Now, Sophie is two years old and she has full run of the house, all three floors of it. She does the stairs (carpeted) like a lightning bolt, she's so fast, and we pretty much trust her to behave even if she's out of sight. If she's too quiet, then of course, we check out what she might be doing, and most of the time, she's OK. Also, we put her crate away because she eventually figured out that we would go to bed upstairs and why did she have to sleep downstairs in the kitchen all by herself anyway, and she wouldn't have any of it. So she sleeps on our beds, even though she has two doggie beds in the house. Sophie is our first dog, so we were basically operating on a trial and error basis to see what worked best. Fortunately, the transition from crate to kitchen confinement to complete freedom worked very well for us. I think you'll be fine; just remember you're confining your pup for her own safety and protection until she gets older. Good luck! |
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