[susansmom]

We're having trouble figuring out what to do with Susan while we're gone. I'm seldom gone for more than a few hours, so I usually just put her in her crate, but when I'm going to be gone longer, it's just a nightmare. The house is very lovely and RENTED, so we can't allow damage. She scratches at doors, so we can't close a door to keep her in. When we do she shreds the woodwork and the wall next to it. We got a giant school type bulletin board from a resale shop and started putting that across the doorway. The first time it worked great. The next time she jumped over it even though it was 3 1/2 feet high. The next time we put across the "tall" way so she couldn't jump over it but she tried to dig through it. There was sawdust caked all over her face and floating all over the room and up and down the hall. The time she jumped over the barrier it seems like she just found her favorite chair and took a nap. We're starting to wonder if just giving her the run of the house is the best thing. We figure there's no point in getting a playpen because she'll be able to jump over it. We've thought about getting a bigger crate and may do that, but we hate to. They're still pretty small and quite expensive for something we hope not to have to use forever (we want to give her the run of the house eventually). She weighs a little over 7 lbs, so she's not a tiny. The other thing is we don't want her jumping over barricades. We're afraid she'll hurt herself. We had our coffee table pushed up against the barricade the time she jumped it, so she landed there instead of all the way to the floor -- thank goodness but it must have been a pretty hard landing. That was a scare.