Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

[millie2010]

Hi

I have a 4 month old cavalier king charles spaniel whom we have to leave at home for 3 days a week for 7 hours a day, she has a 4metre x 4 metre pen which has all her bedding stacks of toys food and water and lots of fresh newspaper. is this going to be harmful to her character later in life?she is always happy to see us dosn,t seem stressed all the paper in in tack.

At what age is best to let her out of the pen while we are at work, if she is confined to half the house and puppy proofed, would we expect the couch to get ripped up..

would love to know if anyone else has been our situation we dont want her to feel penned up as she gets older

thanks Tracy

[spottychick]

You could try leaving her in the house for small amounts of time to see what she does and then increase the amount a little each time. Don't leave her in an area, or give her access to areas, where she can damage something you don't want damaged until you are sure she is trustworthy - and that may take months!!!. Bedrooms are the most vulnerable

I used to put boxes on the couch for my destructo dog to dissuade him from getting on the couch and digging it up when I was out. After a while it became a non-issue.

To me, it depends what you want to do in the future. I prefer to have dogs who can be left in the house and just hang out so I focus on that - and sometimes I've lost nice cushions or a forgotten teddy bear or had a dog eat my entire tub of butter etc.... I just learnt from the experience and got more diligent. But I found the more time they spend inside - with you or without you - the more they understand how to behave.

I also don't let the dogs play inside - if they start leaping about and carrying on wanting to play with each other I tell them "outside" and they do! That way I know they wont play inside when I'm away and so that lessens the risk of my favourite doona becoming their temporary tug toy

[SmoothieGirl]

I started letting Bronte stay inside by herself (with dog door to outside) when she was about eight months. This was brought foward from what I intended to be about 12 months, because she kind of proved herself as an angel in her pen when she was confined due to injury. I firstly moved a very nice leather armchair out of the family area and blocked her into the kitchen, lounge and dining for periods of a one to 3 or 4 hours at a time. When she convinced me she she had no inclination to destroy anything other than her own toys I opened up the house to her. Probably after about three weeks. I still lock her out of the study when I'm not home, as she has a tendency to eat book covers and I have piles of books on the floor in there.

She happily coexists with my leather arm chair too, other than the occasional nose print.