never left unsupervised in yard (chihuahua, bites, wound, collie)

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by Raggy dee Ann

No one can miss a crated pet. I use to think it was cruel until I had a hard time house training a puppy. I still have the crate and have bought another one as they love to crawl in for some time out. The doors are left open so they aren't locked in unless I'm training a foster dog.

That's another thing I neglected to mention: A crate trained dog is basically a house-broken dog. You'll have to give the dog a few reminders, but they learn very quickly not to eliminate in the crate and, by extension, in the house.

It really is a safety issue as well. Unless you work at home I just don't think that anyone can have a dog that is disciplined enough or well trained enough to be 100% trustworthy loose in the house. Any dog can get into trouble. I don't care if you've had eight years of good luck, if you have loose dogs you're just a heartbeat away from a thousand-dollar home repair, a poisoned dog, an electrocuted dog or an obstructed dog. You may get away with it forever and I'm sure a lot of people can rattle off a lot of reasons why it wouldn't happen to them, but if you are counting on any dog to make good decisions and be totally trustworthy, you're leaning on a house of cards.

I'm really not directing this at anyone, but I think it is much more likely that a dog will injure himself or cost you money while unattended in the house than burn to death/drown in a crate.

[kelly3120]

Originally Posted by jimboburnsy

That's another thing I neglected to mention: A crate trained dog is basically a house-broken dog. You'll have to give the dog a few reminders, but they learn very quickly not to eliminate in the crate and, by extension, in the house.

It really is a safety issue as well. Unless you work at home I just don't think that anyone can have a dog that is disciplined enough or well trained enough to be 100% trustworthy loose in the house. Any dog can get into trouble. I don't care if you've had eight years of good luck, if you have loose dogs you're just a heartbeat away from a thousand-dollar home repair, a poisoned dog, an electrocuted dog or an obstructed dog. You may get away with it forever and I'm sure a lot of people can rattle off a lot of reasons why it wouldn't happen to them, but if you are counting on any dog to make good decisions and be totally trustworthy, you're leaning on a house of cards.

I'm really not directing this at anyone, but I think it is much more likely that a dog will injure himself or cost you money while unattended in the house than burn to death/drown in a crate.

my dog is loose in our house when we are gone and he sleeps.
childhood dog was as well bu only when they hit a maturity level. Leaving a up loose in a house is asking for trouble.
my dogs crate is always open and he goes in it often on his own.

[riveree]

Reasons why I can't leave my dogs in my yard unsupervised:

1) DOG CAN GO OVER FENCE: We have a really sturdy 6 foot fence, but my younger dog is so springy she can jump high enough to get her head clear of it. If she was actually after something and not playing around, I'd expect her to clear it. I need to be there to tell her to stop.

2) DOG CAN GO UNDER FENCE: My other dog can dig under a fence in just a couple of minutes. We're placing large cement paving stones around the entire perimeter, as we had at our previous home, but I still won't leave them unsupervised because of reasons #1, #3 & #4.

3) DOGS WILL FIGHT: My dogs adore each other, but in certain situations they will fight. It can get very serious, very fast and I need to be there to break it up. It doesn't happen often, but when it does it's bad. So far, no blood has been drawn between these 2, but if I wasn't there to stop them, they'd be drawing blood .

4) DOG THEFT: My gates are locked from the inside 100% of the time, and I'm set back from the road enough that you'd really have to be making a huge effort to peek over my fence, but dogs do get stolen in my city and the ending isn't pretty . Dog-fighting is still alive and well in the SouthEast and the bait dogs are usually someone's pet stolen from a backyard.

[Amazonchix]

Our dogs are not left unattended in the backyard. We have a 6 ft privacy fence and live in a suburban neighborhood. Our fence gate is locked from the inside too. We have two area neighbors who are not animal friendly and sadly, we do not trust them (nor do some other neighbors). We do not want our dogs being blamed for barking (although they aren't barkers). Plus, a few of us are having problems with one neighbor and we don't want revenge taken out on our animals. You know, tossing poisoned meat or something similiar in our backyard. Plus, although we have mixed breed dogs, I do worry about pet theft. I think our dogs are the greatest therefore, I assume everyone wants our dogs (lol). Our dogs are free to roam in the house with our two cats. They are fully house trained and are non-destructive (thank goodness). They can be very intimidating to anyone who approaches the front door whom they do not know.

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by kelly3120

my dog is loose in our house when we are gone and he sleeps.
childhood dog was as well bu only when they hit a maturity level. Leaving a up loose in a house is asking for trouble.
my dogs crate is always open and he goes in it often on his own.

Let me throw in a disclaimer -

Leaving a maltese / chihuahua / cavalier loose in the house is very different from leaving a border collie / labrador / german shepherd loose in the house.

[ShepsMom]

Originally Posted by jimboburnsy

Let me throw in a disclaimer -

Leaving a maltese / chihuahua / cavalier loose in the house is very different from leaving a border collie / labrador / german shepherd loose in the house.

Well, it all depends on how well your dog is trained. I have 2 GSDs and they stay inside, no crates, no mess. Breed has really nothing to do with it, it's the traininng that matters.

[Amazonchix]

Our two inside dogs are a 60lb Bordercollie x and a 75lbs Lab/Shep x. Well trained and non-destructive. I put our two big dogs up against a small dog any day (lol).

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by ShepsMom

Well, it all depends on how well your dog is trained. I have 2 GSDs and they stay inside, no crates, no mess. Breed has really nothing to do with it, it's the traininng that matters.

I was thinking more along the lines of dog size than breed. A bigger dog just has a bigger potential for big trouble.

[Finger Laker]

bigger dogs can get to things little dogs cannot and can cause damage a whole lot faster

I grew up in the country - no fences, no crates, depending on the dog and season it would either be outside or indoors during the day ........ we usually adopted older dogs and never really had issues with them being indoors

now I live in the city - have the standard 6' phx block fence and a pair of boxers - both of which we took on as puppies

we definitely crate trained them - the older is about 2 1/2 now and has been crate free for over a year - we dog proof our house before we leave and she mainly just sleeps, looks out the window, etc

before she would mess, freak out and tear up the house, do god knows what to the cat, chew, etc

our current puppy is even more of a handful and is also going through crate training - she's actually embracing the crate more than the older dog ever did

obviously the goal is to have her eventually weened from the crate

they respond to training, but still have that trademark boxer stuborness and training takes time to get it trustworthy

living in the city i would never think of leaving them outside during the day for the reasons mentioned above - living in phx I think it's borderline criminal given the heat

however, when we let them out to do their business we give them extra time to run and play and don't hang out there with them ......... they'll stay out maybe 30 minutes at a time and we'll peek periodically through the back window to make sure everything is OK - barking we can hear in the house and it's corrected

our older dog is a little more sneaky though - she loves to sun in the yard and 90% of the time if she's out there for a long period of time she's just laying there or rolling in the grass ........ it's that other 10% of the time when she thinks it's a good idea to dig a pit or eat a shrub that's a concern

[gizmo980]

Originally Posted by Mike in TN

Seems like I read a lot of this lately?

For those that do, what are your reasons for not leaving your dog unattended in your yard, for any length of time?

- Assuming your yard is fenced or you have some e-collar.

My dog has access to the yard through a dog door, so I'm assuming he is out there unsupervised when I'm gone. The fence is very high and solid, and we live in a row house - so the only way someone could steal him is to jump from another yard over, and therefore it would have to be a neighbor (or friend of a neighbor). I think it would be obvious if Rudy was suddenly barking at me from a nearby yard! Not to mention, the people in this neighborhood simply wouldn't do that... most of them have small fluffy dogs (if any), and are afraid of Rudy's size. Oh, and Rudy would RUN back into the house if someone jumped in the yard. Therefore I'm not really worried about him being dog-napped, as shy as he is. So yes, he is unsupervised outside and very safe.