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Perils of leaving your dog free in the house

Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2010 1:26 pm
by icvanstra
Came home to a mess yesterday and soon had a vomiting dog...

I like letting the dogs have free run of the house when I'm not home. With Abigail I crated her when I was gone for about two years and then slowly gave her more freedom. Now she is free in the house all the time.


Cino is 3 years old now and I have tried leaving him out of his crate before and quickly realized he needed more time... Over the summer I have been leaving him out of his crate more and more. Recently we had a nice spell of weather and I was leaving the windows open all the time. With them open and me not being home I definitely liked the idea of Cino having free reign to scare the crap out of anyone who showed interest in an open window. :muffy:

He is still pulling one of the mats out of the bathroom...only one, never both. He will pull the pillow of the couch and other things like that. But is NOT destructive.

Last night when I got home from work I found a bunch of stuff from the kitchen counter on the floor and a ripped up plastic bag. ...plastic bag that formerly had rawhides in it.

I don't give rawhides to the dogs very often; probably once every couple of weeks.

Well...yesterday Cino decided that he wanted one now! The bag was tucked behind the butcher block and probably 1/2 full. Both dogs were acting normal, I let them out, and cleaned up the mess. When it started to rain I brought the dog's back in and Cino went to his usual spot in my home office...not more than 5 minutes later I hear the start of that wretching. Scoot out from my desk, Cino comes out from under the desk and out comes a ton of unchewed rawhide pieces...then vomits again.

Clean up the mess and again the dogs are looking/acting normal ... starts wretching again.

This time I'm trying to get around him to grab a towel and he thinks I'm trying to get to him. So instead of vomiting in one spots he spreads from my office, down the hallway, through the living room, skips the dining room and then again in the kitchen. ...all little ones this time. So instead of one large mess to clean up I know have 8 little ones... :bum:

...

So far he is eating normal, he is not showing any signs of distress, bloating, etc and acting like normal.

Re: Perils of leaving your dog free in the house

Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2010 3:04 pm
by k9katet
LOL! I can totally picture that!

The joys of dog ownership!

Re: Perils of leaving your dog free in the house

Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2010 5:17 pm
by vneerland
:? Mine NEVER do that! :whistle:

(so I stopped giving them hooves to chew, since they were the worst. They liked them, and their teeth liked them too, but the mess was just too constant and my carpet is a disgrace as it is, I did not think it needed more help from the crew)

Re: Perils of leaving your dog free in the house

Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2010 5:18 pm
by turnnburn52984
Oh no!!!! Well, at least you don't need to worry about possible obstruction from un-digested rawhide. Sound like it all came back up. Yay? ;)

Re: Perils of leaving your dog free in the house

Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2010 9:47 pm
by icvanstra
I think the bulk of it came back up. I'm going to give it a little time and start walking him more to make sure he is continuing to poop.

Re: Perils of leaving your dog free in the house

Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2010 2:52 pm
by leih merigian
Feel for you, dude!

Re: Perils of leaving your dog free in the house

Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2010 7:25 pm
by turnnburn52984
Rawhides in large amounts can be scary. My apt manager hands them out to all the pups she sees. My pointer totally looses control of all manners when she sees her. Knows a treat is coming. Then again, the kids do the same thing, they know she has suckers.

Hope it all passes smoothly!!

Re: Perils of leaving your dog free in the house

Posted: Sat Sep 25, 2010 8:33 pm
by icvanstra
So far all is good with the rawhide.

I left him out this morning when I went to breakfast with some friends. Today's object moved was a cloth nail pouch. It used to be full of screws I was using for reattaching fence boards (side note: when building a fence pay the extra money for screws...don't use nails. You will eventually install them anyway).

Initially I was going to go on a motorcycle ride after breakfast, but had realized it was cooler out than I thought so I came home to get another layer of clothes.

Stepped on the first screw, stopped and looked out of the dining room and it was a sea of screws. :whistle: Okay, not that many...but he dumped every last one of them out of the pouch. I just know that I've missed some and will step on it in the middle of the night.

I think we are going back to some more crate time. Why not? He likes it and goes into it without any problems...

Re: Perils of leaving your dog free in the house

Posted: Sat Sep 25, 2010 9:35 pm
by leih merigian
icvanstra wrote:
I think we are going back to some more crate time. Why not? He likes it and goes into it without any problems...
Sounds like a plan! Good for you to listen to what your dog's telling you :D .