Houdini X2

10/30/2009 I'm pondering how to contain my pups while I am away from home. When Alicia and I are only to be gone a few hours, Tau is in his crate sleeping. Tau goes into his crate happily when requested, and I didn't want to strain that by leaving him in there for longer than a few hours at a time (except at night, of course). My fear is that 8 hours in a crate would destroy his willingness to be in a crate at all. In the past, I've been able to just baby gate off a room, and a puppy was happy to be able to see/hear the other dogs, but I knew the pup was safe, and no rough housing by the other dogs would be a problem.

Galen has changed all that. Every single day we have gated off a room (or even shut a door), we have come home to find the puppy happily snoozing in a cuddle with Galen. No exceptions. Galen has busted Tau out of the bathroom, the bedroom, the laundry room, the kitchen.

Tau can already open one crate (turns out the tooth that Tau BROKE opening the crate is called a canine). The only options I might have would be the outside kennel for Galen, but it's so cold outside even during the day right now. The other option is 8 hours in Tau's big overnight crate (twice a week), which I know he cannot open because the grate is too small for his jaw to get to. It's a compression opener, so I could probably post bets as to how long it would take Galen to figure it out. I have tried keeping the two dogs in completely separate areas of the house, with multiple doors between, even though I don't like the puppy feeling completely alone. The dogs are always together when we get home, and act as though everything is normal. "Oh joy, the humans are home! BTW, you forgot to leave the puppy with us. I fixed that for you."

So. Two questions. First, how old should a puppy be before he can take care of himself with adult dogs and no supervision (IE: how long does this battle go on)?

This has just never come up for me before! I am not worried about Galen hurting the pup on purpose, but accidents do happen, and the older dogs do rough house. Second, how DO you contain dogs that do not understand the virtues of being separated? I already know I'm NEVER going to attempt to have an "in heat" female around Galen without a serious security investment! It would be a battle of wits and I would LOSE!

How you do all you folks who have breeding males and females keep them separate while you are at work?