Two years ago I wrote a post about bringing Heart home. It was an emotional weekend because she reminded me so much of Yoshi.
Now here we are, two years later, and she’s very much a part of our lives. I still think of Yoshi often. I’ve had a couple of friends lose dogs over the past year and it’s reminded me of how painful it was and how much I do still miss him. But Heart has definitely helped fill the void.
She’s also come with her own set of issues, as Yoshi did. And I’m the first to admit that I put absolutely no effort into training my dog, so I can’t complain too much. But she’s a chewer like he was, and the list of things she has destroyed is lengthy, despite our best efforts to dog proof. She can open bins herself and she’s able to pull out a wicker basket that is pushed fully under a table with little clearance.
She also likes to look out windows, and we have a cedar chest right under our dining room window that she loves to jump on to get a good view of the back yard. The poor chest is now covered in scratches, despite having a protective blanket on top.
She also goes absolutely ape shit if she’s left inside while we are outside in the yard. To the point that we just give in and bring her outside. Like I said…little effort spent on training dogs in this household.
So all this, plus a couple of other issues, have made me decide to try to crate train her. It’s been a long process. We agreed we’d do it, so we got our big crate back from my Mum. Then it sat in the carport for months getting dirty. We cleaned it, and it sat longer in the carport. I brought it inside and it remained in our dining room, in two pieces, for weeks. (Greg and I have perfected procrastination.) I finally put it together about six weeks ago and we’ve been slowly getting her used to it. We started by feeding her in it, and then we’d leave her in it for a few minutes while we were still in the room. The training was already going well, and then Greg got a nice cushy bed for it. Now the crate is one of her favourite places to be. She’s been in it, locked up, for up to an hour without any fuss, with the rest of us on various locations in the house. She has slept in it, unlocked, overnight. She often just goes and lays in it (like now). We haven’t yet left her in it while we’re not in the house, but I’m hoping to start that soon (and my bubble might just burst when we do that, but I’m hopeful it won’t).
If this does work, it’s going to be a whole lot easier on all of us. There have been vet bills as a result of her ingesting things, we’ve had to replace things she’s destroyed (like three pairs of my sunglasses), and dog proofing the house is frankly a pain in the ass. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
But even if the crate training doesn’t work, even with all her issues, I’m still thankful that we got her. I cannot imagine life without a dog.