# Two issues, need advice



## redd (May 25, 2014)

1) Our 9 month old V male is doing great overall. Fairly obedient (working through teenage pushiness) and well balanced personality. He has never shown aggression, fear, or guarding behaviors. We took him to daycare for a "trial" last week thinking he would do great. He has played with lots of other dogs, no issues.
It was stressful for him, he was VERY unsure and timid (crouching on his belly, tail tucked, nervous). I would be too if I were dumped in the middle of a dog pack. We left him for an hour. No aggression. Seemed okay when we came back (standing by himself, alert, tail in neutral position, not panting, etc). 
----Yesterday Redd showed some guarding behaviors with a new bone. He didn't want me to take it and had his hackles up when I came near. No growling. I had him release several times, gave a treat, and gave the bone back. He seemed to relax. Today he was a little uncomfortable with me being near his food. No growling or hackles, just stopped eating and hovered over his food. I petted him and put my hand in his bowl. He resumed eating. This is all unusual for him.
Here's the question: Does anyone think its related to the daycare experience? 

2) We would like to be able to try to leave him alone out of his crate. We know he is still young and are not in a hurry to try, but he seriously can barely be trusted around our house when we are home! Not sure how to approach this. Any thoughts?


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## Watson (Sep 17, 2012)

I can't help with the daycare thing since we don't kennel/daycare Watson. Has Redd shown signs of guarding before this? When I introduce a new toy/bone to Watson, I always hold it first while he chews on it and plays with it a bit. After a few minutes, I drop it and walk away from him, ignoring him and the toy. I don't take things from him while he's playing with them. As Watson has "matured" :, he knows we don't want his things (unless it's to play with him) and he's pretty relaxed if we come near him while he has something. Same with food, I wouldn't put my hands in his food, just let him eat. 

Personally, 9 months was way too young for Wats to be left out of his crate alone. At around a year, I started leaving him out for 15-20min at a time, then gradually increased to an hour, and so on. At 2+yrs, he can hang out for 6-7 hours alone no crate as long as he is exercised before. I have left him out with meat thawing on the counter, and there is always food/fruit/veggies on the counters which he never touches. He hasn't destroyed anything either. If you know you can barely trust Redd when you are home, I wouldn't chance it yet. Start slowly and set him up for success.


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## dextersmom (Oct 29, 2013)

I can't remember exactly what happened, but I know after our V initially started daycare, he showed some weird behaviors. I think it was guarding related, but my memory is terrible. (He also guarded "prizes" as a young pup, so it wasn't out of the realm of normalcy for him, but it resurfaced around that time.) I think it was just him feeling insecure around so many other dogs. He's very submissive at daycare, so I feel like he went overboard asserting himself when he was home and more comfortable. He did get over it quite quickly though. He's always loved daycare, even though it was overwhelming for him a bit at first (in a positive way). 

Also, I don't know how your daycare works, but I've learned to drop our dogs off first thing when they open for the day. Ours has a two hour window for drop off and they go straight into the play group. It's a lot less stressful for them to enter a pack of 5 dogs and greet each new one that comes in then to enter into 25 dogs right from the start. It definitely gives both our dogs a lot more confidence.


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## redd (May 25, 2014)

That all makes sense. I was thinking the same.... we dropped Redd off in the middle of the day and it was very busy with lots of dogs. This place has a huge great dane there every day of the week- super docile guy but when Redd came in and he WOOF WOOF WOOFed Redd dropped down on his belly like there were bullets flying! He looked terrified! It was hard to watch but the manager assured us he would relax a bit with time. And he did. So we will try again and go early in the morning.

We don't usually put our hands in Redd's dog bowl or take his toys, however if we did he hasn't reacted AT ALL in the past. Our last dog had significant guarding and fear behaviors that we worked around for 10 years so we know the subtle cues of when a dog is uncomfortable. And Redd has never been uncomfortable. Having said that I do think the daycare session was stressful and is probably the source of his new behavior. I just want to make sure its wise to take him back. 

Thanks everyone for great advice!


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## harrigab (Aug 21, 2011)

can't advise on daycare, but as for out of crate, well Ruby had the run of the house at about 8-9 months old, In all fairness though I didn't crate her in the house anyway,(she had a bed in the kitchen when we were out). When I gave her the run of the house whilst we were out there was no issues whatsoever, apart from occasionally finding odd socks dotted from bedroom to bedroom kinda thing.


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## rudolph (Dec 14, 2013)

I forget exactly when we started leaving our pup alone out of the crate, but for sure it was between 9 and 11 months. We were worried about the same thing, so we tested 15-30 minutes alone at first. We made sure to put all the things he normally goes after, and anything else we didn't want him to destroy, out of reach, and gave him a kong with peanut butter (this is what we give him when we crate him, so we hoped it would be a signal to him of some sort).

He was a perfect angel. We have gradually increased the time we leave him -- the longest was ~6 hours (he's about 18 months now and the 6 hours was very recently). 

We now think he only constantly tries to get into things he's not supposed to when we are around for the attention...soo you could just go ahead and try it to see if his behavior is different when there's no one home to pester.

For the daycare, we do use it regularly, but have not had this problem. The trial our daycare does is 3 hours, and they test the dog with different groups and numbers of dogs. They start with very few dogs, and build up to ~25. 

If he's a more sensitive/submissive dog, you might ask if they can put him with dogs with gentle temperments, even if they are smaller/older/low energy.


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## miru (Sep 9, 2014)

Hello,

I am so glad you opened this subject!
It echoes some of my questions about how to start day-care(thanks everybody for advices!) 

Leo was never crated and he started gradually staying alone in a puppy-proof home since he was for months old.
Now at eight months he stays alone three hours and a half in the morning(after an hour walk)than he has an hour walk and play and he rests alone for another four hours.

He has never destroyed anything and we hope ....he is not angry with us ! 

Nice day and good-luck with day-care 

Miru


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## marathonman (Jan 15, 2013)

Our experience with daycare was okay for awhile, but it went downhill fairly quickly. The facility we took our boy to had three big fenced play areas. Things were okay for several months and he got along okay, but then they raised to fences. They were previously about 4 feet tall, so quite a few dogs could jump between pens. Our boy was one. It gave him an avenue to escape if he was stressed out by something. Well, they ended up raising the fences to prevent the jumping and everything degraded quickly. Our boy responded to his lack of an escape route by showing guarding behavior over the staff and redirecting his stress onto other dogs. 
As convenient as it was for us to have the daycare option, it wasn't the best option for our boy. We feel it had pretty detrimental effects on his personality (and caused us a lot of stress). The small areas with 25+ dogs are often just too crazy and very stressful for a high energy hunting breed. 
We are lucky and were able to find someone who takes dogs on off-leash hikes during the day, and it has worked out really well for us. Perhaps you might have a similar option?
If you decide to stick out with the daycare, make sure to request that your boy gets one or two naps during the day. The little bit of quiet time can help.


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