22nd Aug 2008
Not my Ichi
So, I’m pretty sure every parent goes through this, well, not exactly this (I hope), but a similar thing. While I’m not officially a parent, there are many times that I feel like one.
Backstory: I hate putting Ichi in her kennell, mostly because I think she hates it. She’ll walk over to it and sit down in front of it, but often not go inside. And I really hate to have her in there while I’m at work. So, when she was tiny, I rarely did. She was often just in the bathroom area with the door closed but not in her kennel. Until she decided that linoleum looked tasty.
From that point she’s been in her kennel while I sleep or am at work. That adds up to a lot. But after the carpet, the rugs and the linoleum, what else could I do? She also eats in there, and months ago she got into the habit of chewing on the door too.
Everything can be fixed, I know, but it’s more important to me to get her behaving when i’m not around. Quite the daunting task. The plan was to gradually increase her freedom. She started with an hour in the bathroom while I was around. That graduated to an hour while I wasn’t around and then to staying alone in the bathroom while I was at work for half a day. Yesterday we tried a whole day. Click for the results.
Clearly, it didn’t go so well. She’s scratched on the walls before, but knowing that I have to repaint other areas anyway, I wasn’t all that concerned. It was just paint afterall. But yesterday was different. You can’t tell, but there’s a bit of a hole. It’s not all the way through, but it is pretty deep. Spackle will be required. Still probably less work than other areas she’s taken issue with.
But this puts us back at the drawing board. She can no longer be left in there. There is some debated over whether or not she’ll do it again now that I’ve made a fuss and told her no. She hasn’t really messed with the door or the floors again. In fact, other than the rug, she hasn’t really repeated any particular destructive behavior more than once.
The truly frustrating part is that I read A LOT about Shibas before I got her. One of the things I read was that they get bored easily and when bored, chew threw the walls. Typical parent I went “not my Ichi, she’s better than that.” Well, apparently not. Couldn’t tell you why I thought she was better than that with all the previous destructive behavior or the EASE of boredom. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s calming down a lot. She’s actually been just lying down and watching tv more. That a girl! Become a couch potato puppy! Regardless, she’s not there yet.
Oh, next weekend is Dragon*Con, so I probably won’t update again until then. Maybe once. But, expect lots of fun pictures afterwards! Afterall, if we weren’t silly and dorky we probably wouldn’t be going. And silly and dorky make for good pictures.
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