Confining A Grey

[Mali]

Sorry, another question! I have heard that you should not confine a greyhound to one room as they will destroy themselves and the door trying to get out. Does this also go for keeping a grey out of one room? So for example, if we left her in the room she "lives" in and left that door open so she has access to the kitchen and hallway but shut the sitting room door - will she go loopy trying to go into the sitting room?

[smurfette]

We are talking about a dog that is used to live in a cage. Many people crate their greys. I don't believe that under normal circumstances greys destroy the rooms they are kept in. None of mine ever did and they never tried to break into a room either. It is how you introduce that concept of the closed door to your grey, just like all other kinds of training, too.

I often confine my boys to one room when I carry in groceries, dog food, clean the floors... or even when I go out and don't want them to roam the house and they don't mind. They are just used to it. Of course, I always keep water and more dog beds than greys in the same room - more beds than dogs means no ressource guarding.

[locket]

IT depends on the dog. If I shut Charlie in a room, he would eventually whine and eventually lay down.

On another note, it has been over 2 years and I still close the doors to the bedrooms and seldomly to the basement (depending on my ongoing sewing projects ) They have never tried to break into

[Batmom]

She should be fine with your plan. There can be problems, as you note, with a dog left in one room and the door closed.

[robinw]

I have seen a greyhound completely destroy a room when closed in a room. I don't believe in crating. If there's a room or area that's off limits, I put up a baby gate.

[Guest DarkHorse]

We will shut the boys in our office when we have lots of guests arriving, just to help avoid the potential for escape. We also do it when we have contractors over working in the house.

 

The office is where they sleep at night, so they're already comfortable with it. We leave radios on to distract them from the worst of the noise downstairs. And for them, we've found that closing the door works better than just blocking them off with a baby gate.

 

We've never had more than a chorus of whining from Cole and a little bit of scratching the back of the door in excitement when we come to let them out.

 

Keeping them out of a room is easy, as long as it's not their two main rooms (the office and the family room). And we've kept them out of the family room a couple of times (when we first wall-mounted the TV, for example), and they were fine, just Cole whining again. We permanently keep them out of our walk in closet and gym, and they only notice when we go into them. Otherwise those doors might as well be walls.

[greysmom]

Mostly an extreme reaction like that is the result of Separation Anxiety that hasn't been properly dealt with through training and de-conditioning. If your dog is fine with being left alone, he should be fine with being left alone in another room. You should, though, introduce him to this concept before shoving him in there and leaving for 8 hours. Nobody likes surprises!

[NeylasMom]

Unlikely you would have an issue shutting a door to keep a dog out of a single room (unless you were in the room and your dog got distressed when separated from you, but that's not what you're asking about). If you want to limit access to other areas, or confine to a specific area a baby gate is often a better idea than shutting the door. The dog being able to watch you come and go can often make a significant difference in whether the dog gets distressed or not. For instance, Violet had terrible SA when I crated her as a foster. She doesn't have issues with the crate. I can crate her when home and she will often seek it out on her own. But once I started leaving her uncrated she was fine. For the first few days she would occasionally come to the top of the stairs and look at the door, then go back to the bedroom, then she gave up on even doing that unless I was gone longer than normal. She is now gated to an area that is a hallway to the bedroom with the bathroom off to the side. She can't get to the top of the stairs, but she can peak her head over the gate and look down at the door if needed. She does fine with that. She is also fine with me shutting her in the bedroom (with the door closed) when I have people come in the house, but I always give her something to do like a bully stick or frozen kong and keep those periods relatively short.

 

In any event, every dog is different and the amount of training you put in (versus just shutting teh dog up and leaving for 8 hrs) can make a huge difference.

[sobesmom]

Our DD's bedroom was always a NO-GO for the greys. She always kept her door closed, or put a baby-gate in her door. After a bit, they didn't even try, without the door or gate. It was NO-GO. It's totally fine to make NO-GO rooms for dogs. In addition - I made my kitchen No-Go when I was cooking. The dogs could be there any other time, and were fed in there - but when it was cooking time - stay out! They totally understood that. They're smart. They can understand situations, and definately understand no-go rooms.

[MSTmom]

When we first got our boy we got a big heavy gate that we figured we'd put up in the hallway when we were away so he had a big area with his bed and water and toys to be in. No matter where we put that gate he knocked it down and got out. It turns out he hates gates! HOWEVER if we just close all the doors in the house so he can walk around the living room, kitchen, dining room, etc (but not get into the bedrooms) he's totally fine. He had some separation anxiety at first and I realized he really loved to be able to see out the window in the living room when he's home alone. One day my husband left the house and shut the blinds and Steven destroyed the bottom of it so he could see outside. We have also set up a crate for him, that we only use every so often. Honestly if his bed is in there he's very happy to lay in there, especially because laying on his back is easier in the crate.