Double Dog Dare

I wish I had thought of the title as a description of my current dog predicament, but that honor goes to Paul Fischer in a comment on here. We’re three weeks in to our dog sitting of my mom’s dog, as well as almost the same length of time since we have adopted Koga. For the last week I’ve been alone in the house with the dogs. They both have some level of separation anxiety, and they don’t get along well enough for me to want to leave them alone in the same place. Ginger can be left alone in the house, but Koga we don’t trust him yet to not eat the furniture or scratch up the doors and walls. I set him up a pen in the backyard that he managed to get out of Monday, so it wasn’t until Thursday I tried again leaving him alone. Both yesterday and today he was out there and didn’t escape either time, so that’s a step up. The way he freaks out hurts my feelings a little. That pen is so nice, I literally would be happy to spend the night out there. If I get in trouble with my wife, I’ll take my pillow out there.

I was fairly passive in the adoption process. I was noncommittal about the whole thing, but three weeks in I admit that I really love this dog. He is good and very much like our old dog Grace. He looks kind of like her and even acts a little like her. He’s generally calm other than separation time and I really like having a helper to ride around in my car with me. He’s also super-lovey after I put him in the pen and then come home. As soon as he settles down, he wants to jump up on the couch and cuddle up. He’s really just an overgrown baby. I dig this dog.

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Dave Slusher is a blogger, podcaster, computer programmer, author, science fiction fan and father. Member of the Podcast Hall of Fame class of 2022.

2 thoughts on “Double Dog Dare”

  1. Our Pappy didn’t have super strong separation anxiety, but he did have some. We started setting up Kongs, hoping to distract him through the alleged 30 minute threshold where the anxiety is at it’s peak. Now the Kongs seem to act as more of a signal than a distraction– he sees us leaving, but he doesn’t freak out. Maybe he recognizes the pattern and knows we’ll be back.

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