So this is our adorable "fur child." She is cute and cuddly and our most beloved pet! However, she has a problem with separation anxiety. She's a shelter pup so she always thinks that we are going to leave her forever. She panics and gets destructive. We've had crates for her, but alas our personal Houdini knew the weak points and was able to destroy the cheap wire crates within a month (give or take.) When we moved into our current apartment, we had a huge covered balcony with plenty of space for her to roam, watch the birds fly and get fresh air. It was perfect except she would scratch our door frame. We took precautions against this and put a baby gate up and some chairs to block her access to the door.
This lasted quite some time, until the strangeness occurred. We live in southern California. The place of mild weather....however this year alone we have had some crazy thunderstorms. Very loud crashing thunder and lightning. If you have a dog, or have had once in the past, you know that they DON'T like thunder and aren't really fans of lightning either. As I am sitting at my desk, listening to the crazy storm outside I realized that I was going to come home to a mess. Little did I know what kind of a mess I was to experience. I walk up the stairs and see it. Then I see why it happened.
Somehow, she had gotten behind the baby gate and pushed the chairs out just enough that she had barricaded herself in a 3 foot by 4 foot little area. She panicked! Thus her desperate attempt to get into the apartment by means of scratching the shit out of the decorative stucco that surrounded our door and window. Apparently as a cost saver, the basic structure of these decorative pieces are not made of stucco, but Styrofoam, covered with fiberglass and then stucco. A little piece out of it, made it very easy for her to just shred the entire lower half. Of course this was in the midst of my chemo induced flu, and I had only been back to work after my procedures for 2 days. I was exhausted and now had to clean up this mess, call to schedule an estimate for repair, and then figure out a solution to house our puppy while we are at work. Just your average Tuesday.
Two and a half weeks and a big invoice later, the door is fixed and we found the solution. We affectionately call it puppy jail, because it is sturdy, metal and she isn't getting out of this one! No wire or plastic to be seen and it has been reinforced with u-clips just in case our pup could have figured out a weak spot. She had some lovely carpet in the bottom, that she has already destroyed, so she gets some toys and a blanket. D comes home every day at lunch (because he finally can now that he was transferred to a closer branch! WAAAHOOO!) plays with her, takes her out and gives her water.
In this battle it seems like she won against the thunderstorm, but not against the destruction war! We are fighting a good fight. Soon we will have a house with a proper yard for her to run, dig holes and just have a grand ole time. Until then, we will stick it out with the crate! Wish us luck!
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