Last night we headed to the lake, and like we usually do, we met up with our friends for some cocktails and conversation at the local pub. The temperature had dropped down to just under forty degrees, so we were kind of debating if we should let Brutus be in the garage like he had been all spring and summer, or if the time had come to bring his crate in to the house. He has separation anxiety, so if his crate is in the house, he has to be in it with the door shut, compared to being in the garage where it can be his choice to go lay in it if he wants to. I absolutely hate the thought of crating him for hours, probably because he hates his crate so much. Some dogs are raised with their crate as their safe place, and I can pretty much guarantee that Brutus was not. About the only time that he actually wants to go in to his crate is during a bad thunderstorm, and then I assume that the closeness of the walls gives him some sense of security.
Anyway, we decided it was still probably warm enough for him to be in the garage, so Don found an old sleeping bag that wasn't really usable anymore and put it under his crate to get it off of the cement floor, and I had thrown a couple quilts over his crate to keep any breezes out. On the inside there is a foam mat and a blanket to lay on, so it's really pretty cozy. We usually put his outdoor tie on him and just leave the garage door cracked a couple feet so he can get in and out to go potty, but he had just gone to the bathroom, and we didn't plan on being gone real long, so we closed the door to keep him warmer and to let him be able to move around better. Well, he had some major separation anxiety, because this is what we came home to.
As you can see, there is literally no sleeping bag left under his crate. It was in pieces all over the garage, and his crate had been turned all the way around. I can't even imagine how crazed he was when he was tearing that thing apart. Not a happy boy.
This morning we woke up to a couple inches of thick slushy, icy snow. Brutus rang the poochy bells on the front door to go out and go potty, stuck his nose out the door, took two steps out and turned right around and came back in. He wasn't sure what had happened to his "world"! We had to laugh, because he was adamant that he was not going out "there". We thought that maybe if he went out through the garage and could get used to it gradually it wouldn't be so bad. I took him to the garage, and while I thought he was heading out the door, I went to the car to get his toy box out. He jumped in the back seat of the car and wouldn't move. It was almost as if he was saying "get me the hell out of here and take me back to where the weather is nice". What a baby!
Finally Don put on his snow gear and asked Brutus if he wanted to go for a walk. That seemed to bring him out of his depressed mood. All you have to do is say "walk" and he'll get up from just about anything he's doing and start jumping around. Don said that he had a great time on his walk, and he even enjoyed jumping around in the snow, so hopefully he'll be a little broken in now.
And so the winter begins. If I remember correctly, Brutus's favorite thing about winter is going ice fishing, and knocking peoples beer over so he can drink them. Hmmm. Should be fun.
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