Leaving Shorty Home Alone . . . with precautions

We are working at leaving Shorty out of his kennel for longer and longer periods when we are not home.  This can be tricky because he finds odd ways to amuse himself when we are not there.  For example, he likes to type on the computer.  If I leave a document open when I'm out of the room for a few minutes, when I get back I find something like mmmmmmmmm////////////.,,,,,.,,,,.,,,,./

When he gets tired of typing, he tries to use the mouse.  That always ends up with the mouse on the floor with the batteries popped out, which isn't good for it. 

And he likes to chew things.  Every thing, actually.  But his very favorite thing seems to be pens.  He loves the crunch.  Even the metal tips don't deter him.

If we are quick, we can usually save the pen.  But sometimes the pen is terminal...

And Shorty LOVES cat food.  We keep the cat food in the back room and Julienne is convinced she can't jump over the gate between the main room and the back room.  She was here when we first got the gate; it was quite tall and she really could not jump it.  Since then we've gradually cut the gate down until we can step over it fairly easily, but she still does not try to jump it.  Shorty has no such inhibitions.  He sails over the gate as if it's not even there.  But he knows he's not supposed eat the cat's food, so he waits until we are out of the RV or not watching him, then he jumps over the gate, grabs a mouthful of cat food, jumps back over the gate and then sits down to eat it.  He kind of hunkers over the food so that if we hear him crunching and look at him, it's not easy to tell if he's eating dog food or cat food.  When that mouthful of food is gone, he does it again.  Then when Missy is ready to have her dinner, her food dish is empty!

So when we leave, if we move the keyboard and mouse back away from the edge of the desk and if we move all pens out of reach and if we move the cat food off the floor and if we clean the cat litter, we can leave him out of the kennel.  

One Year Ago: Repainting the RV - a mess at this stage

Two Years Ago: Back In St. Louis

Three Years Ago: Fort Nelson, British Columbia