this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2026
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One summer my family adopted Scrappy
A friend of a friends daughter had him at college but could not longer keep him.
He was a really nice dog, some mystery combination of lab and who-know-what
But she had him in a house with a few roommates who all had different schedules, and this dog had never really been left alone, plus he was in a new environment with new people.
First few days we had him there was always someone home with him. He was great, meshed right into our family.
Then we tried to leave him alone and we discovered this dog had massive separation anxiety. We weren't gone for very long, maybe an hour, he destroyed a beanbag chair, and a bunch of blinds.
We tried crating him, he mangled the crate.
We tried locking him in the basement with some toys and such and this dog busted through the drywall to get out and cause havoc upstairs.
We got him over the summer, summer break was winding down and we knew we wouldn't have the time to work with him on this. It broke our hearts but we had to give him back.
Last we heard, he was actually in training to be some sort of service dog, he was still pretty young and was a very smart well-behaved dog as long as someone was with him, and I feel like a situation like that where he could always be with his human was a great fit for him. I hope it worked out for him.
ffs
Look, I know a lot of you Lemmy armchair animal behaviorists have a lot of opinions about crates, so enlighten me, assuming that, like most people who aren't wealthy, we couldn't afford to put our lives on hold to stay home for probably months to work him through these issues, what could we have done?
Allow him to destroy everything in our house and probably injure or kill himself before too long?
And the basement, while not exactly finished, wasn't a totally unfinished space either, and this was a fairly large house, I know people with small rancher houses comparable in square footage to that basement. It wasn't some small dank dungeon.
you should have realized that taking a dog means some commitment before doing that. dog is not new phone or car you can throw away when you get bored with it, it is not social status sign to flash in front of your neighbors and then lock it in the crate so it doesn't bother you. it is a living being and you need to be prepared to give them a time or don't take it.
it is not about being wealthy, it is about having a plan and be ready to give in the work needed.
there is whole world raising dogs without crates. putting a dog in a crate is such american thing to do. similar to cutting random pieces of their bodies hoping they will become more docile.
yeah, lets castrate the dog, declaw the cat, and then close them in a crate. they are here to satisfy my needs and not bother me when i don't want to be bothered. 🤮
this mindset is cancer and it unfortunately spreads from america like a santa clause.
teaching the dog stuff they need to know does not happen automatically, it takes time. learning to stay alone is part of that process, it is also acquired skill. also, it is not a shelter dog thing, if you get a puppy, you need to go through the same process.
the basement is not about square footage. it is about the fact that the dog is locked away from his family. they are not stupid and they know it. "why was i exiled here?" it doesn't help with their separation anxiety, it makes it worse.
i am sure your intentions were good, but the implementation, not so much. i am at least glad you realized that and were able to make a decision that hopefully ended well for the dog.