Home Alone

Mom and Dad are retired so they don’t have to go to work every day for long times like some of your humans do but they do go out sometimes and leave me and DixieLee alone. We don’t like being left alone because there is nobody to let us in and out when we want and there is nobody at home to give us cookies.

Those are really stressful times.

Also, it is our job to help guard the house and when our humans are gone, guarding the house is all OUR responsibility.  A responsibility we take seriously.

Mom says it’s okay for them to be gone because they will come home soon.  Really?  How does she know that we will not have a Zombie Apocalypse while they are gone?

Here are some of the things we do at our house to make being left alone less stressful.

Get a Good Work Out.  When we are sleeping, we are not stressing.  The bestest way to get a good work out is to go for walks.  We love going for walks but long walks are not always possible especially if you live in a place like we do where yucky weather makes going outside not always fun.

When we can’t go outside, we have exercise by playing tug of war or Fetch Extreme. Playing Fetch Extreme is like playing fetch but you have to run up and down the stairs.  Boy, you can get tired easy when stairs are involved. (Not recommended for dogs who are not as fit as DixieLee and me).

Soothing sounds. We keep the television on all the time, even when Mom and Dad are in other rooms or far away like in the yard.  Some humans like music playing all the time. So, when the television is on, we know that everything is okay.  Rumor has it that there are television stations that play dog friendly stuff all day long. I think that is a great idea!

Puzzle toys.  Another good idea!  When we have something to keep us busy, we forget that we are alone. I like puzzle toys but DixieLee gets frustrated and kills them.

Secure spaces. We love our crates!  It’s like having our own room in the house where it is ours alone.  No one bothers us when we are in our crates.  They are big enough so we can stand up and turn around and have comfy blankets and when we are left alone, we have a caribou antler (or other safe toy) to chew on. 

When we are in our crates, Mom said that we only have to protect that space since we can’t get to other parts of the house. 

Our crates are on different sides of the room but the fronts face each other so if DixieLee and I want to talk to each other we can, if not, we can turn our backs and not be bothered.

Hello and Good Bye. We’re really good at the Good Bye part since we get a treat but we do tend to get a little over excited at the Hello. After all, we weren’t sure we would ever see you again.

It's been days, okay, a couple of hours, who keeps track of time, anyway it is annoying when Mom and Dad ignore our pitiful cries and casually let us out of our crates.  No matter how much we carry on, they act like it’s not a big deal. 

Being left alone is not fun but it doesn’t have to be stressful either.  Think of it as a time when you can just chill in your special place and listen to the blah, blah, blah of the TV guy or the singers on the radio and dream about cookies and squirrels.

Chill,

Zeva

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