Monday

I went to see my parents for the weekend to celebrate Fathers Day with my Dad. I had a really nice visit, ate entirely too well and had a relaxing weekend. The chance to get a way is always nice and a change of scene, even for a short time, is very refreshing.

When I came home I felt empowered enough to make a Big Change with the dog. I decided that we are Done with The Crate! He wakes me up every night to get out of it and I don't love this. I started to think about it that since he spends so little time in it and it is such a massive space suck in the room, that we are going to see what life is like without it. Once he is out of the crate, he just goes back to sleep on the floor and I would think his dog bed would be more comfortable and hopefully, when the bed is no longer in the crate, he will spend more time on it. I would also really like to sleep through the night.

If he takes advantage of his freedom, I'll restrain him and if that doesn't work he'll go back to the crate, but I want to see if we can work on ways of keeping him out.  I think we're going to start with him not being restrained, and see if this works. If he needs to be kept from wandering, I'll just hook his leash to the bed and keep him from taking walks. I hope this works.