Puppy Prison
An update about the twins is long overdue. There’s been many new shenanigans since Words of Affirmations (if you haven’t read it, check it out). I personally don’t like dragging things out, so let’s just jump right on in.
Sasha broke out of her cage. Let that sink in.
Krissy and I were out and about on a Saturday and I think we were gone for at least five or six hours. We went on a hike, got groceries, picked up some other items, and weren’t really worried about hurrying back since both Nala and Sasha were secure in their cages…or so we thought.
Sasha developed a terrible obsession with tearing up carpet and the plastic trays that go inside of cages whenever she was tied up, so we bought medium duty tarps from Wal-Mart to protect the floor. Unfortunately for us, she also enjoyed tearing up the tarp itself, and would actually eat the material (spoiler alert - she really had us working hard over Memorial Day weekend to clean up her mess and doctor her back to health since she ate so much). To try and prevent her from ingesting it, we put two 20 pound and two 12 pound dumbbells inside her cage to weigh everything down.
That was the day she broke out. I opened the door to the garage, and there was the big white dog standing there wagging her tail. I was flabbergasted to be completely honest. Before then, I’d always be paranoid that I forgot to completely secure their cage or that one of them would break out. Sure enough, that fear became reality real quick.
Krissy and I both ran upstairs to see what happened. Thankfully the carpet was still intact but the cage was done for. She knocked the welding loose at the front so there was no real way to close it securely anymore. Nala was perfectly fine in her cage, but I’m sure she was shaken up since her sister literally busted out of there.
After we cleaned up the mess, it was time to put on our thinking caps for how we were going to securely lock the dog up. We had previously severely reduced her cage time to only being in there all day Tuesday while Krissy and I were both at work and at night for bed. During Memorial Day weekend, we actually let her start sleeping free in our bedroom, which reduced her cage time even more. And a few weeks later, she tore up the cage for good.
We had about three solid options to wrestle with.
We could ask their grandmother (Kris’ mom) to come over on Tuesday’s to watch them. That option worked for the first Tuesday after she broke free, but it wasn’t a long term solution. At the end of the day, if we needed to go to Atlanta or to UGA for a game, I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone else because the dog didn’t like the cage.
We could repurchase the same exact wire cage, just a little bit bigger. It was by far the cheapest option for a new cage, but we were both worried she would just tear up the plastic tray, tear up carpet, or even break free again. We already were struggling with finding a solution before she broke free so that would’ve only been a bandaid fix that would’ve required further action sooner or later.
And finally, the last option was to splurge on a really expensive, high duty dog cage. Krissy found one on Amazon for about $250 and it was forged steel, had real deal locks, and had a plastic grating that sits above the plastic tray. It also had wheels to make moving it around easier.
We decided to gamble and go with option 3. While it was the most expensive option, ultimately, we thought it would be the best long term solution. We want to eventually get another puppy, so that will be puppy prison whenever we are unable to supervise the little one. The cage is forged steel and it’s so wide that we had to build it in their room because it can’t fit through the doorway. It’s also extremely heavy. I think it’s listed at 87 pounds which is really heavy for a dog cage. I don’t regret spending the money for us to have peace of mind while we are away for an extended period of time.
As for Sasha, she did have an incident the first Tuesday we left her in the new cage because her Grammy came over at lunch time to let her out, and she got pissed. She pushed out both the wire flooring and the plastic tray, broke the locks on the wheels, and put a hole in the carpet….again. Thankfully we have a carpet plug who only charged us $90 to fix it. We took off the wheels so it’s not moveable and then ziptied the wire flooring so she’s not able to move it, and that secured the cage to the utmost degree. She’s definitely not breaking out of it now.
Whenever we leave for less than three or four hours, we have found it’s easier to just leave the dogs loose. We pull up the blinds at the front of the house so they don’t break them by jumping on them (again) and we close all the doors to rooms with potential trash. They haven’t had an accident in the house or torn anything up since all they do is sit downstairs and sleep until we get back.
While Sasha is hoping and praying for the day she will never have to get back in the cage, it’s just easier to have a fortified one just in case. You never know how crazy your puppy might grow up to be.
Signed,
Jessica Marie
