A poster on a forum I frequent is on the search for a dog. One of the things she said she didn’t want was a needy dog, the kind that always has to be right there with you. Guess she wouldn’t want Chester.

Today I decided that it was time to test Chester out in the house on his own. We’d come back from the farmer’s market, and he was an unloaded puppy. I told him to stay (knowing full well he wouldn’t), and then we went out the back door — so unfortunately he knew we were out there. I only wanted to leave him for about 10 minutes or so.

As we went out, my husband said wouldn’t it be funny if he came out into the cat’s kennel? Yup, you guessed it, within 2 minutes he was out there. That is the very first time in 5 months that he’s gone through their cat door, even though he uses a doggy door at the place where we board him.

I don’t think normally he would have gone out there on his own. He has to great a need to be near us, and frankly, he likes being an inside dog. Sure enough, as soon as I came back he, so did he, although because it’s a jump up, it’s harder — but he did it.

It will be interesting to see if he continues to go out there. I suspect he might occasionally if bored, but I don’t think he’ll want to very often. He just needs to be with us. We’ve worked so hard on stay, and stay when I’m out of sight . . . he does okay when he knows we’re training, but if I tell him to stay somewhere in the house and then go to do a few things, in a minute or so he’s at my side.

Unless, of course, I want him in eyesight. Then he seems to deliberately stay out of sight.

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I wanted to put Chester in daycare one day this week. I went back and forth with Monday or Tuesday (when my husband comes home), and finally decided on today. I fgured better not to have to go traisping off to get Chester while my husband is (hopefully) arriving home.

I screwed up. I have a dentist’s appointment tomorrow, and it would have made both of our lives easier if I had him daycare tomorrow. Especially since it’s supposed to rain. Hopefully it will hold up until after our walk, so I can tire him out before leaving.

Tonight I decided to do some training with Chester in the crate before giving him his kong. That went very well.

But after I let him out, after he finished his kong, instead of wanting to settle down, he was suddenly full of energy. He jumped up on the couch univited, so I told him “off” which he readily complied with. Then I wanted him to do a puppy pushup, but he refused to down. I don’t understand it, as it he was happily doing downs in his crate just 40 minutes before.

It didn’t seem like adolescence selective hearing, though, he actually seemed scared of me. I’ve no idea why. I’m afraid I got very angry with him, which I know only makes things worse, but sometimes you do things you know aren’t helping because you just can’t seem to help yourself.

I knew he seemed frightened for some inexplicable reason, yet I also know you’re never supposed to give a command you can’t follow through on, and he absolutely refused to do it. It was really very odd; he does downs all the time.

We will both be glad to see Daddy tomorrow, only Daddy’s going to be exhausted (assuming he gets in through the predicted thunderstorms.

Unless he does it tonight, the entire time my husband’s been gone Chester hasn’t pooped at “last call”, as I call it. He usually pooped for the last time somewhere between 6 and 7 pm, so he’s holding it for 12 hours overnight. Of course, he was also on antibiotics almost the entire time.

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I am so frustrated this morning. I wanted to take Chester out for his walk early this morning, so that it wouldn’t be hot. I have things I need to get done, too. But I won’t take him for a walk until he’s at least pee’d.

But he won’t. He keeps ringing the bells to go outside once I’ve put his harness on, but once there, he does nothing. I do not want him peeing on other people’s lawns. It’s been 3 hours since he first pee’d. He usually needs to go in that timeframe.

In the meantime we’ve been out twice already this morning, with no pee forthcoming. I get so tired of not being able to do what I want, when I want, but if I just go ahead and do stuff, he would probably have an accident. I don’t think I could ever have the patience to potty train a human child.

But then I bring him back inside, and he curls up in his bed like a little angel . . . it’s hard to mad at him when he looks so cute. Until the next time we go out & maybe he still doesn’t do anything! I really wish we could get to the bottom of his bathroom habits (or non-habits, as the case may be).

Apparently third time was the charm, finally at 10:30 am we were able to go out for our walk. One of the things I miss on my walks now is that I can’t pet the outside cats. Even if Chester was okay with it, I doubt most cats would stand for a strange dog, no matter how nice, walking up to them.

I saw this gorgeous ginger cat on our walk today (what’s one more?), and he even walked right towards us. But I left him alone (Chester didn’t seem to notice him). I did stop one day to try and pet some cats I actually know. I put Chester into a sit-stay first, but he still barked and growled at them.

I was very disappointed, and somewhat surprised. He’s been raised with cats from a young age. Not just ours, but his foster mom had cats, too.

The other issue we’re still dealing with his mild separation anxiety. I’ve stepped up my efforts with that again. I’m tired of feeling I can’t leave him; that I can’t go and do what I want to do when I want to do it — and I want to be able to start going swimming in the morning once a week or so soon! I’m really not gone that often, but still, I have to grocery shop, I help at a cat rescue — I’m gone a few hours a day several times a week. Certainly much better than the norm, with everyone is gone at least 8 hours a day!

I’ve read a number of positive training dog books. They all have a slightly different take on SA; basically, I’m finding I just need to keep trying different things. Although if it doesn’t get better, maybe it really will be time to do some one on one time with a trainer. The latest book I’m reading is “The Latchkey Dog“, by Jodi Andersen.

I like the book a lot. According to it, I’ve done most things right: Chester has learned basic obedience, which we practice every day; he has to sit-stay for his dinner; he isn’t hand fed; he goes for walks under his own power; he gets a couple of toys each day, that I choose. According to Andersen, often separation anxiety occurs because the dog is alpha, and is worried about keeping track of his pack.

Yet I don’t think Chester sees himself as the alpha dog. He does get to sleep on the couch, but he gets off if asked to, and I can move him wtih no problems at all.

So, in addition to his kong in his crate at night, I’m going to step up training him in the crate as well. I’m also going to try to make sure he’s left alone in the bathroom every day, too. I did that today for the first time when I didn’t even have to go out.

After our walk, I moved his crate into the bathroom. He, of course, was already snoozing away on the couch, so I brought him into the bathroom. I tried getting him into the crate with treats, but he just freezes when I put him in the bathroom and close the door now. So eventually I just moved around the room, calling him to me, and telling him to “take it” — and throwing a treat in the crate each time he did take it.

Eventually he ate the treats in the crate, too, but didn’t want to stay in there. Then I left, did some stuff for about 20 minutes (and didn’t hear anything, but then I did have the radio on), then let him out.

I’ve also begun to feed him his dinner, in the crate, in the bathroom occasionally. He’s always been fed in his crate, but not in the bathroom.

I would love to just let him roam the house, yet I think it’s important that he learn to become relaxed when confined, because it’s going to happen someday. Right now I’m not even crating him, just leaving him in the bathroom with the crate (and a chew in the crate) there (door open). His bed is also there, along with a chew toy.

He’s so funny. Most of the time if he’s on the couch, and I get up to do something, after a minute or two he comes to find me. People on the chihuahua forum were talking about their dogs doing the same thing. Yet when we came back from our walk, and I stopped to do a few chores, he’d taken himself off to the couch on his own.

Chester did very well in class tonight. He did awesome stays with all the dogs in the class (and their people) walking by, and did well on his sit stays with me out of sight. He had a bit of trouble with doing the left turn when heeling.

But the real problem was the end of class, when we worked on come with distractions. Food distractions. He picked up the pig’s ear, although he did put it down. He stopped to go back to the cow’s hoove. But the crowning glory was the open bag of kibble at the end . . . he had real trouble with that, although eventually he did leave it. This is something that’s going to be difficult to practice, especially with the boys around.

He does so well with training because he’s so food motivated . . . but food distractions really are distractions for him!

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It was a frustrating morning with Chester this morning. I’ve slowly been increasing the time before I take him out first thing in the morning, so that he gets back to his normal time.

It’s interesting, actually, when I get him up at 6 am or thereabouts he’s not all that eager to go out. He’s happy enough to, but I suspect he’d be equally as happy to still be snoozing in his bed. When I go to give him breakfast, about an hour later, he can’t wait to get out of his crate and is just bursting with energy.

Anyway, all that went fine. I played with him some inside, because the problem I’ve been running into is that he really doesn’t need to go right after he eats breakfast. When it’s dry out, that’s fine, I can just let him explore the backyard while I read. But it’s been dewy lately, and neither he nor I have been keen to stay out there.

So he didn’t want to go when I took him back out around 8 am (almost 2 hours after the first time, and after breakfast). But when we came back inside, he was happy to curl up again in his bed for a while.

The really frustrating part was when I took him back out around 9:30 am. Surely by this point he would need to go — but no! Some days he just defies his norms, but how am I supposed to know that ahead of time? So off the the farmer’s market we go.

The farmer’s market is a great place for socialization, with both humans and dogs, and Chester got plenty today. Lots of kids petting him, lots of dogs to snif up. It’s a warm day, though, and he was really tuckered out by the time we left about an hour later — which is exactly what I wanted. The farmer’s market replaced his morning walk today, and he gets socialized for free! He finally went on our way out.

When we got back home, I was surprised to find Simba esconced in the bathroom. As I said, it’s a warm day today. Simba lives for warm weather, and he loves to just lay out there, panting away. But today he’s been holed up in the bathroom all day long. I’ve no idea why. He definitely doesn’t appear sick; I guess he just wanted to mix things up.

Normally when my husband is out of town I have trouble sleeping the first few days. Apparently a puppy is the cure for that. I’m so wiped out at the end of the day, I fall right asleep no problem — not to mention I’m staying up later than I normally do, but getting up the same time (Gizmo makes sure of that; he’s picked up a few bad habits over the years).

I keep telling myself that people do this all the time . . . they live alone, work, and have cats and dogs . . . why does Chester seem to eat up all my time, then? I know now why people install doggy doors . . . but that won’t even work for us, because the cats can’t be allowed to roam at will out back.

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I wanted to get to a movie today, and actually get some stuff done around the house, so I put Chester in daycare. I can’t really figure out if he enjoys it or not. I think he does; he pulls toward the buildings, not away. In fact this morning, he was whining when we got there, which he rarely does; I thought he might have to really go, because he hadn’t gone before we left the house, but nothing was forthcoming.

The only problem with daycare is you have to drop them off — then you have to go out and get them again! It never seems to be as much of a break as I’d like. Every once in a while I just feel that I need some Chester-free time, and that’s normally where the husband comes in, but obviously not this week.

Thinking about it, though, I guess Chester must at least somewhat enjoy daycare. There was someone dropping their dog off for boarding right before us, and you could just see this poor dog was not happy - tail tucked in. Chester goes in all excited, tail wagging a mile a minute. I just wish I knew that they really do everything they say they do!

We played in the house this morning, since the yard was still very wet. We haven’t played that much inside in a while, so I made sure to play with him in almost every room in the house — so he doesn’t begin to view any rooms as unused, and therefore a potential bathroom.

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This morning I was watching the news after feeding and playing with the boys, while Chester was still in his crate in the bedroom (after one trip outside already), thinking what a good boy he’s been in the mornings. Not a peep out of him even tho he’s all alone in the bedroom for an hour — and that’s when the whining started.

It was just a few minutes, and then he quieted down again. That’s the first time he’s made any noise in the morning.

Today I usually go socialize cats at the cat rescue, but my friend called to say they had to take one of their cats to a specialist (didn’t say why, doesn’t sound good), so I couldn’t go. I was really looking forward to it. There’s nothing more calming than a little kitten therapy. It’s like being a grandparent: I get to play and snuggle with them, but I don’t have to do any of the “real” work.

As we went out on our walk, a little later than usual because it was cooler this morning, it was looking slightly ominous. I decided I wouldn’t walk quite as far as usual, and just add on a little extra on the end if it wasn’t raining. I still planned to go out, because I need to keep working to get Chester used to being alone, so I wanted to tire him out.

I did run into the woman I used to see frequently on my walks pre-Chester, and her dog. I haven’t seen them once since we got Chester! Blanche, who’s a wonderful, big ole mutt, was a little scared of Chester actually. Chester has been doing very well on his walks lately. He’s been stopping at crosswalks without me having to say anthing about 90% of the time.

We managed to get back without being rained on, so I ate lunch, took Chester out for a little more training and an attempted (but failed) potty break (no big surprise, he’d just gone an hour before), then put him in the bathroom. He definitely did not want to get in there.

Since I didn’t have to go out today, it was soooo tempting to stay in. I’m tired. I didn’t want to go out. But Chester really relapsed on being left alone while I was sick, and I have to get him acclimated to it again.

It started to rain as I left my second stop, so I decided to head home and hope that I could beat the worst of it, which meant that I got home in an hour and a half.

Chester wasn’t too bad. No accidents. He didn’t touch the treats I left in the crate (with door open); no big surprise there. But while he was definitely happy to see me, he wasn’t as frantic as he sometimes gets. Normally I’d be gone longer on cat rescue day, but I just didn’t relish the thought of taking him out in the pouring rain. He always has to go right after I come home; he gets so anxious it’s difficult for him to hold it.

I also brought the boys in out of the kennel. I gave them one of their favorite treats, Nupro Health Nuggets, and since Chester was out loose, I had him do some sit-stays and down-stays (for his own treats) while the boys ate theirs. And it worked. He never touched their treats. While I could probably get him to do it when they eat their dinner, too, Gizmo gets so nervous that he’d be liable to just stop eating. He deserves to eat in peace, and that’s why Chester is crated while the boys eat.

Usually my husband takes care of him while I’m feeding the boys, but since he’s not here, the crate is working. Not only that, Chester has to become more comfortable in his crate. I think that we’ll continue to give him a kong in his crate in the evenings, even after my husband is back home.

We managed to dodge another thunderstorm this evening at last call, as I like to call it. Of course, there was the doozy that woke me up at 3 am . . . but didn’t seem to effect Chester. It’s a good thing he’s not scared of thunderstorms, but we get some really good ones. Still, I don’t understand how he wakes up & runs after Gizmo, barking, because Gizmo simply jumped off the couch, yet he apparently sleeps through thunderstorms. Go figure.

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And so far things are going pretty well. No accidents at all, despite plenty of opportunity.

Last night it began thundering and lightning shortly before 9 pm. I took a look at the weather, and sure enough it looked like a pretty severe storm rolling in right towards us. I decided to take Chester out early; he hadn’t pooped (that I know of) since about 10 am anyway.

He pee’d right away, but refused to poop. I kept walking him back and forth, back and forth, feeling nervous because of the lightning, and getting more and more annoyed because I felt sure he must have to poop. After 10 minutes of nothing, I took him back in and put him to bed in his crate and went to bed myself shortly afterwards.

No accidents overnight, thank goodness. In fact, he took a couple of minutes of walking back and forth in the morning to produce some poop. Obviously, the antibiotics are really kicking in, although his poops are still a little bit soft.

We worked on more stays with distractions this morning, and he did pretty good. I’ve begun to play a little bit of tug outside with him, and he seems to be really enjoying that. Some people don’t approve of playing tug with dogs, but some trainers I respect seem to think the earth won’t stop if you play tug with your dog, and I’m still not seeing signs of dominance. We both have fun, and it’s a good way to burn off a little energy.

He’s not a retrieving kind of dog. I can get him to get a soft frisbee like toy 2 or 3 times, but then he loses interest even though he gets a treat for bringing it back to me. I actually wish he was more interested in frisbee or balls!

We just happened to go for our walk this morning at the same time as a lady who has 2 dogs, and she already told me they’re not dog-friendly. Luckily, initially, we were on opposite sides of the street. When I did cross over to the other side (there’s really no choice where we walk), I made sure that Chester was far behind them.

Everything went well until she turned to come back the other way, and one of her dogs slipped his collar. Turns out that apparently only one of them is dog-aggressive, and not the one that slipped his collar — only I didn’t know that initially.

So here she is holding onto the other dog for dear life, I’m slightly freaking out thinking this large aggressive dog is going to eat Chester and trying to grab him. Eventually I was able to pick him up and walk away. I suppose I should have offered to help her get his collar back on, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Life with dogs seemed so much easier when I was a kid. Who worried about simply taking a walk with your dog?

I felt for this woman, and I don’t know what the solution for her is. Obviously, she has to be able to walk her dogs. But I should be able to walk Chester, too, without having to worry about his getting torn to bits.

I am disappointed. I’ve been giving Chester more freedom, as he hadn’t had accidents since getting on the antibiotics. He even ran the bells around 3:30 pm, even though I wasn’t standing near him. I was so proud of him!

But I was just making the bed — it takes all of 15 minutes — and came out to a pile of poop on the back doormat. True, at least he didn’t go on the carpet. Did he ring the bells and I just didn’t hear it? Somehow I doubt it. There are days I just despair of ever having a life again. It sometimes seems I’m just going to have to accept him pooping in the house (and I really don’t want to), or hover over him every minute of the day. It’s been 5 months now. I know many dogs aren’t reliable until 9 months to a 1 year, and that’s a long way off.

As I was feeding the boys tonight, I walked away to do a few things, and Gizmo walked away from his food. I walked back to stand behind him, and he happily ate his dinner. Sometimes I wonder if he ever gets to eat when I’m not here, except he maintains his weight well. And sometimes I wonder if I’m creating all these neurotic animals. Am I really that neurotic that I just bring it out in them?

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Gizmo is such a whiner. He thinks that he should get to go out at 4:30 am when it’s warm. So he comes into the bedroom, and jumps up on the bed, then back off when he gets no reaction. Then he whines. Which makes Chester bark — I just stared at Chester and he stopped. But the whole process was repeated several times until I shut the bedroom door.

I got up at a reasonable hour — 5:30 am. Let the boys out, started some tea for myself, then took Chester out. He immediately peed, but then wanted to come right back in. Since he hadn’t pooped in almost 12 hours, I wasn’t about to let him in. Eventually he did the deed, he went back in, and I didn’t hear from him again.

Since I didn’t have to worry about accidents with Chester, I threw the boy the large catnip mice I’d bought them for their birthday, and much bunny kicking ensued.

Fed Chester a bit after 7, and then we went out to do some play/training. Unfortunately, he wasn’t ready to do anything yet, so we did a little heeling. He did better than yesterday, but he still had too much energy to want to stick near me. I let him go play for a while.

Next we worked on “stay” with distractions. I put him in both sit-stays and down-stays and threw several things past him: his ball, sticks, the fruit from the magnolia tree he loves to nibble on.

Interestingly, he didn’t do well if I threw something at him while I had him in a stay — almost every time I threw a stick past him he broke his stay and went after his stick. However, if I told him to “leave it” when I threw the distraction, he didn’t break his stay.

I have also been having him stay while I retrieve packages that are left on our front door by the mailman or the UPS truck. I’m really taking a chance here, as I don’t have him tied to anything or a leash on him, so if he decided to bolt it would be trouble. So far he hasn’t even tried. Am I playing with fire? You hear stories of animals bolting just that once and being killed all the time. But I also can’t continue to pick him up every time I have to go to the front door.

This afternoon Chester was busily chewing a catnip toy when Simba got very interested. You could just see his whole body tense up. Simba was obviously within his rights, after all it’s his toy — but I don’t want Chester to snap at Simba, either.

I ended up just taking the toy away altogether. But then Simba was bopping Chester, and Chester was getting the zoomies and a bit growly. It ended with me having Chester do a few puppy pushups, and Simba going back outdoors. Usually Chester is still sleeping at this time of day, but I guess his last potty break woke him up, plus dinnertime is getting close.

I decided to take another chance this afternoon, and left him free in the house while I took a shower. No accidents. Nothing chewed up that I could see. Considering he hadn’t pooped in almost 8 hours, maybe I shouldn’t have chanced it. It’s hard to know when to gamble and when to fold.

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I didn’t think there would be much to report today, as Chester is in daycare. I needed to go out for longer than he’s really comfortable with yet, not to mention I just needed a break. Although the problem with daycare is that you have bring him there, then go out to pick him up again.

He slept through the night no problem. When I took him out at 5:30 am, he wasn’t real anxious to come out of the crate, and curled up on the chair as I got his collar on him. I can probably wait a little longer tomorrow, although he did need to do his business pretty quickly.

We went back out after breakfast for about an hour. He didn’t cooperate much in his heeling training today, so we didn’t do too much. Then it was back inside for a snooze.

Just about the time I was going to get him in his crate to take him to daycare, he started to run around barking. He still doesn’t bark that much, usually only when he’s startled, so I was surprised. I decided to take him out, and lo and behold, there’s a puppy running around. The first test of our fence.

He was definitely acting protective of his “territory”, barking, growling, and stiffly wagging his tail. But once he got to sniff noises with the puppy (who was very cute and submissive, but no tags and I’ve no idea where he came from), he seemed to relax. We have welded wire fencing on the sides, and privacy fence on the back and front. I had no trouble getting him to go back inside and into his crate.

However, puppy showed up on our doorstep! And followed us into the garage! I had to go, but had visions of running over the darn puppy or having him trapped in our garage. So I just backed out very slowly, and when I saw that he was to the side of the driveway, I was able to close the garage door. The puppy was nowhere to be found when I got back home after some grocery shopping.

I tossed a toy mouse around for Gizmo when I got back. It was so nice to see him playing with such enthusiasm — he tolerates Chester, but he’s still not very happy about him. He is clearly happier when Chester isn’t here, and it makes me feel guilty to know that I’ve made him unhappy. I play with him everyday before I let Chester out, but once Chester’s out, it’s difficult to play with him. Chester wants any toy that he sees — and while he might leave it alone if I told him to, Gizmo would get upset just at my tone of voice. I yell at Simba, and Gizmo runs away!

This evening was our second fence-test. One of our neighbors ties up their dog on a very short lead in their backyard, occasionally, and he just barks the entire time. Today was one of those days. And the other neighbor was yelling at their dog a lot.

In fact, the human yelling “No!” seemed to really bother Chester, and he was barking and growling much more than usual. I had him come to me, and sit or down a few times, but then they’d yell at the dog again and he’d start barking again. Mostly I tried to ignore it, hoping that he’d get bored with the barking when it wasn’t getting a reaction, but that didn’t seem to be the case. I would have done a bit more training with him, but I didn’t have a lot of treats left. I wonder if he remembers the puppy from this morning, and he’s still trying to defend his territory?

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As I said yesterday, things went well. I took Chester out at 5 am, and he did his business (instead of just peeing as he has the last couple of days). I brought him back in, put him in his crate, and went into the living room to lay down some more.

Then I fed and played with the boys (our cats). All in all, Chester was in his crate in an empty bedroom for almost 2 hours, and didn’t make a sound — or have an accident.

After breakfast I took him outside for a while. Our backyard is now fenced in, so once he’s done his business, he gets to be off leash. He will get the zoomies in the morning, but it still seems that he much prefers the indoors to the outdoors. All I have to do is walk over to the door, and he’s right there. At least I don’t have to worry about trying to get him in!

Why is it that wherever you want them to be, they must be somewhere else? If he’s on the couch and I want to quickly check email, I’ll tell him to stay, that I’ll be back (always using that phrase). 9 times out of 10, he’ll come zooming into the office after just a few seconds.

But if I want him to stay on the couch, so I can relax, it seems he must go lay somewhere just out of my line of sight.

We relaxed for a little while, then went back out for our walk. He surprised me by pooping again. That’s 3 times in 4 hours! But there’s no more mucous, there haven’t been further accidents in the house (yet, anyway), despite the fact that I can’t always have my eyes on him.

I’ve been having him stay when I go out the front door. Not really practicing it, but I went out yesterday to get a couple of packages, and this morning to get the newspaper. I just tell him to stay, go out, and then come back in — trying to make sure I’m blocking off the door when I come back in. So far he’s pretty much stayed where I left him. I certainly wouldn’t put him in a sit-stay and just leave the door open, but it’s nice to know that I can walk out the door for a few minutes without him trying to dart out.

Today was the first time I’ve taken him to training by myself. It was just us and one other dog, as it’s Easter today. I was half hoping there wouldn’t be class, as I was ready to rest some more.

Chester did very well today. We practiced heeling, which we just started last week. Then we tied them to a post, and practiced sit-stays and down-stays with us out of sight. Chester did very well on that, only breaking them one or two times. The trainer said he was watching my feet in the next aisle (we’re taking an intermediate class at Petsmart).

Next we practiced sit-stays and down-stays with distractions. We put them into the stay, and then one of the other people in the class walked by. Then the trainer and the other person. Then both, with the trainer jingling some keys; and finally with the trainer throwing the keys on the floor near Chester. Chester was awesome. I’ve been doing a lot of work on stays, especially stays with me out of sight, while he’s off leash outside.

Still, I saw someone at the farmer’s market who had her dog on a sit-stay off leash, and I complimented her. She admitted she had to put him back into it once, but still, it was impressive. I’m not sure I’d ever feel that comfortable with it.

Finally we practice heeling with a right turn, then heeling with a stay — and us circling our dogs. Chester really did well in class. The trainer mentioned that she thought Chester would do well in rally obedience.

Chester does very well with his kong in his crate after dinner again. I’m able to train the boys in another room, and feed them — he did get a little whiney after about 10 minutes, but by then I was finished and he settled down with the kong again when I came into the room.

In fact, he hadn’t quite finished it after half an hour. I helped him get at the last carrots stuck in the bottom, left the crate door open, and he was in there another 15 minutes. After having his teeth brushed, he was ready to zone out on the couch and was quiet the rest of the evening.

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