Freedoms

Stella recently turned eight months old and we have begun the process of her having more freedom in the house.  We spend most of our time at home in our kitchen/ tv room area which has a baby gate to seperate it from the rest of our home.  The baby gate was "temporarily" installed back when Riley was a puppy but has proven useful for times when I meet with clients or when we have extra dogs around.  It has also given the cats and Riley a way to choose whether or not to interact with the puppy while she has been growing up.

The baby gate likely won't be going anywhere but it is certainly open a lot more these days.  Stella is good in the house with possible exceptions of a fascination with gloves, shoes and socks & underwear.  Luckily she mostly just carries them around for attention without destroying anything.   She is actually shaping us to pick up after ourselves much more :o).  I'm also starting to notice her finally easing on the puppy obsession of putting everything and anything in her mouth.

There is a second baby gate in the house which can block our bedroom door.  Again that one was installed when Riley was a puppy and we used it to keep him and Lucy in our room while we all slept.   Stella is crated at night and that will likely continue as I want to keep her used to crating for when we eventually start to trial.   Riley outgrew his crate at about eight months so we began to gate him with Lucy in our bedroom when we were out.  It was a logical choice as it is away from street view windows and he loved to sleep on our bed.  That eventually led to whole house freedom but he still usually just goes and sleeps up on our bed when left alone.  We have now begun the same process with Stella and after a little bit of destruction the first day (ripped book) and smarter planning by us (leave dog toys and puppy proof better) she has figured things out.  It is usually only for 1-2 hours a few days a week so this is a good way to ease into more freedoms.  Both dogs basically hop up onto the bed and settle down for a good snooze when we leave now.