Kokoro is 13 months old and he's grown up with a crate + x-pen set-up. He sleeps in his crate at night, and plays in the x-pen during the day when we are at work. When we are home we let him roam free and yell at him to stop chewing on pillows/sofa/shoes/chairs when he's being naughty. He's been through puppy class so he's obedience trained and knows what he's not allowed to do. We also take him to the dog park every day.
Today I caught him eating my slipper (which he knows is bad behavior) and it made me wonder if there will ever be a time when I can just trust him to be roaming free in the house. He's very sneaky and smart. I grew up with a german-shepherd lab mix who was able to be trusted to be alone and freely roaming in the house by 1-2 years of age. I'm just wondering if shibas can ever be trusted or if I will need to keep Kokoro in his x-pen his whole life.
I'm also considering further training classes to get him to be less naughty. He has issues with recall, dropping things that he's not supposed to eat, and leaving things/dogs/people alone. He's very smart and knows a ton of tricks, but he prefers to use his smarts to do naughty things!
If you have a shiba that you trust to be free in the house, how did you do it? At what age were you able to do it? Also curious to hear from people who still have to x-pen/crate/supervise their shibas constantly and what age your shiba is. Thanks!
[mod edit: changed category and closed thread due to duplicate topic]
Today I caught him eating my slipper (which he knows is bad behavior) and it made me wonder if there will ever be a time when I can just trust him to be roaming free in the house. He's very sneaky and smart. I grew up with a german-shepherd lab mix who was able to be trusted to be alone and freely roaming in the house by 1-2 years of age. I'm just wondering if shibas can ever be trusted or if I will need to keep Kokoro in his x-pen his whole life.
I'm also considering further training classes to get him to be less naughty. He has issues with recall, dropping things that he's not supposed to eat, and leaving things/dogs/people alone. He's very smart and knows a ton of tricks, but he prefers to use his smarts to do naughty things!
If you have a shiba that you trust to be free in the house, how did you do it? At what age were you able to do it? Also curious to hear from people who still have to x-pen/crate/supervise their shibas constantly and what age your shiba is. Thanks!
[mod edit: changed category and closed thread due to duplicate topic]