We love him, but he really tests our patience.
We've had him since he was 7 wks old. I do believe he was taken from his mom to early - we got him from our neighbors.
Even though we are the only family he 'knows', we know his history, his separation anxiety is beyond anything you'd believe! We were told by a trainer that he is seeing more and more GSD's w/sep anxiety. He said it's the way they are being bred. That makes me sad!
When Blitz was little, we had him in an airline crate. He hated being in there and was able to break out of it. We zip-tied it, in hopes of keeping him contained, but no, he was able to snap them.
He was young, so keeping him uncrated was not an option.
We bought a regular dog crate. After a few weeks, he figured out how to get out. We zip-tied that one. He would chew through those and get out. We bought pad locks. He couldn't get through those! He made up for that and started to chew the bars of his metal crate, until he had a hole he could squeeze through. Yes...he chewed the metal crate. We went through three different crates. Finally, after a lot of research, I found a steel crate on Amazon (not the exact one we have, but almost the same).
When it arrived (I was watching the tracking like a hawk), I wasn't home, but I couldn't wait to get there and open it! As I pulled into the driveway at 7pm at night, there was my large box at the bottom of the porch stairs, in snow. The FedEx guy didn't even bother to put it on the porch.
Since Dennis was at work and Cadence was at Religion, I had to try and move this heavy box by myself. And I'm not exaggerating when I say it was heavy! It's a steel crate that is HUGE. It was not assembled and I could barely get it up the porch. Once I did, I slid it across the porch, into the house and it stayed at the door until Dennis got home from work the next day.
He put it together and we both stood back, admiring the durability...but also staring in shock at the size. It's huge! We couldn't wait to test it out.
Sure enough - Blitz couldn't get out! He was able to push out the bottom tray, but that was it. He was unable to chew through the bars! WOO!!
We have since dubbed his crate Alcatraz, because our Houdini is unable to escape!
