Tales from the Doghouse

So, we have a dog named Finn (meet him here).

He's been in our household for nearly eight months.  He has learned a lot, so have we.  But he is still a puppy, and sometimes that feature shows up in less enticing ways than others.

For example...

he ate his house.

Yummy!

Yes, I bought him a brand new, lovely, wooden dog house just a couple of months ago.  I put it together and he really loved hanging out inside it from the get-go...and he started gnawing on it from day one.  I figured he would mangle the edges and then he'd live in a disfigured but still functional home.  I guess I can swallow my annoyance and live with that.

But that's not how things went.

This is what happened.

First, he chewed one side so much that there was no longer wood for the screws to sink in to, so it pretty much fell apart.  He did the same to the bottom of the house so what was left was kind of like an expensive, wooden lean-to.

But heaven forbid he should stop there.  So he deconstructed the remaining assemblage until none of the sides could stay together anymore and all that was left was the sad, lonely top (which I balanced over this window well for a week or so to give him some protection while we tried to figure out what to do next).

This is part of the lovely array of wood shreds that Finn left as evidence of his mad demolition skills.

Anyway, Josh did a bunch of research (knowing that his wife might get really angry if we spent a bunch of money on yet another doghouse only to have that one devoured as well) and found a house which gets great reviews and seemed to be fairly difficult to tear apart and didn't cost hundreds of dollars.

So we ordered one.

And when it (finally) arrived at our house, Josh put it together.

(If you are interested just beware that you buy a kit to assemble but you have to procure your own 55 gallon drum...not too hard to do.)

Voila!

Fancy, sturdy, difficult to chew new dog house for Josh's dog.

Just one problem, said dog has no interest in going in this house.  It has been pretty rainy around here and our k-9 friend can be found sitting on his favorite stump, soaking wet while rain pours down on him because he doesn't want to go in his house.

This is where he sits.  Silly dog.

Josh has braved the elements several times of late to force the dog into his house and then he locks him in so he won't be drenched (not trying to be mean, but trying to teach him that he can actually stay warm and dry if he uses this thing).  We've also taken to putting his food inside the house to try to entice him inside and teach him it is a good place (he does go in to eat, or he pulls the bowl out and eats outside, but he still prefers to sit in the rain...maybe he just likes rain).  

I do worry about it a bit.  We'll see what happens once winter hits and it starts to get cold. While we do bring the dog in every night or in really frigid weather, he is a primarily outside dog and he will be spending some time in the weather and I wish he would learn to appreciate his place of refuge instead of ignoring it.  We'll see how it goes.  

Crazy mutt.  Lucky for him so many people around here like him so much.