So Izzy is finally a year old this month.  So first off i would like to say happy birthday to my 1 year old baby girl. 

But i have been having alot of problems with her again.  She was doing so good for a while and now it seems we are back sliding into old habbits again.  I have been working alot so we are not home as much as before but i won't be working this much all the time or that often really. 

Tuesday night Izzy got into the garbage and drug is all over the apartment and left some on the couch for me too.  She is also starting to chew on shoes again which she hasn't done since she has been crated.  She is chewing them at night while we are sleeping.  I so against crating her at night because she is in the crate during the day while we are gone. 

Last night i stopped in to let her out before we went to my parents for dinner.  But when i got in i had to call my parents to let them know we were not coming Izzy HAD to have a bath because she went potty in her crate and it looked like she rolled around in it.  NASTY.  She was covered in pee you guys.  So i put her outside first then got the bath going.  Got her all clean and smelling good again and took the crate out to wash it out good. 

I know alot of it is her acting out due to the lack of attention as we have been so busy lately.  But i'm not sure how to help her.  I plan to go get her a wire metal crate this weekend hoping that since it is more open she won't feel so caged in while we are gone and she will have a little more room.  Now i know the rule of tumb is to get the crate just big enough for them to turn around and stand so they won't be so apt to eliminate in the crate.  Izzy has almost always eleminated in her crate even though she only has so much room.  So i'm going with the up to 25 lbs crate as she is just right around 10 lbs. 

I plan to also find her some more toys this weekend.  I realized that all her toys were trown away as we were putting them in her crate and with her eleminating you can figure out how nasty they were.  And she had a kong toy but you can guess what happened to that one too. YUCK!  So i am needing some advice here. 

My friend tells me to get another dog to help keep her attention.  But getting another dog right now is just not an option.  We live in an apartment and would have to pay another deposit plus more for rent then we are paying with the one dog now.  And our apartment is not that big to house  a second dog i think.  We will hopefully be getting a house or condo next summer then we may get another dog but until then HELP!!

I thought I had read in a previous post several months ago that when dogs are around a year old they are at the teenage stage and will "test the waters" so to speak . If I remember correctly, this phase is just that, a phase and your dog will pass through it.  Of course, that doesn't address the soiling in the crate thing, but it may give you hope that these behaviors will pass!   Perhaps it might help if you give Izzy a major workout right before bedtime so she is more interested in sleeping than finding something to get into!  Good Luck!

I can't get over how much your Izzy looks like Button! 

Multiple didn't work.  Now let me try the other two pics again, separately....... Here's one of them....

And here's the other one...........Don't you think they are a lot alike?

Maybe it's just the "terrible twos" syndrome. Button did some pretty quirky things up until two years of age. And yes, sometimes they were random, reversal of previous good behaviors or just plain "all of a sudden" never-seen-her do-this-before things. Remember, 1 dog year=7 of our years. Izzy just turned 7! The next year is what I call the "terrible pre-teens". So get ready. But by age 3 it really does all taper off. Promise! But it took every bit of two full years for Button's annoying behaviors to die down. She's as good as gold now. Hang in there/ They're ratties and ya can't change their nature, but as Nora suggested, you can do what IS in your power to not "give" her so many oppportunities to be bad.

Put a teddy bear in the crate that smells like you, or even better an old tshirt. It helps on the separation anxiety.My rattie has only ever wizzed in his crate once when he was little, he was so humiliated by the fact that he did it that I didn't punish him for it. When they are about a year, generally they are set with the daily habbits of your house, so he might try to push him limits(the trash incident) So he might just need some friendly reminding.