I have a 7 month old puppy, when I'm home I've given him full free roaming privileges to living room and office in my apartment since he was 5 months old. When leaving the house I let him have free roaming in the living room if I was gone <1.5 hours otherwise would put him in his playpen for up to 4-5 hours.
Overall he's done great, no issues at all when I'm home and also had no issues when out until this week. I tried to extend his freedom during time alone and so left him in the living room outside of the pen for 2 hours. I came back to my a small portion of a baseboard chewed up.
It was a bad call in hindsight, he was really tired after a long walk so I'm sure that weighed on his behavior. Either way it was surprising to see this. Prior to this we've had no destructive instances, even in the peak of teething, he is really good about sticking just to his toys. He also usually just sleeps on the couch 90% of the time I'm gone when he has freedom.
How should I approach this? First, is there a good way to train that baseboard chewing isn't allowed? I sprayed some lime juice to repel him which seems to have worked. How do I introduce free roaming while I'm gone? Or should I scrap it entirely? Long term I would like my dog to have more room than the playpen while I'm gone but maybe have to just wait until he's older?
submitted by /u/Ahingadingadurgen981
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