<p>I’m looking at 99 pounds of dog that my son brought into the house and trained. I’m thinking the dog will notice and perhaps mourn the absence of the freshman he sleeps with.</p>
<p>Any experiences with that? </p>
<p>And how about cats? Do they even care?</p>
<p>p3t,
When DS1 was gone for six weeks last summner, our dog refused to even go into his room while he was away – and she usually sleeps with him every night! All was forgiven upon his return, and she has learned that while she can’t sleep in bed comfortably with my 15 yo, 6’3", 230 lb. DS2, he does generate a wonderfully smelly pile of dirty clothes on his closet floor that she is quite happy to sleep among.</p>
<p>Cats regards humans leaving as simply staff turnover…;)</p>
<p>My D seems more concerned about if the cat will miss her rather than will we miss her - LOL!</p>
<p>The dogs do miss the kids, but when they return for visits, you will witness sheer dog-heaven. Dogs learn to “love the one they’re with.”</p>
<p>“sheer dog heaven.” When one of my kids makes an appearance after a long absence, our dog’s tail wags so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t snap off!</p>
<p>then, in his excitement, he promptly sheds an entire coat (at least it feels that way) all over the living room rug.</p>
<p>Re cats: when I was a kid, my dad was home with the cat every day (long bouts of out of work and illness.) After he died, the cat sat in the window looking for him for months. There’s no doubt in my mind the cat was in mourning for him.</p>
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<p>That’s one of the funniest cat statements I’ve ever heard!! So true, so true!!</p>
<p>Don’t get me started on this one. We’re on our third (consecutive) Newfoundland, had a dog long before kids. Our two kids were raised with a Newf always in the house and while my son loves and appreciates having a canine, my daughter lives, sleeps, breathes (and quite often smells like) dogs.</p>
<p>While the kids ages made our first Newf far more ours than theirs, by the time the second one came in the picture my daughter was highly involved. I took her to obedience class with me and at the age of about six, she was putting the dog through his paces at the class. Little six year old very effectively training a 100 plus pound mass of black fur.</p>
<p>At the point we got the third, Digby, daughter was 15. While my wife got the detail of the 3-4am puppy walks for house training, “girlie” quite simply took the dog over otherwise. She again did 50% of the obedience class training with me, and clandestinely worked to override any alpha status my wife and I had over the dog… she basically ignored any rules for the dog we had imposed and untrained him, allowing him access to forbidden areas of the house, standup paws on the shoulder greetings, etc. and the result is that the dog has a split personality and acts completely different with her than she does with myself, wife and son.</p>
<p>Digby listens and responds well to the rest of us, but if my daughter is in the same room when the dog is given a command, the dog looks to her for approval/acknowledgement. In his eyes, she is clearly the alpha. </p>
<p>When she called from school, her first words were always “How’s Digby?” She missed him terribly, as he her. He would mope for two weeks each time she left before regaining normality. D played varsity soccer at a very dog freindly school and as we were only two hours away, we would normally take the dog when we went to see her play.</p>
<p>She’s now graduated from school, a degree in small animal care and training, living at home, and working at a doggie day care/boarding facility. Plus, she came home from school with a retired racing greyhound (Justin) that was her training dog at school. I swore I would never have two dogs in the house at the same time, yet I was overridden by wife and daughter. I’m clearly not the alpha.</p>
<p>Now both dogs sit at the front door when she leaves for work, hoping she’ll take them (yes she does, depending on shift times, and the dogs think they own that place too.) If they’re left behind, they both go and sulk in seperate corners. The canine internal clock is such that they assume the front door vigil about a half hour before she’s due home. (This in itself is quite amazing, as girlie works days and shifts that vary from week to week, with no discernable pattern.) </p>
<p>The rest of us are lucky if we get a raised head or a tail wag from either dog when we come home.</p>
<p>I know now what it’s like being low dog in the pack.</p>
<p>Anyone want to adopt a 20 year old female and 2 fairly well trained neutered males? Free to a good home… I’ll even through in the extra food.</p>
<p>I wish that cat statement were true about our cat. We are down to one cat, Frank, who is generally very distrust-ful of humans. (Most people don’t even realize we have a cat, because he hides when strangers come.) He is S2’s cat, and sticks closer than glue while S2 is home. He accepts D as a substitute when S2 is gone, but defects the moment S2 returns. It amazes me how immediately he responds to S2’s return - no warm up or anything, no matter how long he’s been gone.</p>
<p>While D was in Germany for 2 weeks, I was permitted to pet him twice. He cannot stand my H. He is turning 17 in October, and we’ve had him since he was 10 weeks old, but he has never warmed up to us. We got him along with his brother, who died last fall, so Frank has already had a major adjustment in the past year.</p>
<p>S2 has been home now since Sunday, and will be here the rest of the month. When he leaves in Sept., Frank will be devastated. He is Siamese, which is a very vocal breed, and I know we will be listening to some mournful moonlight sonatas in the coming months.</p>
<p>We have been in the process of shifting the care of the dog from DD to me and DH over the course of the last 6 months. We are the ones that feed and walk him. We moved his bed out of her room when she was gone for a weekend and never moved it back. He is too old to jump into her bed anymore so that made it easier. We hope it makes it easier on him when she leaves, not sure about her, though :)</p>
<p>my dog will be gone by the time i leave but my cat always meets us outside whenever we come home after a long time…</p>
<p>our dog, an old yellow lab, started a new habit after our son left for college last fall. Eating holes in our carpet. The first one was the size of a small plate before we noticed. Other holes are more petite. So we put wood floors with small area rugs in our family room. We’ll see how those rugs hold up after our son leaves again in a couple of weeks!<br>
Overall, he has become more emotionally needy too - follows me everywhere - including sleeping right outside of my office. I think he’s worried that we might leave too. He’s a great dog - such a sweetie- but VERY needy.</p>
<p>A different sort of problem will develop if you acquire a new dog after your child leaves for college.</p>
<p>This happened to me when I was a college student. While I was gone, my parents acquired a Doberman pinscher puppy. Because the dog was on the active and destructive side, it slept in the kitchen, where it could do the least damage, and my mom put up a gate.</p>
<p>The dog would not allow me into the kitchen. It treated me as a stranger and was intent on protecting its territory. And I knew nothing about how to handle dogs since there had never been one in the family before I left for college.</p>
<p>The end result was that whenever I came home from college, if I didn’t provide myself with evening snacks before the dog was put in the kitchen for the night, I went hungry. I couldn’t wait to get back to campus at the end of every break!</p>
<p>Dog and son were inseparable. Son was gone for year. The dog waited hopefully at the bottom of the steps for about 2 weeks, then gave up the ghost and latched onto my daughter. When my son returned, about 2 inches taller and 20 pounds lighter, the dog treated him like any other new delivery man around here, growling, nipping, barking. It lasted for about 3 minutes, then all was well.
In son’s absence, cat simply took over his bed and gave it up when he returned.</p>
<p>Our dog does not visibily mourn when D goes off to school for the year, but she about comes unglued with joy greeting her when she comes home. The dog literally runs in circles wagging her tail so hard that she sort of wags her whole body.</p>
<p>Our dog still sleeps in Ds room, on her bed. He’s been known to get under the covers for an extended time. I agree, though, when she comes home, you’d think he’d been electricuted, he’s so filled with happiness! She’s coming home tonight for the 9 days before taking off again. Even just telling him she’ll be home produces a reaction!</p>
<p>ldgirl has two Siamese cats who are, literally, hers. (She rec’d them as Christmas gifts.) One of them is simple and who knows what he thinks. The other is one sharp kitty who can turn crate latches and sneaks outdoors by slipping out when the human isn’t looking and hiding behind an urn until the human goes back inside. It’s quite the covert operation. That one looks out for the simple one. Both seem to miss my d. They stay in ldgirl’s room while she is gone and only come out to eat and use the cat box. They are accepting of others and will take all the petting and affection they can get…you just have to hang out in my d’s room to interact with them.</p>
<p>The chihuahua is mine. Or rather, I’m hers. If she is in my lap, she gets very testy if anyone comes near me. But she gets so excited, running in circles, rolling over, dancing on her hindlegs, when my d returns from school she invariably gives herself an asthma attack. The excitement usually wears off after about 15 minutes and she’s back to being Cujo. (She really needs the Dog Whisperer.)</p>
<p>VeryHappy,
I can’t take credit for the cat comment…it’s a variation of a sign I saw in a craft store: “Dogs Have People…Cats Have Staff!”</p>
<p>We picked up our dog from the “pet resort” today after being on the opposite coast for two weeks. It was the first time we’d left her at a kennel – previously, we paid the neighbor kids to take care of her if we were flying. (We take her with us if we travel by car.) However, when our neighbor came over with her carpet cleaner to clean up Kira’s “political statements,” we decided that was too much to ask and we went the kennel route.</p>
<p>Anyway, the dog was deliriously happy and nearly dislocated vertebrae in wiggling her back end! She is upstairs sleeping with DS1 (who is recvoering from jet lag) as I type. Normalcy has returned to our world (at least temporarily).</p>
<p>Our dog is, indisputably, the most well-adjusted member of our household.</p>
<p>She rolls with the changes and manages to love whoever is there at the time. She loves the “kennel” (spa?) where we board her, because she can play with the other dogs, and then loves coming back home with us. She seems to deal quite well with S’s absences, and then greets him with her normal level of laid-back, I-hope-you-were-planning-to-rub-my-tummy affection when he returns.</p>
<p>Aren’t dogs great?</p>
<p>After an initial period of “pining” I think most dogs make the best of the situation. It’s awfully tough leaving them though, as they often seem to know what’s coming once the packing starts. </p>
<p>I agree with the “change in staff” 
comment re: cats, though we once had a semi-feral rescue cat who never warmed up to anyone but me. H and I went on a week-long trip, only to return and find that he had refused to come out of hiding for my friend/petsitter. He’d also had some sort of kitty tantrum and peed and pooped on my pillow and all over my side of the bed. He certainly made his point :(</p>
<p>My DH travels a lot for work, and when he pulls out his black wheelie, we call it “the black bag of doom.” The dog knows someone is leaving, and is nervous til that person goes. </p>
<p>When we travel together and take the dog with us, the first thing we put in the minivan is the dog crate (due to the way we load our stuff). This is how she knows she’s included. She goes into the car, settles in the crate, and will not move for love or money until we leave <em>with her.</em> </p>
<p>She is adjusting to being home, very happy to be with us, but also somewhat subdued. I expect she’ll be back to her usual wonderful needy self soon enough. (I want to know she missed us!!)</p>