Our two dogs absolutely adore being outside . . . and furniture. They are dog-door dogs. We have left them home overnight before, with plenty of food, water, A/C, and upholstery in the house, and a friend checking on them twice. They spend the majority of the time outside (per our neighbor’s report). The rest of the time, I am quite sure, they spend on the couch or on our bed. I know this because this is exactly what they do when we are home.

If we leave for more than 48 hours, the dogs go to my parents, who also have a dog door, and they do their thing there.

We have no routine, and our dogs don’t seem bothered by that.

Our dogs do bark, but never out of anxiety. They bark when the garbage truck loudly barrels down the block, when the dog next door goes out into her yard, when the birds fly low, when we get home, etc. There is nothing worrying about this behavior. This is what they are most happy doing, and it is natural.

When they start barking in the middle of the night, however, we drag ourselves out of bed, get them in the house, and lock the dog door.

Anyone that could ever consider poisoning or otherwise harming an animal that did not pose an immediate physical threat to them, has some SERIOUS issues. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s an early indicator of sociopathy.

Before you call me a hypocrite for saying this and presumably eating animals, know that I, in fact, do not eat animals of any kind.

We live in Houston, and it gets as hot here as it does in Austin, I promise. That doesn’t keep our dogs from running around outside as they see fit. They may come in more often when it’s hot, but they still love to be outside.

Our dogs are not interested in breaking out of our yard, although I have had dogs in the past that were, and that was a different situation. We also put a padlock on the gates, just in case.

Perhaps the dog had a dog door, and, like our dogs, simply preferred to be outside most of the time. I could see how someone might think that our dogs are left outside, when it’s actually their choice to be there.

We find this arrangement to be much better for the dogs than kenneling them, which always leaves them a little “screwed up” for a couple of weeks. Kennels are often dirty. The dogs are confined and out of their element. There is almost always at least one dog there that does have separation anxiety and barks incessantly, causing many other dogs to bark. The dogs get little, if any, attention, and some kennel-workers get frustrated and yell at the dogs.

For some dogs (those with separation anxiety, the “Houdinis” that break out, those that simply don’t enjoy being outside, or those without dog doors) kennels may be the lesser of two evils. However, it is presumptuous to assume this is always the truth.

Our dogs prefer it when we are around, most definitely. They greet us the same whether we’ve been gone three hours or three days. (They’re only slightly less exuberant when we return from getting the mail at the end of the driveway.) However, they are as happy as possible with their dog door, the run of the house, mounds of food and water, and some territory to watch over while we’re away.

Just for the record, we also have a cat, and she loves the dog door and patrolling the backyard, too.

She didn’t actually say she left the dog unattended the entire 2 days, just that it was outside. She could very well have had a friend checking in on him. As long she prepared properly (ie, if it was going to be a very hot weekend have lots of water and shade available to the dog, if rainy have shelter, etc.) the dog would be perfectly fine. Nothing in the story gives us reason to believe anything happened other than the dog barked (and if only one person complained, I’m guessing it didn’t really bark that much).

And we’ve done much worse than 2 days. Our dogs have always lived outside, they never came in the house. Living outside in a pen (Gasp!) let them get the exercise they needed during the day without us having to worry they would wonder away and get hit by a car or just never come back (FYI they were Beagels, rabbit hounds for those who don’t know which means they are ment to RUN, leaving them in the house and taking them for a walk once, even twice a day when someone was home would not have cut it for exercise). We also had 2 dog houses in the pen, on little crappy on with plywood nailed together and one that a carpenter friend of my parents made with siding, roofing, window, etc. The dogs slept in the crappy plywood one because the other one was too hot, even in the -10 deg C weather.

My socialist cousin tried to convince my Dad that we were horrible people that practiced “specism” for keeping the dogs outside. My family loved those dogs, and the outside didn’t hurt them too much either. We’ve had over 8 dogs all of whom lived to be over 10, a few getting up to the 17-18 range.

1. If you’re thinking of Andrea Yates, then you’re flat out wrong. That case got about ten million times more media coverage then Micheal Vick. Every fucking time I turned on the t.v. that entire year I saw pictures of her kids. I didn’t even know who Micheal Vick was until yesterday.

2. As far as the two sentences go, Andrea Yates has been put away for the rest of her life. Micheal Vick got, what, two years? AND he gets to go back and play on a pro team, so your argument fails there as well.

3. Yes it is alot different to harm someone/something because of a mental disorder(although no less tragic) than it is to purposefully, knowingly, and intentionally cause harm to someone/something.

The only useless thing here is you.

There are kennels available when you go away for a day or two i fyou have no friends. OR with the economy the way it is, I am pretty sure you could find someone to cheaply watch the dog you don’t care about.

Poor dog.

The dog could’ve been suffering from separation anxiety. Barking’s a common symptom.

I say Team Pup.