One new thing that we’ve been experimenting with and about which I have not blogged, is leaving him loose in the house. Rockwell doesn’t get left alone much but there is one afternoon where I have to be out and I still don’t think he’s mature enough to take with me. So every Thursday afternoon, I have to outwit him and try to get him into his crate without him defying me by collapsing like that sack of wet noodles. The last time I tried to put him in the crate, it was an epic battle between the irresistible force (that’s me) and the immovable object (that would be him). I won that time but it wore me out.

So on the following weekend, Peter and I left the house for about an hour and left Rockwell sitting at the front door. We said, “we’ll be right back!” and shut the door. I do that when I go get the mail if it’s raining or something and I don’t want to take him out for all of 2 minutes and get him wet. So this time, we came home and there he was, sitting by the front door! We looked everywhere and there was no sign of what we like to call “death and destruction”. Nothing chewed, no sign that he had sat on the couches.

Since then, we’ve left him alone on maybe three difference occasions and it seems as though he just waits by the door. The last time, Peter said he opened the front door and Rockwell looked like he had just been awakened out of a good snooze. So while we will, of course, continue to take him as many public places as we can, it looks promising that he can be trusted to be alone in the house without doing any damage.