Thoughts about adopting

Dh and I would love to adopt an animal from our local animal shelter. We have one big concern that's holding up the process. Both of us work all day and are concerned about leaving a dog alone for 8 hours at a time. We don't want to come home and find messes all over the place. Is this a problem for anyone?? How do you handle leaving your animals all day?? Thanks for your advice!

Re: Thoughts about adopting

Maybe an older dog, as opposed to a puppy, might be a good option. We adopted an 8 year old shih tzu over the summer and he's wonderful.

Fortunately, it's only a couple days a week that he is alone for a long stretch. We put down wee-wee pads and somehow he knows to go on them. It is still a PITA but clean-up takes two minutes. Frankly, cleaning up the pads does not bother me that much.

Re: Thoughts about adopting

I currenly have two dogs - one was adopted at about 3 years old from the shelter. She is the 4th rescue dog that I have had. She is home while we are at work from anywhere from 4-7 hours. She lays around most of the day. Being that she is not a puppy, she is very content to lay around on her bed. I never had a problem with any of the dogs I adopted. They take a couple of weeks to settle in but after that, they were fine. I had Oreo confined in the kitchen for the first couple of weeks but now she has the run of the house.

FM if you have any questions - I will be more then happy to help.

Re: Thoughts about adopting

Def look into adopting a young adult or adult dog. You can start on petfinders.com

Re: Thoughts about adopting

We adopted our dog at nine months old. She was already housebroken and crate trained. As far as leaving her, she is fine with it and we try not to leave her for more than 8 hours (although it has happened).