Can dogs get cabin fever?

          I think the dog has cabin fever or at least I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt and call it cabin fever.  This the weather has turned colder the boys have not be going outside to play nearly as much, some days hardly at all.  This is starting to get to Sally.  She wants to go outside and play “Herd the Kids” all the time and with school and the cold weather the boys just aren’t outside as much.  So the dog has started to retaliate. 

          It started out small; a small toy here and there would get chewed.  Then she started to play a little rougher in the house.  I quickly put a stop to that.  One thing I will say about Sally is that she is smart and catches on real quick when we try to train her to do something.  So since running like a loon in the house didn’t go over well she went back to taking the kids toys and hiding them.  Then the other day she knocked down their prized creation, a Lego tower built clear to the ceiling.  Poor Sally was in trouble with them the entire rest of the day.

          The worst of it has been the butchering scraps.  When we first took the barrel of fat scraps and bones out after butchering the other day it didn’t get moved outside of Sally’s radius for about an hour.  In the mean time she was let out to do her business and hit the jackpot.  I think she must have taken ½ the bones in the barrel and buried them.  She has been digging them up one at a time and trying to bring them back in the house almost every time we let her out.  And she has started trying to bury her toys in my flower pots so I had to put all the big ones up high.

          Normally Sally is a good dog.  She listens to me, is protective of the kids, and barks at strangers.  All the things a good dog should do.  So this must be from the lack of activity.  I’m going to have to figure out something challenging to train her to do or get a good toy that will keep her occupied.  I can’t wait to get my mellow, well behaved dog back.