The Sofa Is Off Limits

We got Oscar in February, 2022. As soon as he learned to jump on the sofa, which was probably Day 1, we stacked Rubbermaid totes full of yarn behind the sofa. The sofa doesn’t sit against a wall and there’s no way it can be positioned against a wall. There’s a hallway . . tile in the hall; carpet in the family room, and the sofa sits on the edge of the carpet. One wall is at the “other side” of the hallway and the sofa cannot sit in the hallway. If the sofa was against that wall, the sofa would be much in the way and we would be having all the traffic on the carpet. One wall has the TV on the wall. One wall has two windows and a fireplace and the fourth wall has a double door that goes into the sewing room, with not enough room on either side for the sofa. So . . it sits where it is.

I was afraid Oscar would jump off the back of the sofa and land on the tile floor and get hurt so we blocked it with the totes. Then, when he was even more destructive than he is now, he would scratch on the furniture. Even with a slipcover, and using the Sure Fit gizmos to keep it in place, he would either pull it out or come up from the floor and get under it so we stacked more totes on the sofa seat to keep him off that.

Now that he’s almost 18 months old and has calmed down some . . but he has a long ways to go . . we cleaned off the sofa. Because it was a bit tight with the totes behind the sofa, I moved those too. He’s been behaving for the most part. He has gotten on the back of the sofa a few times and I’ve been telling him NO and spraying him with the squirt bottle if he didn’t get down. He’s very teachable and it doesn’t take him long to learn.

But . . last night Vince started to go upstairs. Oscar went flying across the room, jumped on the sofa, sailed up onto the back and went over onto the tile floor. That is so dangerous – probably for any dog but especially for a dachshund with their backs.

Storage ottomans are back up on the sofa so he can no longer jump up there. I think what I’ll do is leave those up there for a few months and then teach him to stay off the sofa. If he knows not to get on the sofa, there won’t be any chance of him falling off the back and landing on the file floor.