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Skelaki, I know all of that intellectually and we work very hard at keeping her tired and busy when we are aren't able to directly interact with her. Two "power" walks and a "power" play session a day are not enough but that's what we reasonably have time for.
And yes I know that we need to put our things up. Believe me, I do. Every surface above three feet in height is covered with items that more appropriately belong on the floor such as trash cans, shoes, recycling bins, magazine holders and the like but this dog knows how to open a few of our closet doors and she knows how to get into our closed hamper. She gets onto our desk and into book shelves. The rugs that are left are industrial mats by the doors. The dog beds? What to do about those?
We are not stupider than our dog but we are probably more forgetful and things do get forgotten between us in the heat of the moment such as closing doors (the few that we have) and shoes do get kicked off after working outside. She has also chewed through leashes standing for just a minute of quiet inattention while talking to our neighbor after a walk or while in the car.
She does have to sit for food and attention, but that hasn't been a silver bullet that carries through to other areas of her life. We are working at it but have never had such a determined dog. No need to put us down for seeking help. Most people would have gotten rid of the dog or banished it to the garage or chain in the backyard rather than deal with this.
Training. We haven't gotten into the local obedience class yet. The class times and our schedule haven't matched up (interrupted by a planned trip) and we are not eligible for puppy classes which are held much more often. We have been to the basic canine good citizen and obedience classes with our other dogs and we have used a local private trainer with a past troubled dog but the expense of private sessions ($65 an hour) is more than we can bear at this time.
She does know the basic commands of down, sit, stay, heel and she does them part of the time, especially well with treat reweards and yes, self control is not her strong suit. She knows go to bed or lie down. At night she's good, she stays in bed and sleeps. It's our one bit of blessed peace and quiet. She has to sit/stay for meals and to go out for walks and the like but that has only put a small dent in the chaos.
We will be confining her until we untangle the knots of her bad behavior. The car will be the most tricky. We do not have space for her kennel so we are not sure what to do there.
Skelaki, I know all of that intellectually and we work very hard at keeping her tired and busy when we are aren't able to directly interact with her. Two "power" walks and a "power" play session a day are not enough but that's what we reasonably have time for.
And yes I know that we need to put our things up. Believe me, I do. Every surface above three feet in height is covered with items that more appropriately belong on the floor such as trash cans, shoes, recycling bins, magazine holders and the like but this dog knows how to open a few of our closet doors and she knows how to get into our closed hamper. She gets onto our desk and into book shelves. The rugs that are left are industrial mats by the doors. The dog beds? What to do about those?
We are not stupider than our dog but we are probably more forgetful and things do get forgotten between us in the heat of the moment such as closing doors (the few that we have) and shoes do get kicked off after working outside. She has also chewed through leashes standing for just a minute of quiet inattention while talking to our neighbor after a walk or while in the car.
She does have to sit for food and attention, but that hasn't been a silver bullet that carries through to other areas of her life. We are working at it but have never had such a determined dog. No need to put us down for seeking help. Most people would have gotten rid of the dog or banished it to the garage or chain in the backyard rather than deal with this.
That's a start but at her young age, when not closely supervised, she should be confined either in a crate or ex-pen (covered if she's a climber), or a safely secured run. You might also need to seriously consider whether a dog, especially one requiring this much time and attention, fits into your lives right now. Be honest, and if she does not fit there is nothing wrong with rehoming her or turning her back over to the rescue organization (if you got her from one). I would not take her back to the shelter if you got her from there because her chances of another adoption would be slim to none. But, if you can find her a good home that might be an option.
Is she a terrier ir terrier mix by chance? I have a Toy Fox Terrier and she is just starting to calm down (for a terrier!) a bit at almost two years of age.
Oh! and try a chain lease temporarily while she's still in the chewing stage.
I hope I did not come across too hard before. I wasn't putting you down. I was trying to give you the benefit of my more than 40 years of dog experience.
I have had some chewing problems with dogs......but not to the extent you describe. I had one sweet laid back gentle retreiver, spaniel mix....who under extreme stress would find things of mine and chew them.....almost as communication. The day after we moved to a new house....she chewed up my bill fold with about $40 in it plus destroying all my credit cards and ID. I had left my billfold on a coffee table while I took a nap. She wasnt usually a chewer......she also chewed up a guests expensive shoes.....but she didnt like him.....like I say.....her chewing was communication.
When we got our beagle pup....she had a very strong need to chew....we gave her all kinds of chew toys.....but she was still destructive....but when she got to be around 2 y o; it significantly subsided. At this point her destructive chewing is almost exclusively limited to cracking buttons off shirts....and she can get into the hamper and pull down shirts hanging in the closet if the top button isnt buttoned.
You are dealing with something else entirely......I would be exasperated if I were in your spot....Good Luck. I agree with the previous poster who suggested that perhaps this isnt the dog that fits your home and life. In response to the idea of re-homing......I adopted a dog from the shelter who had been returned twice and failed a foster home placement.....(housebreaking issues).....it took awhile but that problem was cured....and she is one of the best dogs I have ever had.....so re-homing is sometimes the solution.....it is how my sweet McKenzie and I found each other.
We don't know what she is. Bearded collie maybe with possibly some type of terrier and a bunch more thrown into the mix. She's 25 pounds of tightly coiled high tensile steel with robo teeth. With the exception of the big Kongs, she has destroyed all of her chew toys. We only buy the big dog Kong's now.
We've had Airedales for 25 years. They are hard headed and occasionally difficult, especially as youngsters and we've had a fairly "sensitive" dog of that "sensitive" breed in the past, but nothing they've done has prepared us for this. We wonder what happened to her before she was rescued.
Okay we've tried putting everything up high out of reach but we are human and we have a lot of things on our plate. We get tired, we forget and this rescue dog (no good deed goes unpunished) can get into closets and on top of tables to get at things though she's not very big.
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Originally Posted by AK-Cathy
Unfortunately our house is an open plan home so except bedrooms and baths, there are no doors to close. And being human with a lot on our minds and agenda, the few doors that we have occasionally get left open.
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Originally Posted by AK-Cathy
We are not stupider than our dog but we are probably more forgetful and things do get forgotten between us in the heat of the moment such as closing doors (the few that we have) and shoes do get kicked off after working outside.
First, you have to stop being human, tired and forgetful. Then you need to start training your puppy.
Your dog couldn't possibly do the amount of damage she's doing if she was supervised. It sounds like you're leaving her loose in your house when you're not home. An unsupervised puppy should be in a crate until well trained.
What you describe is typical of untrained dogs. My labrador ate all of my shoes until he was 2 years old. He would get up on the kitchen counter and remove everything from it, carrying it around the house. I found an uneated loaf of bread on my bedroom floor. Knives and skillets would be laying everywhere. My beagle basset ate my furniture, all of my stuffed furniture.
But IT WAS MY FAULT! My labrador was crate trained. When he was one year old, I stupidly decided that he was old enough to be out of the crate while I was at work. No, no, no. Labradors are puppies for two years. And since the beagle basset came to us from a rescue, I didn't crate train him because he was already house trained. The crate isn't only for potty training dogs. The crate is necessary to prevent this type of damage when you're not in the house.
If you train your dog properly, your dog will outgrow this destruction. But you have to train your dog. It doesn't happen overnight.
My lab who ate all of my shoes never chewed anything after he outgrew his puppy phase. The same goes for my beagle basset. They aren't only puppies until their first birthday. In my experience, dogs are puppies until after their second birthday. Dogs that are misbehaving after that age weren't trained.
As quite a few people have asked, what training have you done? You haven't posted one thing you have done to train your dog.
Many dogs who are very destructive have separation anxiety, which seemed to be ruled out for you right away since your dog does these things when you're home. But thinking about things like, she's worse when I'm cooking dinner and can't pay attention, maybe she's extremely insecure and stressed when she doesn't have your full attention. How long have you had her? Time and becoming sure that this is her forever home, along with training etc. may help this a lot. I know you said money's tight, but one consultation with a behaviorist might sort things out and save you a lot of money in things not getting destroyed, as well as help her to be a less stressed, happier dog.
To the OP - This post is NOT meant to be harsh but realistic. Yes, I could give you 1,000 things that would help the situation but all of them involve time, patience, and dedication to a schedule. Those are all things I am not hearing in your post. Putting things out of reach teaches nothing except for the dog to find alternate things to destroy. Kenneling teaches nothing. Yes it is a tool but is always used with other training techniques. You either need to make time to exercise and train this high powered, high energy dog or get her back to the rescue so they can find someone better suited for her needs. Not all fosters are a good fit for every foster home. This is not meant to be interpreted that I think you are a bad person or even a bad foster. I just do think that if you can't commit to working more with the dog and be able to do it with patience instead of frustration, you are setting yourself up to fail. Thats not fair to you or the pup. Maybe see if you can switch out fosters with one that is either olders or a lower energy mix.
I think you've gotten some great advice. The only thing that I will add is that, if this dog is a Collie of any kind, no wonder. Such dogs usually do well on ranches and farms; in a more suburban environment, most people who own such dogs need to take them running once or [better] twice a day: we're talking three miles or more. The energy that these dogs have--as well as their mental capabilties--is staggering. Remember, Collies are meant to be working dogs that accompany and work with their owners all day long.
In a nutshell, your dog is bored. I don't doubt that you are playing, etc. However, regardless of the attention you are giving her, it is clearly not enough. The bottom line is that she needs more interaction. Obedience classes are a good idea but the real issue isn't that she is "disobedient," it's that she needs more stimulation and socialization.
My advice: doggie daycare, five days a week and then a very active weekend. However, as VA pointed out, you really would be having to change your life, routine, etc. for this dog, an accomodation that isn't unheard of--many of us have done it to have our pets in our lives. But is that something that you want to do?
What do all of you people that are talking about training, training, training mean? If going to class is what you mean then no we haven't gone to a formal class with her but we have done everything a formal basic obedience class has taught us to do in the past with our other dogs and practice the commands with her daily along with giving commands such as sit/stay to go out, eat her meal etc. If there is something else, such as agility or other specialty training, we don't have much of that here and don't have the contacts nor are we able to commit large chunks of scheduled (their schedule) time to get into it. I have little hope that adding a basic obedience class to the other things that we are doing (that does include the content of that class) will be a magic bullet.
She gets vigorous exercise at least three times a day, long walks to the point of dragging and a power play, where she gets very tired. We have already committed more hours than we would have otherwise to dealing with her issues and were hoping to see some progress but so far, not enough to be encouraging. It seems that we get one area semi-dealt with and another gets worse, especially the destruction of items which we have made no dent into.
She is not left alone. She goes with us everywhere. She does her worst when we are cooking dinner, in the shower, running to another floor for something, working on something, cleaning, on the phone, away from the car. I'm serious when I say it takes seconds for her to do her work. Yesterday I was talking to my sister on the phone and had kicked off my shoes under the desk right where I was sitting because my feet were hot. I noticed that the dog was quiet and not in my presence. She had been gone maybe a minute. In that time she had snuck off with one of my shoes and destroyed it. This is a fair example of the type of thing we are dealing with. Momentary lapses. I scolded her severely as I have before but I have little hope of it making a big impression based on the other times she was caught with chewed shoes.
Frustrated? Darn right I'm frustrated. At first we approached this like a science project, more supervision, more tightening up of the house, more exercise, more structured protocol including basic command drills but the end belies the means unfortunately.
Oh I'm sure it's our fault. If it makes everyone feel like better dog people and more intelligent owners themselves, then heap it on. FWIW, I did do my due research in trying to match our energy and available time to the prospective dog. Rather than get another pure breed dog, we thought that we would do our share and help out a dog down on it's luck, and being my first non-breed rescue I was ignorant about what rescue groups do and do not know about their rescues and the differing protocols of the various groups in how long a dog is kept in a home and observed. In fact, the rescue organization knew little more than we did about her with her being passed from foster home to foster home before we adopted her. I don't blame them. They honestly didn't know. It all looked good on paper. The size, advertised age and temperament were what we needed, she was docile and sweet on the meet and greet and for the first week or so at home but docile and easy wasn't what we got, so instead of scolding, we need help.
As I type this my husband had her to watch. He went to the restroom for a minute and she got up on the table and knocked off and broke his coffee cup. Another day in the life.
We have finite resources of both time and money to deal with her given our other commitments. Our prior experience has not taught us that to be a decent dog owner that we have to have all resources and time available to be focused on the animal. We are doing our best with what we have. I have received some good comments. I will be looking for a chain leash. Most of the comments unfortunately involve things that we are already doing with her minus a formal class but we are exercising the contents of that formal class at home (which worked just dandy with our other dogs) with mixed results with this one.
The scolding and the comments that read along the lines of I'd help you but you suck as a dog owner add to our already stressful situation. Thanks to the more understanding responders.
Last edited by AK-Cathy; 05-30-2011 at 10:09 AM..
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