Destructive Tendencies

[highfx]

Afternoon all,
we seem to have an on-off cycle with Saskia and wondered if you could suggest any ideas to brake it?

We try and keep Saskia into a routine and have since we got her in July 14. But every so often she "slips" and destroys something in the house.
Bit of background:
Saskia has the run of the downstairs of the house whilst we are out/at work (she is never alone for more than 4 hours Max) - she can wander into the kitchen, sleeps in the lounge (the sofa is her domain lol) and has her bed in the lounge area too.
Each morning she is walked/run and fed before we leave and given a Kong with treats in and capped with frozen peanut butter - takes her time to get to them.
We then "dog proof" the downstairs - basically, leave nothing out that she can get into (She has a real liking for shoes, parcels, newspapers , pens! and anything cuddly) apart from her toys (lots of toys!)
Most days we come in to nothing other than a very excitable, adorable greyhound jumping around and wagging her tale furiously, but the odd occasion (happening more lately) we walk in to something destroyed. For the 6 months we have had her, we have told her off and moved on blaming ourselves for leaving said item out.

But today, I left her for 90 minutes, unusual routine for her as I am home after a throat operation and came back to her having destroyed a standing lamp!!(Unusual target for her as the lamp has been there 6 months with her and she's never touched it).

I don't know if it separation anxiety, boredom or the fact she is only 18 months old and spent her first 12 months in horrible conditions and is "letting off steam".

Can you help with this as we are frightened that one day she will go for an electrical appliance and hurt herself or worse
We are both anti-dog crates but it's beginning to look like the only option, but it would break our hearts to cage her whilst we go out, as we are sure it would only bring back memories of the awful racing kennels she was rescued from.

please help

[jellybeans]

Hello I am sure you are going to get some very good advice from someone more knowledgeable than me about chewing/destroying(as my Jay uses up all her energy getting off the settee in the morning lol!!) BUT,she was young once(she was 18 months old when she was rescued and came to live with us)and although not a "destroyer" she did like to chew(mostly my slippers which she made into fashionable "peep" toes!)she was a big fan of duvet de stuffing,pillow de stuffing and would whip the cushions off the sofa as quick as a flash and rag them   Saskia is a young hound still and although she sounds very well behaved the majority of the time she  is bound to fall off the wagon sometimes and have her silly times-but i can understand you worrying about the plugs etc,i know a lot of people use crates and have fabulous results,but if that is not for you could you confine her to one "safe room"behind a dog gate(slightly bigger than a baby gate)maybe the kitchen with the plugs on surfaces etc pulled out and  have her  big squishy bed in there just while you are out maybe ?
Hope you feel better soon xx

[julies]

Ummm well if there isn't a pattern such as every time the postman leaves a note she trashes the house you could start with increasing her exercise so you leave her nicely tired.
Feed her from a feed ball so she has to work at getting her breakfast and that occupies her when you're not there.
Leave different Kongs to again occupy her
Absolutely no point in telling her off as she will no link that with the behaviour
Put a tee shirt on her that you've slept on so it smells of you and reassures her... her neck thro the head and her front legs thro each arm hole, tie up any slack round the middle

Julie x

[dash4misty]

My Dulcie loves her crate she takes her toys in there and just lays in there sometimes without being asked ,she is very lively and a thief so I know she is safe and not " found " anything to eat which would harm her , Obie does not go in a crate at all as he is happy to snooze while we are left , crates are good providing the dogs not left in there all day and it's not used for punishment

[Glenn]

Hey,


We had the same problem with Egor... Touch wood he is fine now.

We tried all sorts. We have found now that it helps if we leave a t shirt (usually one of the ones I have used for dog walking for a few days before it goes in the wash) just hung on the radiator so the smell stays around for a while longer.

The first thing we changed though was his diet. We stopped people giving him "cheap" treat you know the kind with lots of colouring etc and it was making him so hyper! we now stick to really meaty treats that are healthy.

We also leave them with the bones that are filled with something I don't know what they are called but they are really hard bone stuffed with some variation of meaty paste. He has a couple of half hour sessions with it everyday (also helps clean his teeth). We stopped leaving him treats that he could easily eat and fill up on because then he would need to go out and... well... you know!

I hope your still with this...

Egor didnt like the fridge! I know its random but our fridge occasionally makes a noise like a click or clunk and it was waking him up and he was unsure of what is was and we wasn't there for comfort. It didn't hear it when we was in because of the noise we make like the TV etc. To get over this we got a clicker that is used for dog training and clicked it near him and fussed him and gave him treats and clicked all round his head and face and then put it on the floor and let him sniff it and have a look at it then gave him some treats. this didn't take long before the noise wouldn't even wake him.

We found out this was causing the problem by leaving a webcam on while we was out and watching the footage to see what was setting him off. we thought straight away it was separation anxiety but it turns out it wasn't. We even had a dog trainer in who couldn't figure it out (but once we knew gave us the clicker idea).

If you do this and want someone else to look at the video I wouldn't mind doing it if it would help (since having the problems with ours I have done lots of dog training courses.. I have even started training friends and families dogs).


I will keep thinking of anything else we tried and let you know if I can remember anything else.

Let me know how you get on!

[Glenn]

Have you thought about getting her a friend or maybe using a dog walker if you won't be able to spend much time with her on certain days