Help! Dog is literally eating...

[tigger2on]

us out of our house. I am a glutton for punishment.... I have a severely disabled 7 year old daughter who takes up all of my free time, I work full-time and I am almost 3 months pregnant! But I wanted to add to the family before we got married in May so, my fiance (now DH) bought me a black lab pup for Xmas. We called him "Hairy Houdini" ( Houdi) and he was sooooo cute and loveable as a baby.
At 9 months old, he is now in his rebellious stage and becoming very distructive. I love him and would never get rid of him but he's driving me nuts!!!
He is crated but he's alosi a huge dog... already 90+ lbs and still growing!!! So to leave him crated all the time would be very cruel. However we have no door frames left in our kitchen and to top it off.... he has eaten a hole right trhough our kitchen wall into our dining room. My brother puupy sitted and didn't crate him for a day when he went to work..... the dog can now literally stick his head through the wall to watch us eat dinner in the dining room. Ok.... it's kinda a funny and a cute thing to see but will it ever stop!!!! I wnt to be able to let him roam the house at will and not worry about my couch becoming a sea of fluff in the living room.... or coming home to find all the stuffed animals in my daughter's room massacared!!!
Oh why couldn't I have the dog that drinks out of the toilet bowl or digs crater like the moon in the yard!!!! No he wants to be a demolition artist and use the house to do it. I own the biggest termite alive!!!!! LOL!
Any suggestions???

Soon to live in a swiss cheese house....
Suzanne

 

[DoeWDW]

No advice, but I'm hoping he grows out of it before too long.

 

[stinkerbelle]

your dog ate a HOLE throgh a WALL?

does he have any chew toys? rawhide bones to chew on? He's a puppy...he needs to chew!

as much as you hate to do it...buy a bigger crate or build a 'run' outside w/ a dog house for him to hang out in while you are at work.

 

[FroggyinArk]

maybe paint a frame around the hole and call him living artwork? no advice really but it would makea real "designer" statement

 

[mickeyboat]

Our yellow lab ate the windowsil - flush to the side of the house. He chewed from the day he came home til the day he passed on.

Good luck to you.

Denae

 

[sue1013]

Don't feel bad about crating your dog. I have a siberian husky and too felt bad that he was in his crate all day while we were at work. 2 yrs ago I started working 2 days a week from home. Let me tell you what my dog does all day SLEEP. He doesn't want to go out more often, doesn't seem to notice I'm home. I guess he's used to his routine and has no interest in changing it.

 

[Autumngirl]

I'm glad you're not giving up on him.... too many people would just turn him over to a shelter. That being said... you now have a two-fold problem...

1. You have a 9-month "puppy" who is bored, and who is not getting enough exercise. Labs are extremely high energy and will turn to destruction when bored.

2. He has now discovered how "fun" it is to chew out the walls...he has a bad habit that is going to be difficult at best to break.

You have a lot on your plate, and a 90 lb dog. You need to get a professional dog trainer in there to do some serious behavior modification and training....if you can afford to do so, get a dog walker who will take him out every single day to run and fetch. ...and a retriever can run and fetch until your arm falls off!

I speak from experience... I had 3 Siberian Huskies that literally ate the cement out of the basement wall, stripped the fabric from the sofas and ate a huge hole in the rug one night (I left her alone for only 15 minutes!).

Now I own a very high energy Golden Retriever...who, by the grace of God, has never put her teeth on the furniture or structure.

Labs and Goldens are very similar... they are either diggers, chewers or barkers... you have a chewer.... you need to get some of those really hard Kongs (it's Black), and well-made hard rope knot-(not one that shreds that he can ingest the strings, could cause blockages), and other hard to destroy toys. Stay away from the rawhide. Labs are agressive chewers...they don't chew the rawhide all the way and it can lodge in their throat and choke them or lodge in their intestines and cause a blockage ($1200 surgery).

The best way to train your Lab is the "NOTHING IS FREE" method. Make him sit and be respectful for everything....all his food, his treats, everything. Make him obey boundries....no peeking in the kitchen while you are eating and never feed him from the table. You want to give him Human food "treats" make him sit, drop in his bowl and only when you say OK can he have it.

He is at an age now where he is "testing" his position in the pack, and you have a 90 lb pup who wants to be ALPHA, you need to teach him that his place is at the bottom of the food chain or in a few months you will have bigger problems. That's why I'm suggesting outside help, you have a lot on your plate and this will not be a quick fix....and you need to get him under some control before your baby is born. You've probably noticed this by now...retrievers aren't exactly graceful and they think they are the size of a poodle!

My GR is 19 months old and we STILL work on "Who's the Boss" issues....she's a great dog, but it is the retriever instinct to be first. With any kind of retriever always remember, you give them an inch and they will take everything they can.

Never correct him or discpline him unless you catch him IN THE ACT! Otherwise, he won't have a clue what you are screaming about.

I hope some of this helps.

 

[Cinders]

rawhide bones

Never give a lab a rawhide toy. This could cause major health problems/surgery!

Labs have "attitudes" and need something to keep them busy. Chew toys from Kong are great as are the bones that are 100% edible. Before you crate him in the morning be sure to exercise him even if you do only have time to put him outside for a 1/2 hour. One thing we do for our dog while we are going to be gone is to leave the television on. Not sure why this helps but it does. Another thing is we give her 3 small treats when we leave. She has a bad attitude about being left alone....she loves going for car rides. Also, close bedroom doors so he can not get to your daughters stuffed animals. He may have felt confined in the living room (?no windows maybe?) so tore up the wall to "see"

Right now we have a male boxer that we just adopted that is 3 years old that I think must be claustraphobic. We were told he tears things up when left alone but when he is crated he tries to tear the crate apart and drools horribly. After being gone an hour his front legs and the door area of the crate are soaking wet. Toys do not interest him and treats do not interest him. We think he must have had a bad homelife at his first home.

 

[Pin Wizard]

Originally posted by FroggyinArk
maybe paint a frame around the hole and call him living artwork? no advice really but it would makea real "designer" statement

LOL!

Seriously, I would call a trainer that will come into your house! They'll get you started on training, and they'll definitely be interested in what the "pup" has done.

 

[tigger2on]

This dog has more of a social life than I do! he attends Doggie Daycare 3 days a week plus he is in a dog walking/hike club every Saturday morning! It's nuts. He has every toy on the market, though he prefers pop bottles to anything else. And he has had behaviour modification and obedience. He is in the largest crate on the market and he's already uncomfortable already. I'm telling you, he is the world's biggest termite. He's nuts.... loveable but nuts!
thank you for all your advive...especially the frame idea. My DH will love it! It's freaky though as it is like a stuffed animal head except it has a body on the other side of the wall. The best is when we have to push his head back through!

 

[airhead]

That's a serious problem you have!!!

 

[tmq2766]

How about a kong stuffed with peanut butter or liver saugage or just stuff a treat in it.......

 

[sweet angel]

Do they have doggy Ritalin?

You might try a different trainer, even if the previous trainer was successful on other issues.

My shepard/lab mix chewed a lot as a puppy, but hasn't chewed anything in probably over a year now. She was also a digger and a jumper. If she wasn't digging holes under my 6' fence, she was finding the lower spots on the fence and jumping over. She seems to have outgrown it though.

Good luck!

 

[WDWHound]

Sounds like you really need this book. Its called "Surviving Your Dog's Adolescence". We got it when our hound became a terror and it helped alot.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...102-4361723-2508169?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

 

[EsmeraldaX]

Monty Dog only weighs 15 lbs but he has done just as bad.

I used to feel bad about crating him but realized that no, it is not cruel and it is actually a good training tool.

People confuse a crate with a cage. You are not keeping your dog in a crate because you don't feel like dealing with him. You are keeping him there because he has not been trained well enough yet to stay safe in your entire house. Dogs in the wild tend to live in small spaces, dens because it gives them a place to feel safe and not overwhelmed with the world. Well, for your dog, his crate is his den. Many dogs continue to go into their crates on their own, even after the owner has deemed they no longer need it.

At 9 months old, or any age where a dog is not fully trained, he should not be left unattended in any room where he could destroy your stuff or hurt himself. Puppies like to chew on things, that is very normal, and you can often give them all the toys they want and they will still go for your slippers, stuffed animals, pillows etc.

The reason they do this is because the #1 thing that any dog wants is attention from the "alpha" member of the pack, in this case YOU and your family. When you are playing with him directly, he probably won't go towards things he should not because you will be guiding him towards appropriate chew toys.

But when you stop, and he still wants attention, what better to get it than to get into things that will get a reaction from you. Any reaction from you is good to a dog because it is attention.

There are two forms of training. There is positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement should be used as often as possible. Some people only use positive reinforcement, but this will only increase GOOD behavior. I highly, highly recommend you get a good dog trainer and ask them about clicker training. Monty Dog was clicker trained and he learned almost all of his basic commands this way. It basically involves watching for good behavior (which includes not doing bad things, such as when he is about to go near something he should not, like a pillow or teddy bear and he suddenly does not), clicking the clicker to make a click sound and then giving him a small treat. I am not going to go into the whole process here but it works wonders for dogs when all other forms of training have failed because you can treat it like a game.

No matter how good your dog becomes with clicker / positive reinforcement training, you may still have a few problems if he is really stubborn or seems to really enjoy a certain bad behavior.

For erasing negative behaviors that he continues to do, sometimes you have to use negative reinforcement, which is the use of punishment to discourage bad behavior. MOST forms of negative reinforcement do not work, because they involve giving the dog attention which is what he wants.

If you hit your dog (not beat, but like a whack on the nose , with your hand or a rolled up paper) he will think it is a game, or worse become afraid of you. Most likely, he will think you are trying to play and he'll nip back at you because he thinks it is a game.

If you make a fuss and yell at him, he'll see he has your full attention and continue to do it.

I have found that the ONLY form of negative reinforcement that works with Monty is the good old fashioned spray bottle full of lukewarm water. He can't fight back at the water, It is like the hand of God. It comes from nowhere and he starts to realize, "I chew at the stuffing in the couch, and that horrid wet stuff hits me on the back" . When I spray him, I also say NO! . When he does something I want him to NOT do, I spray him and say NO!

DO NOT use your dogs name when you say NO. If I were to say NO MONTY! , Monty would start to associate his name with bad. You don't want your dog to associate his name with bad. Just say NO! loudly and sternly, once and without making a fuss. And squirt him. Eventually, you will just have to say no. Just remember it has to be done while the bad thing is happening. Otherwise, the dog won't know what he's being punished for.

Another thing that tends to work a lot is time out. If the dog does something bad, have a crate that he can go into that is very dull and not the one he sleeps in and spends his safe time in. Just remember that the time out should be short, and begin immediately after the dog has been bad. This makes it not the most convenient way to go.

For chewing on certain things, you could also try Keep Away type sprays that smell bad to dogs and cats and tend to keep them away from certain areas of the house, or Bitter Apple. Bitter Apple comes in paste form and a liquid form you can spray onto things to give the dog a nasty taste if he chews on it. This is not always good though. Some dogs (Monty ) actually LIKE the taste of bitter spray and it can stain cloth and furniture.

He's still young but at 9 months he needs to get started on the path to training soon. Check your area for a trainer or try these methods yourself. And do not feel bad about the crate. When he is ready for unsupervised freedom, he'll get it, but it can be a slow process. Do you have any puppy gates? Maybe try slowly giving him access to one room and then slowly the rest of the house as he improves.

Good luck!

~Sheri

PS. Monty ate a whole in the wall once, when he was very young and we left him unsupervised all day thinking he'd be fine and a storm scared him. This was when he was about 4 months old. We should have had him in a crate.