Do you crate your dog?

Firefly

http://www.champdogsforum.co.uk

You will find the above link will give you all the help you need. Try starting with a search on crates.

Luis

Hi, I really sympathise with you, as my beloved hound was the same. I got her from a (really grim) rescue place, and she had been very badly treated. From pretty early on of having her, she becme more and more destructive: eating the mail, ripping up carpets and lino, chewing through power cables :eek: , chewing skirting boards, destroying the bin, etc.

The crunch came when she and the other dog I had at the time ATE the entire sofa in one hour. I was coming home to mayhem every time, and was getting so upset that I couldn't handle the dog. She 'knew' she had done wrong, as she would slink around widdling when I got home, exposing her belly - but there was no reason for this, as I never punished her - by the time I came home the deed was done, and she would have no concept of why I was angry.

There was no way I was going to give up on here though, after what she had been through, and in the end, the Vet said to get a crate (it helped calling it a house kennel, sounds ridiculous, but it does).

Got one from PetsAtHome for £100 - best money I EVER spent (cheap compared to new sofa, carpet etc). What I hadn't realised is that we see it as a cage, but the dog sees it as their den, their little domain. I got the biggest one I could, so she would have heaps of room to turn round and move about - and it was the salvation of my relationship with my dog. I used to leave it up all the time, and leave the door open when she wasn't shut in, and she would take herself off in there for a kip. I used to put her food in it too, so she equated it with goo stuff.

No longer was I coming home to mayhem, she was happy and so was I.

Having said all this, I used the house kennel from when she was about a year old, to when she was about 5, and for the last few years, she has not needed it anymore - she seems to have finally 'grown up' (although she will raid the bin if I don't weight the top down, and occasionally the mail looks a bit mauled ).

The only other suggestion I can give is that if your dog is only doing this at night - why not move its bed into your bedroom and shut it in with you?

Hope you sort it soon - I know how you must feel

black-saturn

Thanks, I bought one from Argos today for £36 and she is asleep in it at the moment. I'll see what happens tonight.

bertie2

Have you read Dog Listener by Jan Fennell It is the best gift my mother in law ever got us Our dog was driving us crazy with constant barking, snapping, chewing, doo doo everytime we left her etc. We started using tha crate for her to sleep in at night and employed the simple techniques this Jan Fennell spoke of when our dog was 6 months old. She is 5 years old now and superbly behaved! :beer:

laurajayne

We have a border collie and a yorkshire terrior...and they both have crates - actually, houseys

We were at our wits end with the BC - he's the youngest, and was messing everywhere.....very long story very short, we were advised to get him a cage, and it's the best thing we ever did!

He goes in at night, or when everyones out (which is rare, seeing as I work from home), but he also goes in to get away from the bossy yorkie

Hazy

Do be careful with crates they aren't suitable for all dogs. One of our dogs who is highly strung and of a nervous disposition hated it. He wouldn't entertain it at all even though it was available to him as a den from being a pup. Fortunately he seems to have simply grown out of the chewing phase but it did take at a couple of years!!

We found both dogs settled if we let them sleep in our bedroom. Our first would sleep through from 7 weeks the second took a little longer. Benefit of this is it helps toilet training as we could take them outside as soon as they woke. Both dogs now sleep for as long as we want them to - they get up when we do. I know lots of people don't like the idea of dogs in the bedroom which is fair enough. Our older dog now frequently doesn't sleep in our bedroom as she would rather sleep on the sofa.

WeirdoMagnet

bertie2 wrote:

Have you read Dog Listener by Jan Fennell It is the best gift my mother in law ever got us Our dog was driving us crazy with constant barking, snapping, chewing, doo doo everytime we left her etc. We started using tha crate for her to sleep in at night and employed the simple techniques this Jan Fennell spoke of when our dog was 6 months old. She is 5 years old now and superbly behaved! :beer:

Her methods work for some, but can leave other dogs confused and with no 'lust for life'. She re-hashed a couple of old methods of training, made up her own name for it, and wrote a book.

I think the only reason it 'works' is because if the owners follow it, there is some routine and consistency, which there may not have been before. Having to eat a cracker in front of your dog before you feed it (to show it you are the 'alpha' dog) is plain daft! As I mentioned above, the old pack theories are now quite outdated - it's much better to train with positive training techniques. Here's a link to a book review, which just about sums it up.

I can highly recommend The Complete Idiot's Guide to Positive Dog Training. I'll check to see what Pamela Dennison says about chewing.

Loozee

I agree with a previous post that dogs need to be well excercised with three walks a day and preferably at some point where they can safely run loose and burn off energy otherwise they will get bored especially a young dog and they can get destructive!. Dogs aren't like cats where you can just open the door and they walk themselves! Myself and my partner both work and we wouldn't be happy leaving a dog all day, so as we both like walking we dog share with another elderly member of the family. That way everyone is happy including the dog! I would never put a dog in a crate unless perhaps it was in a car where they were a danger when you were driving.

Raksha

Excercise has it's place - but be careful you don't end up with a very fit, but still bored dog - they also need mental stimulation. I think one of the worse 'favours' we do our dogs is to feed them out of bowls - why not scatter the food on the lawn, or feed every meal from a Kong or Buster cube? Make your dog work for his meal like he would have to in the 'wild'.

At 11 months, there could still be some teething going on, some dogs go through a phase around this age when the teeth settle into the jaw (GSD's and Labs seem particularly prone to this at around a year of age), so some of the 'tooth pain' soothing remedies can help too (stuff that is frozen or chilled, I also know people who've had success with Bongela - stuff for babies teething)

Crates are great, so long as the dog is introduced to them properly, and they aren't abused (working full time and crating your dog all day while you are at work for example)

Becles

Georgina wrote:

Having to eat a cracker in front of your dog before you feed it (to show it you are the 'alpha' dog) is plain daft!

That is daft. However I always prepare the dog food and my food together, then leave the dog bowls on the bench while I eat mine, and they get theirs after I've finished. It's a similar principle but not quite as daft!

I've found the pack ideas work best with border collies, due to their intelligence. My two collies know their place, and I have full control of them.

My brothers dog (labrador) gets away with murder. They were visiting my parents yesterday and the dog was in the garden and wouldn't come in. My brother said he would just have to wait outside until the dog was ready to come in! I looked at the dog, gently pushed forward on the back of his shoulder where his front leg joins on, and firmly said "in" and the dog trotted happily in. My brother was amazed and said the dog would growl at him if he did that. The difference being there was my brother would have reached over the dogs head and grabbed his collar, which is threatening for a dog, whereas my hand came from the side, so he knew I was telling him and not attacking him. It's little tricks like that which owners need to learn, so they are in control of the dog, rather than the dog dictating what it wants to do.