Please help...my spaniel has gone off the rails...!!

bobbytooshoes

Hi
We have a cocker spaniel who is a year old in 2 weeks, we have owned her since she was 8 weeks old. Her mum was a working spaniel and her dad was a show spaniel.

She is such a loveable character and has always picked everything up really easy, sit, stay, no, walking off the lead etc. Both me and my OH work full time so she goes to my parents house through the day - they also have a cocker spaniel so she is never really left alone.

Now thats the history here is the problem.....my parents recently went away on holiday for a fortnight so I had my dog and my parents, I arranged to be off work for 4 days and my brother who works shifts pitched in to help so they were only alone for a maximum of 4 hours per day and this was only for about 3 days in total. So on Wednesday last week she chewed my parents dogs basket and pulled out all the stuffing, on Thursday she chewed a sandal, on Friday she chewed through her harness whilst wearing it and then on Saturday she chewed through the corner of the sofa. Again this morning I have got up and she has had a go at the other sofa and weed on one of the other sofas. I have been off work since last Thursday so she hasn't been on her own but she just seems to have gone off the rails.

Ok,so the sandal was our fault for leaving it around but I don't know what to do. We now have two ruined sofas and this cannot go on. My parents are back today so she will be going back to her usual routine. She has never chewed before, has plenty of walks and toys. She was more than happy to be left for 4-5 hours say on a Saturday evening if we went out (not often i'm a DFW)

She is a little clingy generally, she will whimper when we leave the room to go upstairs or to the toilet, she never strays far on a walk and will follow us round the house and always try and get through doors before us. I have read on the internet and it seems she may be suffering from seperation aniexty.

Can anyone offer any advice on to how to make her feel more secure whilst making it clear that this behaviour will not be accepted? I would really love her to be more confident and independent for her own sake.

Caroline_a

If you are leaving her with your parents all day I would say she probably considers that she belongs to them! They have gone on holiday so the separation is from them, not from you!

She's still a young dog, and if she hasn't chewed before then you've been very lucky. Can you not shut her in the kitchen, rather than giving her the run of the lounge at night? You've actually been very lucky... if she was going to chew, there are a lot worse things she could have chewed than the sofas - for example, electrical cables...

Hopefully now that your parents are back she'll be a happy dog again, but maybe you need to start spending more time with her (take her with you on Saturdays!) so that she learns who owns her, but from what you say I think she's sure it's your parents as those are the people she sees most.

pleasedelete

Has she been in season? Is she neutered? Mine had 4 seasons almost back to back between 8 months and a year. Vet couldn't neuter as needed a month after in season. Dog was loopy- barking, chewing things- whining- seemed distressed all the time. Must have been hormonal- neutered her and she was fine. Mine ate 3 single school shoes- all our fault as we left them there. She also ate the newly plastered wall!

bobbytooshoes

Caroline_a wrote: »

If you are leaving her with your parents all day I would say she probably considers that she belongs to them! They have gone on holiday so the separation is from them, not from you!

She's still a young dog, and if she hasn't chewed before then you've been very lucky. Can you not shut her in the kitchen, rather than giving her the run of the lounge at night? You've actually been very lucky... if she was going to chew, there are a lot worse things she could have chewed than the sofas - for example, electrical cables...

Hopefully now that your parents are back she'll be a happy dog again, but maybe you need to start spending more time with her (take her with you on Saturdays!) so that she learns who owns her, but from what you say I think she's sure it's your parents as those are the people she sees most.

Thanks for your comments Caroline however we do spend a lot of time with our dog. She is with us constantly from 5pm until we go to bed usually after 11pm, she is walked and played with during this time. She is also with us all weekend and we usually spend the days out walking with her (we go to the coast, up to the Dales, National Trust etc). As I said it isn't very often we go out maybe once every couple of months and this is only for a couple of hours on a Saturday evening so I don't consider myself to be a bad owner in doing this.

We don't want to confine her to the kitchen of a night as surely this will be way more expensive to replace than a sofa.

bobbytooshoes

pleasedelete wrote: »

Has she been in season? Is she neutered? Mine had 4 seasons almost back to back between 8 months and a year. Vet couldn't neuter as needed a month after in season. Dog was loopy- barking, chewing things- whining- seemed distressed all the time. Must have been hormonal- neutered her and she was fine. Mine ate 3 single school shoes- all our fault as we left them there. She also ate the newly plastered wall!

Hi and thanks for your comments.

Yes she has been neutered. We did have little incidences when she was only months old of chewing the wall etc but nothing on the scale of what we have seen over the past week.

I am hoping that now my parents are back she will fall back to her usual self she just worries me that she has such a distict lack of ability to cope alone even for short periods of time. I would like her to become a little more independent I just don't know how as I' scared to leave her in case she damages the house or herself.

krlyr

Start by teaching her independence while you're home - babygates can be fab for this (Argos sell them very cheaply, sometimes even less than you can pick up second-hand ones on Ebay) because a dog often finds it more comforting to see you through the bars even if they can't follow you. This'll stop the "velcro dog" effect of following you to the loo, to the kitchen when you fetch a drink, etc.
I'd also teach her to settle on a bed so she's not spending all evening curled up by your feet or on the sofa, she needs to learn that it's OK to be by herself and not receiving attention all the time. You could start off by giving her a filled Kong on her bed/blanket in a corner so she's occupied, and build up to her just settling on the bed even without food - while you're watching TV, for example.
Does she sleep on her own or in the room with you? If it's the latter, slowly start moving her bed towards the door, then out in the hallway, then downstairs so she learns to cope by herself.
Once she's learnt a bit more independence around you guys (remember your parents need to be on-board and keep things consistant at theirs too) you can start to work on the behaviour on being left alone
It can be difficult to diagnose true seperation anxiety - you have a young dog (from working lines!) who's used to people being around a lot, and doing lots of activities with people from the sounds of it, it could be a case of being bored and chewing because she's got nothing else to do. You could try providing a few more activities for when she's left - for example, hide her breakfast kibble (if she's fed dry) around the room so she has to spend 5-10 mins searching for each bit, instead of 10 seconds scoffing it from a bowl. Freeze wet food in a Kong and leave this down for her - takes a while for a dog to get through it this way. I don't like to leave too many chews with an unattended dog but I have some deer antlers for my two which I'm comfortable leaving down as they don't shatter and they take ages to get through, so the dogs are unlikely to chew them into small, choke-able lengths during the few hours they're left alone (but some dogs do manage this feat so judge it on an individual basis). Stagbar is one brand in the UK - they're not too cheap but have lasted my guys ages (bought them last Christmas and they're still going!). Otherwise try finding your local hunt or farmers market and see if anyone can get hold of antlers for you. A dog with true seperation anxiety is often too distressed to touch food, if it's that severe then you may want to consider a dog behaviourist to help give you a training regime to tackle the issue.
It sounds like you do lots of physical stuff with her but do you do many mentally-stimulating activities? Sometimes "brain training" can wear out a dog as much as, if not more, than physically tiring it out so look into clicker training if you haven't already. Take 5 minutes before you leave her to work on a new trick to give her brain a workout - with her breed, you may have good luck with scent-related games, but there's lots of silly tricks you can teach as well as practical. Get on Youtube and look up Kikopup, lots of instructional videos. I also find the pamelamarxsen channel helpful for more practical stuff too

Katiehound

The previous post has just about said it all.
I was just going to add that at a year old she is getting to be an adolescent which may have a bearing on the behaviour.

All kind of activities to do with your dog- tricks and routines (as in htm) are great for using doggie brain power.

As well as scattering dry kibble you could use a Buster cube- the original cube is very robust and my dogs love them. They have to work to get the food out! here is one in action (wanted to shrink the image but it wouldn't!)

I would want to make the dog a little less dependent on you. One of mine has always followed me around a bit but now he is losing the plot a little (at 13) and driving me mad at times in the car with high pitched squealing! which seems to be separation anxiety.

bobbytooshoes

Thanks for your very detailed and informative response krlyr. Very much appreciated.

We already have a baby gate on the lounge to hall door as we don't really want her to have access to the upstairs. We are thinking of maybe getting another one for the lounge to kitchen door just for the short term to help with as you called it the 'velcro affect'. The thing is I absolutely adore her and really don't mind her being around me but I really do want her to build up some independence so she is able to cope better in the long term.

She sleeps in the lounge and this is where most of the damage has occured over the past week. We have been and bought plenty of chew deterant spray from the pet shop and are going to spray the furniture this evening.

I have not heard of the deers antlers as chews but I have googled this and have got one on order for her, they seem like a very good idea in the meantime we have stocked up on rawhide.

She is not off her food at all but just generally seems a little stressed out. Do you think it may be the presnce of my parents dog that could have made her act in this way? Although they see each other everyday through the week they only really tolerate one another and I wonder whether my parents dog been here has made her jealous or feel the need to chew for our attention.

We are going to find lots more tricks to teach her to help with the mental stimulation, she loves learning...she's done sit, lay, stand, roll over etc already so time to move it on a bit I think.

We have also relented and bought a Kong....I hope they are worth thr money!!:) But in saying that just watching her with it for the last five minutes chasing it round and pouncing on it trying to work it out has been worth it in itself.

Thank you again for taking the time to post and offer your very helpful advice.

bobbytooshoes

Thanks Katiehound for your response. I will look into the Buster Cube. Seems like a good idea and something that she would find interesting.

Katiehound

I was just going to say that although the Bustercube site shows different shapes (ie a ball as well) the ones I have are cubes like the photo shown. They are very robust. You can set the hole inside to easy or hard!My dogs learned very quickly that if there is a rattle it means food is inside- once the rattle ends, so does the game!!

By the way throwing a kong is fun as it bouces in an unpredictable way. Then you can stuff a kong- just google it. here is one recipe page
http://www.kongstuffing.com/?page_id=11
Black kongs are tougher for dedicated chewers!

I don't know what I did without these 2 toys!

Company of Animals have Nina Ottosson Dog Toys which are interactive and fun but around £15 each. Worth looking at them because they make the dog really puzzle things out- perhaps as a doogy Christmas prezzie??!!!!.

bobbytooshoes

Thanks Katiehound.

The Bustercube sounds fab, will definately look at the square one as she is a little bu!!!r with destroying toys within days of us buying them:)

We bought some biscuits with the Kong so are using those for the stuffing at the moment, at £7.99 a box though I will definately look into that link you posted for the stuffing recipies.

We looked at those interative games but like you say they are pretty pricey. I know she would really love something like that so will see what next pay day brings if not like you say xmas is just around the corner :eek:

With the new chews/toys and some trick training last night we had a happy but tired pooch on our hands and woke up this morning to no damage :j Will continue in the same vein and get the additional toys and chews as and when we can.

Thanks again for taking the time to post.