My pup is 16 months old, he is perfect in every way, we can walk him off the lead and he will come to us when called. He has a very loving personality and is such good company. He sleeps in a cage during the night and that has never been a problem. We have recently just started going to our local pub once a week for about 4 hours, for the first few weeks he was amazing, we put him in his cage, gave him a Kong with treats in and put some bones and toys in for him to play with. The last twice we have been out and come home he has absolutely trashed his cage, ripped the tray up his carpet lays on, ripped the carpet to shreds, his blankets too, can anybody shed any light on why he's suddenly started doing this, is it to do with separation anxiety and what can we do to help him, thank you
4 hours is a long time for him to be left if he is not used to it and this length of time need to be built up gradually. Go back to basics; pop him in is crate during the day with a nice chew/kong and leave the house for 5 minutes. Increase this gradually.
Hi you have said your pup is 16 months old but do you mean 16 weeks? If 16 months I'm surprised that you are still using a crate? Either way 4 hours is a long time to be left for (especially in a crate). A Kong even frozen and large size will only last for 45 mins max. I would drastically reduce the amount of time you leave your dog and as things improve work up to longer periods of time.
We have a 4 year old English Lab. Maggie came to us in March when the breeder closed their doors. She is wonderful. Very loving. However, we are having issues leaving her have free rein of the house when we are gone like our other dogs did. She is peeing on the rug whenever we are gone. I am trying to crate train, but that is slow going. Today i left her for an hour with a licky pad and water. She totally destroyed the plastic tray in the cage. We have even given her hemp chewys too to help her calm down. Not very helpful. Any suggestions on how to get her to be okay staying in the house. Do English labs have the ability to stay outside of a cage for small periods of time?
Hello, your dog is still probably settling into her new home and still not quite sure of her environment, you will have to take things slowly. You may have limited knowledge of her past experiences and how they are impacting on her now. A 4 year old lab should easily settle in the home when you are out, but you have a dog who may not have been taught to do that. I think an hour is too long, go back to the beginning. Treat her like crate training a puppy, really slowly and you will get there. You also might want to remove your rug for a while, as now will probably smell of her urine and trigger her to wee there. Good luck and congratulations on taking on an older dog. A lovely thing to do.
