Suggestions please. The labradors and hound share a dog house, we think it might have been a laundry once upon a very long ago. Anyway it's their bedroom / kennel and is big enough for them all to fit comfortably. The problem is that someone has been attacking the ancient plaster, for various reasons last week I took most of the plaster off the walls and painted other bits pink to see if any more damage was occurring, see: http://black-labrador.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/and-what-do-you-do-on-saturday.html for more. It took until Friday for scratch marks to show up, Hebe was quite pleased to show off her bright pink toenails! It's not just a couple of little scratches either but a concerted scrabbled patch, both front feet have been digging into the wall at about her shoulder height. Does anyone have any idea why she's doing this and perhaps more importantly how we can stop her? So far no injuries, her feet look fine and I don't think she's eating it but from the huge soggy tongue marks Finn might be licking up the debris. The worst areas are not near her bed or the door so she's not aiming at the door and missing. It seems that she's scratching in the early morning although I have heard scrabbling in the middle of the night (still dark outside). She doesn't need out, it's usually quite a while after letting them out that she puddles - can be 30+ minutes, on Friday morning after the overnight scratching she didn't do anything for 20 minutes just wandered around the yard. As far as I can tell there's no squabbling before the scratching starts and I think she only does it at night - not that they're shut in during the day very often. There is a window so I suppose she might be being disturbed, but why scratch the wall not the door or even bark? Any thoughts or suggestions most welcome.
Re: Wall scratching I guess you will have considered this already, but is it a possibility that Hebe could be scratching the wall there because she can hear hedgehogs or mice on the other side of the wall? Are there any holes or crevices where creatures could be sheltering in the wall or cavity?
Re: Wall scratching Hi, The dog house is partially outside, odd set up really, the 'out rooms' are on the exterior side of the house, under a verandah. You walk from the kitchen through the pantry and dog house out onto the verandah and down into the dog yard. The three scratched walls are all the outside, single layer ones, one is directly outside (with window and external door), one backs onto the pantry (with door into house) and the last and worst scratching is on the one which backs onto the coal shed (was an outside loo we think). As they're all single layer I don't think there is anything living in the wall or on the other side. We're pretty hot on rodent control and there's no evidence of rats, mice, squirrels (no hogs in the village unfortunately) or anything else really. To be honest we're stumped. I'm loathe to replaster until I'm pretty sure she won't do it again. But it's making cleaning up a bit problematic!
