6 month old pup with severe seperation anxiety.

[DIESELDAN]

Guy I know has a lab weim mix that has a really hard time when left alone. Has destroyed carpet, doors etc. trying to get out of the house when they leave. I asked why they don't just put him in a kennel when they leave. They said that there afraid he will break his teeth out trying to get out of the kennel. Any one had a dog like this? Is there anything they can do to cure this problem?

[Todd Caswell]

I guess Id'e let him break his teeth befor Id'e let him chew up the house, sounds like the dog is training the owner.

Alot of the time with these types of dogs there is no pack structure, (dog rules the roost), dog isn't "enrolled" in any type of structured training program, needs a job and alot more exercise.

My dogs live in the house, but are never left alone uncrated until I know I can trust them, usually around 18 monthes. One they are puppy's and puppy's do bad things when left alone, two not only could they do costly damage to the house they may hurt themseves or get into something that may kill them.

Do him and the dog a favor and tell him to buy a crate and worry about his teeth later...

[nofishfisherman]

Absolutely crate the dog. A dog's teeth are designed to crush and break bone. Not overly likely they'll break their teeth on a plastic crate.

My vizsla is almost 5 years old and I still crate him. He's generally trust worthy but he's got just enough mischief in him that its not worth the risk. Besides while I'm gone all I really want the dog to do is chill out and sleep, he can do that in his crate as well as anywhere and this way I know he's safe and that my house is safe. I have a feeling if I don't crate him he'd spend half his day sleeping on my bed and the other half the day pacing the house looking for something to do and barking at the mail man/ups guy/etc.

Like said above I think more exercise (a lot more) will also help as would some intense training programs. A good obedience program can wear a dog out better than a long run. In the winter when getting outside isn't as easy or as fun I use to always enroll my dog in some sort of obedience class just for mental stimulation. A hour long class did more to tire him out than an hour run. He especially liked the agility class. He got to run and play on the equipment for an hour, only took him 2 runs to have the course all figured out. Other dogs it takes 6-8 weeks.

[LABS4ME]

Absolutely crate the dog. A dog's teeth are designed to crush and break bone. Not overly likely they'll break their teeth on a plastic crate.

Had a dog once that wanted nothing to do with a crate. Broke off two canines trying to pull the door in. First one I found on the floor when I got home. Never found the second. She eventually 'dug' - 'chewed' her way through the 1st palstic crate... lasted about 6 months. Second crate lasted much longer. She grew out of it at about 4 years old. No way I was going to leave her out in the house. She was a perfect pet when I was home, calm, great manners, quiet, but I could only imagine the he!! that would reign down once I left if she wasn't crated. The feel good crowd said her anxiety was to the crate and I should just let her stay out of it when I was at work... no way. The kicker is the crate was a good thing to her in the truck, or if I was home. She would go in it and lay down quietly... She just spaz'd out when I'd leave.

Good Luck!

Ken

[nofishfisherman]

Well I guess I should say they'll never break a tooth, dogs do have a way of surprising you. I can see where the metal wire door could be to the trick in the right scenario.

I'm not sure peoples aversion to crating a dog. My coworker has two dogs and refuses to crate them. She has replaced her kitchen table 5 times in the last couple years because he 2 dogs chew on the wood table legs. She now has a metal table and fences it off with baby gates to keep them away from it. $40 crate sure is cheaper than 5 new kitchen tables.

[LABS4ME]

yep. amazing they can hammer through a beef leg bone or a deer shank and their teeth remain intact, but she snapped those two canines off at the gum line pulling on the door. She never did get the door pulled in. You'd think after the first one she'd have thought twice about the second time... nope. I think those teeth are not designed for that kind of pressure as much as the molars are... they are made for tearing flesh and grabbing/holding prey. That first crate looked pretty funny at at the curb with the garbage with a football sized hole in the corner! She was relentless! I always thought I should video her.

Good Luck!

Ken

[nofishfisherman]

My dog would dig in the back corner of his crate when he was younger. For awhile I thought he'd work his way through but he never did. He has since stopped doing it. Although now I do have to trim his front nails, never had to before since he'd wear them down digging in his crate.

Now if he doesn't want to be in his crate (usually when company is over) he'll just lick at the lock on the crate. He knows that's the key to opening the door but he can't figure out the right combination of licks that will open it.

[Ray Esboldt]

That's pretty funny there, number of licks.

I have never met a dog that has had more than a couple of good ideas in their lifetime. With that being the case, I like to keep their bad ideas isolated to a crate.

[BLACKJACK]

Now if he doesn't want to be in his crate (usually when company is over) he'll just lick at the lock on the crate. He knows that's the key to opening the door but he can't figure out the right combination of licks that will open it.

My previous lab figured out how to open the door to her outside chain link kennel, she'd just get up on her hind legs and push it up with her nose.

[DRH1175]

The dog will need to be crated until the speration anxiety is under control. A few things I have done in the past for some of our foster dogs we have had. Put a piece of clothing or blanket that the Master has worn or slept with etc... Leaving a radio on in the room while away helps. As does covering the kennel with a bigger blanket while away. All 3 of these things help calm them.

[Luke_M]

We have always kennel trained our dogs. You want to make it a safe place for them. Try putting the kennel next to the bed and kennel them at night. You can also take some old clothes you have worn and put them in the kennel with them. One rescue dog we had was real bad and the vet recomended a DAP collar.

[CANOPY SAM]

I'm no dog trainer, but I think DRH makes some good suggestions. Perhaps crating the dog in another room, from time to time, while they are home, just getting the dog used to the crate for periods of time, alone, until he/she gets used to being alone for periods of time? Continue to lengthen the periods of time the dog is left alone in the crate until it learns it's not going to be left alone forever?

Not so funny story. My eldest daughter brought home a lab mix puppy many years ago that she insisted we keep. We already had an older pure bread female lab that was house trained, and spent much of her time indoors with us. Of course this new puppy quickly became a big, gangly mischief maker, and our older dog just tolerated him.

So one day, I believe it was on a Sunday morning, we all left for church, and assumed the dogs would be fine for a few hours in the house. They both seemed calm, and we didn't really think anything would happen while we were away for a short few hours.

When we returned home, I walked into our gorgeous executive house to find flour covering everything! Seems Max, the lab puppy, found a five pound bag of baking flour on the kitchen counter, and proceeded to drag it into the living room and tear it to shreds. Even our older lab got into the fun! Worst part in all of this, the spot on the living room carpet, where the dogs really started to tear into this bag of flour, they began eating it, and slobbering all over it, and chewing it INTO THE CARPET! Now you know what happens to flour when it's mixed with two dog's slobber? It turns into cement...ground deep into the carpet!

It took weeks of deep cleaning to get all of it back out of the carpet, and at baking flour "ground zero" there was a permanent mark on the carpet where they'd actually chewed into the carpet fiber. Mind you, this was a single piece of high quality burber (sp?) carpeting that covered about 800 sq. feet of living room!

Staring at these two dumb dogs, completely covered with flour, all I could do was laugh. The anger came later when I was trying to scrub hard caked flour out of the carpet...the big outdoor running kennel came about a week later!

[thedanimalkmk]

My first Vizsla when he was a pup got out of his crate while I was out fishing. I still to this day have no idea how he did it as it looked like everything was intact. I suspect it was operator error though. When I got home he was sitting at the top of the stairs. Surrounding him was several duck/pheasant wings he had chewed to pieces and a piece of his dog food bag. While he was sitting there all proud I couldn't help but notice that his stomach was hanging over both his back legs. Lets just say that he ate until he was full and then had some more. For the next 8 hours or so he just laid next to me and moaned as all that food worked its way through him. He learned a lesson that day. I was able to free feed him the rest of his life.

Back to the original post. Crate the dog! also when he gets home and lets him out of the crate have him ignore the dog for a while. I had a lab that was getting a little anxious when I left the house and these to steps helped a lot.

Dan