Post by dragoness on Aug 1, 2006 18:54:05 GMT -5
I've been having trouble with my dog destroying bedding left in his crate. He's a 14 mo. old pit bull, very self-confident dog who has never shown any signs of separation anxiety. I'm a 4th year vet student, so I'm gone at school all day, and have to leave him in his crate. I don't trust him out of the crate because of this behavior.
Ziggy is generally very good about only chewing his own toys when we are around. He also does fine with bedding left in with him at night. He will be fine with a given piece of bedding for a long time (his most recent rug lasted 2 months without any damage at all), then some day he will just decide to tear it to shreds. He always has at least one chew toy in the crate, though I no longer leave edible toys such as rawhides or stuffed kongs with him because the first few bed-chewing incidents we had seemed to be associated with him trying to bury a food toy and getting carried away. He doesn't eat these while we're gone anyway-- he waits until we get home then brings them out and eats them.
Any suggestions of what I can do to train him out of this? It only happens when we're gone for long periods, and it happens seldom enough that we would have to do some pretty extensive monitoring to catch him in the act if we were to install a webcam. The last rug he chewed even had bitter apple sprayed around the edges. I don't want to leave the poor guy with no padding! He's bored enough as it is without being bored and uncomfortable all day! We don't have a fenced yard to put him in, and even if we did we couldn't at this time of year: it's just too hot out.
I have been using the "lazy man's" version of NILIF with him since I got him at 6 mo. old. He doesn't seem to have any alpha issues-- he stays across the room for his dinner, knows sit, stay, come, back, wait, shake, and heel (sort of). The only time he gets to tell me what to do is when he rings the bells at the back door to tell me he has to potty, and then he has to sit and wait while I open the door and not go out until I say OK. His main training weakness is distractions, especially other dogs when we're out. He loves other dogs, and I could have filet mignon in my hand when he's off-leash at the dog park and he wouldn't care. I've been thinking of borrowing a remote-control shock collar temporarily to remind him that I'm still boss when he's off-leash, but I haven't gotten the chance yet, and I doubt general obedience is the source of his issue. Really, he's just a bored puppy, and I can completely understand why he has this problem. I just want him to amuse himself with toys rather than bedding!
Ziggy is generally very good about only chewing his own toys when we are around. He also does fine with bedding left in with him at night. He will be fine with a given piece of bedding for a long time (his most recent rug lasted 2 months without any damage at all), then some day he will just decide to tear it to shreds. He always has at least one chew toy in the crate, though I no longer leave edible toys such as rawhides or stuffed kongs with him because the first few bed-chewing incidents we had seemed to be associated with him trying to bury a food toy and getting carried away. He doesn't eat these while we're gone anyway-- he waits until we get home then brings them out and eats them.
Any suggestions of what I can do to train him out of this? It only happens when we're gone for long periods, and it happens seldom enough that we would have to do some pretty extensive monitoring to catch him in the act if we were to install a webcam. The last rug he chewed even had bitter apple sprayed around the edges. I don't want to leave the poor guy with no padding! He's bored enough as it is without being bored and uncomfortable all day! We don't have a fenced yard to put him in, and even if we did we couldn't at this time of year: it's just too hot out.
I have been using the "lazy man's" version of NILIF with him since I got him at 6 mo. old. He doesn't seem to have any alpha issues-- he stays across the room for his dinner, knows sit, stay, come, back, wait, shake, and heel (sort of). The only time he gets to tell me what to do is when he rings the bells at the back door to tell me he has to potty, and then he has to sit and wait while I open the door and not go out until I say OK. His main training weakness is distractions, especially other dogs when we're out. He loves other dogs, and I could have filet mignon in my hand when he's off-leash at the dog park and he wouldn't care. I've been thinking of borrowing a remote-control shock collar temporarily to remind him that I'm still boss when he's off-leash, but I haven't gotten the chance yet, and I doubt general obedience is the source of his issue. Really, he's just a bored puppy, and I can completely understand why he has this problem. I just want him to amuse himself with toys rather than bedding!