Dogs destroying furniture

[MICHIGAN2113]

We have two Dalmatians we just lost our female and got another one for our male. All the previous that we had never done anything like this before. One day we got back home after work and our old sofa the cushions was all over the living room it looked like they had a party in there. Another day the sofa was worse it was almost in the middle of the living room with all the cushions again everyplace torn to pieces. And on top of that the sofa was moved away from the wall laying on its back with a piece of the arm rest torn off. We put one in the crate one day and then the next day the other one in. When the female was in the crate and the male loose the crate was turn around the entrance instead of being in front was in the back and almost in the middle of the living room. We got the male yesterday tearing a piece of the smaller cushions and another day the female with a piece of the regular cushion. Please we desperately need help what can we do to fix this problem.

[maximoo]

Put them behind a baby gate or in another room when you go out. Do not leave them in a crate for more than 4 hrs at a time if possible. Make sure they are well exercised (especially before you go out) & give them lots of raw meaty bones (frozen), chewies, & toys. Frozen stuffed KONGS will keep them busy for awhile. Try to set up a video cam to see what is exactly going on & what precedes the destruction. When you are home teach them the "OFF" command.
Please give more info on what their daily day is like, include exercise--type & amount, what food they are fed, how much & when, do they go for walks? & any training they have had. The more info given the more pepple will respond to try to help you

They might have separation anxiety and/or be extremely bored. There are many threads here on separation anxiety, & how to work on it. Give those threads a read & see if any pertains to your situation . For now they are not to be trusted around furniture alone until you solve the problem of separation anxiety or boredom.
GOOD LUCK!

[maximoo]

EM I just noticed this thread is under BOOKS. Please move it to appropriate area

[emmabeth]

Nooooo tisnt... you must be seeing fings.....

Moved

This sounds more like seperation fun than seperation anxiety, though it could be either.

Firstly, can you give us a run down of your dogs daily life, tell us about their walks, training, feeding, how long they are left for etc etc. As much detail as you can.

Can you video them whilst you go out (for a test trip not for hours and hours!) and see what is happening.

When you have returned home to this bombsite... what is your dogs demeanour, are they frantic and giddy, chilled and relaxed, fearful and worried?

For now, management until you can answer the questions above and we can work out why and how to stop it. Crate both dogs, seperately and provide both dogs with something to do whilst crated (Kong toy stuff with food, toys, etc).

[MICHIGAN2113]

Put them behind a baby gate or in another room when you go out. Do not leave them in a crate for more than 4 hrs at a time if possible. Make sure they are well exercised (especially before you go out) & give them lots of raw meaty bones (frozen), chewies, & toys. Frozen stuffed KONGS will keep them busy for awhile. Try to set up a video cam to see what is exactly going on & what precedes the destruction. When you are home teach them the "OFF" command.
Please give more info on what their daily day is like, include exercise--type & amount, what food they are fed, how much & when, do they go for walks? & any training they have had. The more info given the more pepple will respond to try to help you

They might have separation anxiety and/or be extremely bored. There are many threads here on separation anxiety, & how to work on it. Give those threads a read & see if any pertains to your situation . For now they are not to be trusted around furniture alone until you solve the problem of separation anxiety or boredom.
GOOD LUCK!

They have plenty of toys we have put treats, dog bones everyplace but they still will do the same. They like to play with each other the two of them are rescue and the female has heartworms that she is going to start treatment this week. When we get home the two of them have guilty faces we say no and the female puts her head down and tail between her legs. The male runs to the bedroom then returns and gets in it's back so you can rub his belly. We caught the male eating a piece of the small cushion and the female taking out pices of the regular cushions. We are going to get another crate for the female for her treatment. The crate is big they can lay down and stretch and stand on ther 4 legs and turn around. We also caught the male sitting on the sofa and the female came and he started jumping up and down and the cushion came out. Just don't understand how they are doing this and get the sofa away from the wall and in the middle of the living room on its back and a piece of the hand rest torn out. They eat twice a day and walk twice a day. We have been talking about one of those videos (small) that you can tape what is going on. When crated they have to be in from when we leave till we get back.

[emmabeth]

Toys left out all the time all over the place become boring - put the toys away in a toy box, get a few out each day so they dont have the same toys all the time.

How much exercise do they get each day?

When you get home, that guilty face does NOT mean they feel guilty, or know they did anything wrong.

That face is an appeasement gesture, it is a response to your body language, the fact that there is a mess and the fact they have learned to associate that mess with you being unhappy.

Go ahead and trash your living room without them seeing, leave them in there, go out, come back, pretend like you are mad - they will STILL do that guilty face, because thers a mess there, and you are annoyed. The fact that YOU made the mess has nothing to do with it, they dont connect the makign of the mess with what happens when you get home.

If you carry on coming home and being unhappy with them and saying no and trying to demonstrate to them that it is wrong like this, if they are not suffering seperation anxiety now they MAY well do soon, becaue it starts up a vicious cycle. You come home and are mad, they start to dread you coming home. Anxious worried dogs find comfort in ripping stuff up, so when left and worried about you comign home, they rip stuff - then the presence of the mess tells them you WILL be mad.... so they become more anxious.

Stop that cycle now, by exercising them more - Dalmatians need hours of exercise AND mental exercise such as training, puzzle solving etc too - prevent the damage being done by crating, and have someone ecome in to let them out for a potty break if it is more than four/five hours.

[Ushi]

We have recently had this issue when we brang home a new puppy- he started off just doing a little bit of damage, but it got worse. Each time we would remove a source of something he was damaging, he would find someting else to destroy. It got to the point we had moved all out belongings to the rooms we could shut off, and our living area was just a bare space. - This is no way to live !!

We tried more exercise (walks, run and play before we left and when we got home - zero difference ! )we tried bones and toys - but they did not last long enough (we both work, so no toy or bone was going to keep them interested enough for that length of time) We were not willing to crate for such long hours, and we could not lock them outside (not sufficient shelter and they are indoor dogs) Eventually we just looked for a more suitable house with good outdoor shelter so we could remove them from the source and break the habit I really beleive it was a source of 'fun' for the two of them (the original dog never chewed a thing, but we know she joined in with the new dog) They just 'learnt' this new fun game to amuse themselves when we were away. As much as we saw it as a very annoying and bad thing... there was no way the dogs could know that - they were just having fun when we went out. We "spied" on them to work this out. They were not upset or anxious- just bored and had found a great game to amuse themselves with until we get home.

We now do not leave them inside un-attended, and have a shed and big yard at our new house (we are still working on securing the yard, but its a far better arrangement than before and they are happy as they still have an 'inside' to shelter but are not amongst our things so we can now have an actual living room again) They come inside as soon as we get home, but they never touch anything when we are around.

From my experience with my two dogs, I would say your dogs are just playing while you are out, they have learnt how much fun they can have, and they really dont know that its not ok- after all, your not there to tell them, by the time you get home, they have no idea what the prblem is ! So- there is no point getting mad at them once you get home, and I am not a fan of locking dogs up for very long - thats just cruel! Like the others said I would try exercise first- if that doesnt tire them out, try "boredom busters" if that doesnt work (neither worked for us, but every dog and breed is different) I would look at changing the situation they are in. - Im no expert, its just what worked for us (and I guess technically, we have not stoppd them chewing furniture- I am sure if we left them insude for hours alone they would start the game again, but we just removed the temptation.)

[MICHIGAN2113]

Nooooo tisnt... you must be seeing fings.....

Moved

This sounds more like seperation fun than seperation anxiety, though it could be either.

Firstly, can you give us a run down of your dogs daily life, tell us about their walks, training, feeding, how long they are left for etc etc. As much detail as you can.

Can you video them whilst you go out (for a test trip not for hours and hours!) and see what is happening.

When you have returned home to this bombsite... what is your dogs demeanour, are they frantic and giddy, chilled and relaxed, fearful and worried?

For now, management until you can answer the questions above and we can work out why and how to stop it. Crate both dogs, seperately and provide both dogs with something to do whilst crated (Kong toy stuff with food, toys, etc).

We don't get mad at them we just laugh and tell them that's a no no. And pick up the pieces we can put a baby gate by the kitchen but he will jump the gate. They like to play with each other allot the male never did this with the other female before and the other Dalmatians that we had never did that either. We saw at Pets-Smart today like a barrier that you can put close to the furniture and it send them like a pitch so they would not get on top of the furniture.

[emmabeth]

Hiya - um not sure if you are doign it on purpose but you dont need to quote everyone and respond with a new post to each person, its really confusing for other forum users if you do that as your response is the same each time and they think they are going a bit mad (well i do, everyone else is a little more sane than me).

If you do want to quote someone to respond directly, highlight the bit of the text you want, copy and paste it into your post with the tags (without the spaces) [ quote ] and then [ /quote ] at the beginning and end of teh quoted text, then it will appear

like this

Then you can quote someone else later on by doing the same thing again

another quote like this

Much simpler

Anyway - babygates - you can fix one above the other, like stable doors so the dog cannot jump over them. I have done this in my house because my dogs think a 3ft baby gate is a trifling obstacle indeed and hop over with no bother at all!

The mat that gives out a high pitched noise (if i am reading you correctly) is an aversive and not something we would recommend. The chances of this working, and not having bad side effects when you are THERE is pretty low, when you are NOT there extremely low indeed and the chances of it creating a bigger problem is very high.

It works by doing something that is at best unpleasant to the dog and at worst, downright scary - with you not home the LAST thing you want is your dog scared of something, as thats rapidly going to become associated with you being gone, and create a seperation anxiety problem.

[MICHIGAN2113]

Hiya - um not sure if you are doign it on purpose but you dont need to quote everyone and respond with a new post to each person, its really confusing for other forum users if you do that as your response is the same each time and they think they are going a bit mad (well i do, everyone else is a little more sane than me).

If you do want to quote someone to respond directly, highlight the bit of the text you want, copy and paste it into your post with the tags (without the spaces) [ quote ] and then [ /quote ] at the beginning and end of teh quoted text, then it will appear

like this

Then you can quote someone else later on by doing the same thing again

another quote like this

Much simpler

We can try that we will probably have to put them in the kitchen and the baby gates put them so they wont be able to go to the living room. Just glad that they did not get the bed. That was an old sofa and will be getting new furniture next month as the sofa they were out of stock. The female will go through the heartworm treatment as the breader we got her from did not believe in the heartworm medicine.

Anyway - babygates - you can fix one above the other, like stable doors so the dog cannot jump over them. I have done this in my house because my dogs think a 3ft baby gate is a trifling obstacle indeed and hop over with no bother at all!

The mat that gives out a high pitched noise (if i am reading you correctly) is an aversive and not something we would recommend. The chances of this working, and not having bad side effects when you are THERE is pretty low, when you are NOT there extremely low indeed and the chances of it creating a bigger problem is very high.

It works by doing something that is at best unpleasant to the dog and at worst, downright scary - with you not home the LAST thing you want is your dog scared of something, as thats rapidly going to become associated with you being gone, and create a seperation anxiety problem.