apples24

iTrader: (1)

bloody dogs a nightmare so just booked a trainer to ome see us gonna ost us 25 quid an hour ! lol i must be mad

hes fine till we leave him alone and he ransaks the kitchen lol


ahhhh bless him

Adrian F

Poor thing misses you!

So a part from the trashing your kitchen does he do any thing else?

What is he?

Bartop

chocolate lab by the look - how long do you leave him mate - do you leave him anything to keep him occupied ?

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Well worth it - although you do realise that ALL of the changes will be things you need to do

Will she be like Miss Whiplash from the Channel 4 dog programme

Adrian F

I thought it was a Lab but the photo is a bit fuzzy so couldn’t be sure.

Could be separation anxiety. Or just full of energy and needs distracting. My Chesapeake Bay Retriever use to lay by the front door barking at people walking up and down the street and chewing the carpet in between to pass the time so she isnt left unsupervised on carpet.

she gets a selection of chewys before i go out but also i control access to her toys etc so she has intersting things for wwhen i am away and i dont make a fuss of her when i come home so she doesnt think it is a big thing me going out and coming back.

Lots of short trips in out make it more acceptable as well.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Johnny E

you'll have to let us know how it goes, problem with our dog is constant barking at anyone and everyone and everything. Have seen collars etc available but wife says they're cruel and how would I like a high pitch noise/elec shock whenever I spoke

Good luck

flynnstudio

Your part of his 'pack' and when you leave your freaking him out...either he needs another dog for company or you should take him with you...

get a job where they let you have him under your desk

Jamo

iTrader: (23)

we took ours to one, the trainer was very good!!

her business was called hooligan hounds

we will be taking the current pooch to her soon as well

p.s. £25 is about right

davegtt

You can get them that just spray a bit of compressed air, more to distract them from something if theyre causing trouble whilst on a walk or something though.

paul w

My mate spent £250 on trying to get his springer sorted and its still mad,best bet would be to give it a small piece of lead in it ear.Said thet bird was fit though so all not a waste of time.

Adrian F

Springers are suppose to be mad!

£25 per hour is cheap in Essex it is about £30 with initial consultation £50-80 depending on how long and who but if it stops a £4k kitchen getting destroyed it is cheap.

Miss Whiplash does seem to have this desire to chop bits off every male she meets though makes you wonder if she has issues to

MY93WRX

You can get collar - abistop i think there called - they soray pepper spray when they bark, it worked on one dog, but not the other

Merv

iTrader: (12)

Out of interest,what type of food do you feed him?

gingerboy

Our white boxer trashed our kitchen which fortunately was 15 years old anyway. Transpires that it was seperation anxiety, both dogs now have the run of the house excluding bedrooms and living room and generally are great.

Do you have a retired neighbour who would be able to pop around when you are out for any length of time. Our neighbour is a god send and lets the dogs out for us when we are out for long periods of time and has been known to keep them in her house "for company" bless her socks.

It's not an easy condition to sort out but a behavourist will probably start with the "no fuss" routine when leaving and returning home and also the tiered timing technique i.e leave the house for 5 mins and then return, make no fuss of the dog, next leave for 10 minutes and so on and so forth.

It does work but takes a little time.

GB

Trout

iTrader: (1)

There is a plug-in you can get from your vets that releases a maternal hormone that can calm dogs with separation anxiety - sorry I have forgotten the name of it.


...or wait for the dog behaviourist...here is my favourite - Miss Whiplash herself!

Scoob99

iTrader: (1)

Thats not Miss Whiplash, Thats Tracy Barlow!!!!!!

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Nooooooooooooooo!!!

It's Victoria Stilwell - the noughties answers to Barbara Woodhouse

On her TV programme she usually wears something tight, shiny and black with buckles

Leslie

You are not that bloke ringing up on that TV advertisement are you?

Les

TyPe~~R

All a behaviurist will do is train the dog. You can find this informatoin in books or on the net. They start by giving the dog a distaction or a pleasant experiance while you go out for 5 minutes, then it is slowly biult up to 10,15,25, 1 hour etc.... Using a form of spray colour would be a bad idea and just cause more bad behaviour or mental issues as the dog is displaying seperstion anxiety.

Have you thought of another dog for company?

If your dog is insured with a major comopany like Pet Plan, you can get a claim for behaviuoral therapy. I had a very 'dog' aggressive dog. He had 12 sessions with a behaviourist for a total of £400 pounds. It was all paid for by Pet Plan. And it made no diffenece in the end, the dog still hates other dogs lol

chris singleton

LOL, I'm fortunate enough that I can bring my dog to work (office), she's snoring under my desk as we speak

Threads like this make me sooooooooooo thankful that my little hound was never a chewer of things she wasn't supposed to. I must have the only staff in the world that didn't destroy the house. If I'm going out for the night I sometimes leave the radio on. Also try hiding a few treats around the house (in rooms where the dog is aloud to go) or put them in a Kong thing (they roll it around and the food drops out) that used to keep mine occupied for ages.

Plenty of exercise before you leave the dog alone helps, more often than not our dog just hops in her basket and goes to sleep as soon as we go out.

Good luck, let us know what the behaviourist suggest

Chris

TyPe~~R

you can also try those cat feeders on a time clock, get 2 or 3 and put them in different places timed to open up with a little dry food in them. Kepps his mind of you and on the food lol

GC8

Had you not considered giving him a good shoeing? Its a damned sight cheaper.....

Sonic_Danny

Great choice of dog! How old is he?
I have a 14 month old yellow lab and he is still a handfull!

apples24

iTrader: (1)

hes 13 months so still a baby really such a stunner though weve had several people ask him for stud due to his family tree etc

we did think about it so we could have the pick of the litter

RedFive

Something that's even cheaper and works very well in our experience is the so called "Bustercube"



Kept her busy for hours. Mind you, makes a LOT of noise.

You can even change the difficulty factor for the dog on this thing.

Costs about 10 quid IIRC and took her about 15 minutes before she understood how it worked

apples24

iTrader: (1)

whats it do were you got it from?

RedFive

It's a cube with a (mechanical) release mechanism. You put dry food in, close the cube, and let the dog play with it. Each time she rolls or bumps it, a few pellets fall out. (or not, depending on how difficult you want to make it). If you look closely at the picture, you can see a pellet in the hole in the cube. In the beginning, you put it at its easiest (so she gets constantly rewarded when she moves the thing), and then slowly you make it more difficult for her.

So instead of feeding her, we put her food into this thing, which gave us the time to take a shower or whatever before she ruined the house

It is "lab proof", she never busted it...

Their website is http://www.bustercube.com, but we got it from a local petshop.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Reading a few of the posts above I would comment that if the dog behaviourist only works with the dog and does not work with you as the owners as well then I would humbly suggest that you are not getting value for money.

A dog is a pack animal and the behaviour of a dog is defined by the pack as much as the dog. You simply cannot change the behaviour of a dog in a resourceful and sustainable way without changing the behaviour of the owners as well.

The dog may well be picking wholly unintentional signals from its 'pack' that with slight adjustments can make a huge difference to the dogs behaviour. Separation anxiety is always a difficult one and some of the suggestions are excellent - Bustercube, Kongs filled with meat paste or cheese.

In my experience these will salve a dogs separation anxiety but not solve it. We had one dog that had severe separation anxiety to the extent that you could put food openly on the floor and if we were not there it would not eat it. It would sometimes use destructive behaviour but still leave the food untouched.

The source of the separation anxiety was combination of far too much attention as a puppy and the position of the puppy in the pack hierarchy (it thought it was at the top).

By gently realigning the hierarchy position by changing feeding times, simple obedience training and regular grooming at our behest not the dogs gave us a platform by which the dog could be easily trained in calm separation. The period of this training over about four weeks was a nightmare - but well worth the reward.

One of the classic problems with separation anxiety is that we as owners return to the dog when it is noisy or disruptive after it has been left. In the dogs mind you are rewarding the dog for its behaviour. For the first few times this is VERY difficult, however when a dog is displaying separation anxiety, e.g. howling or crying or being disruptive, you CANNOT return to the dog until it has been calm and quiet for at least five minutes. The dog will then feel rewarded for being calm.

Another technique is to use a dog crate in the house. Many people think these are 'cruel' however a well sized crate is an excellent tool for managing your dog. When introduced correctly a dog will love a crate as it will feel safe and secure whether you are there or not.

Our current dog, a lovely black lab, will go and sit outside his crate at about 9.30pm until we let him go in it and then he will sleep all night. Equally he will happily go in it on command during the day if we need to leave him. Also a crate really helps rapid toilet training. There are plenty of web resources on using them.