Dog has me at my wits end.

Of course there'll be people queuing to adopt an 8 year old out of control cavapoo! If dog is recent rescue, the rescue itself may be able to help. If you've had the for 8 years OP, why are you finding it suddenly unmanageable NOW?

Disagree with PP who said an hour a day is not enough walkies.

An hour of walking can be nothing for a fit human, young labrador or working cocker but a is full workout for a small senior dog.

Just saying for balance because I'd hate the OP to do the dog an injury by suddenly double-tripling her exercise at her age.

Brain work, the issue with all these ooodle cross breeds is people don’t realise poodles are clever dogs and need to work their brains. Get the kids to teach her some doggy dancing tricks.

Lets face it, you are going to have to spend to put the situation right. Either that or pass it on to someone else to have the same issues.

Your dog hasnt had the training it needed. Full stop. No ifs and buts about it. Its been going on for 8 years. Your dog, in an experienced handlers hands would be a different dog.

You need to pay someone for 1-1 help in general and in your home. Its going to be expensive and time consuming but it will work. How much is you home life and sanity worth? £1k, £2k, £5k You need to pay for someone to help you train your dog.

3.5 miles a day isn't that much exercise, It's probably only an hour in total of her whole day. Does she get to spend any of that off lead or playing with other dogs? What learning and play does she get on top of that? I expect a lot of what you are dealing with is extreme frustration on her part which has become a habit and barking, chewing etc has become her 'entertainment'.

Imagine if you had to sit / lay in the same fairly sterile environment (compared to outdoors with all it's new sights and smells) for 23 hours a day, without your phone or TV or anything to occupy your mind or hands, day after day, for years.... you'd find any little bit of interaction or company mind-blowingly exciting, any little job you could do or even a bit of fidgeting would be a welcome distraction.... that's her world right now.

Cavaliers are anxious and prone to separation anxiety - as are poodles (who are also high energy dogs). Mix them both together and you get an overly anxious, nervous energetic dog that needs an experienced owner who is pretty much always at home but who can also provide lots of exercise and stimulation.

Much better off with a qualified behaviourist.

"The farm" would be perfect!

Cavs are intelligent, prone to separation anxiety and are attention seeking. They certainly are not a low energy breed in any way unless they are left to get fat (which they often are unfortunately). I've had working breeds my entire life and never had a cav that couldn't keep up. They pick up incredibly quickly, often quicker than the labs. Its not a great mix. They are popular with first timers because they look fluffy and cute and are little without being too little.

Cavapoos are very prone to have separation anxiety (so are cockerpoos) so that's not very surprising if you chose that mix. It also does sound like the dog is not getting anywhere near enough enrichment in terms of excercise or other activities that will tire it out. The walks you mention are really quite short walks and you don't specify how those walk look. Is it on the lead and roughly the same places or do you take the dog off lead, climb hills, go to the beach etc? What is the dog doing between the walks? Is it left home alone or does it get played with or get any mental stimulation?

My neighbour has a cavapoo, the little bastard has barked from the minute they picked her up as a puppy, she is also terrible on the lead. They rarely leave her on her own as she constantly barks with no break whatsoever. Horrid little dog.

If the dog is highly anxious then I think rehoming would be really stressful for it (even if you could find someone who is looking for a destructive older dog with behavioural issues). I'd pts before I rehomed in those circumstances.

Try to rehome. The dog seems more trouble than it’s worth.

I thought that cavapoos were part cavalier king Charles’s which aren’t particularly ‘highly’ intelligent and are not high energy breeds which is a term reserved usually for working breeds? My understanding was that mixing a highly intelligent poodle with a cavalier was supposed to create an intelligent and active (but not overly so) family dog.

They def seem marmite and I could be wrong but those with extensive dog breed experience seem to detest them yet the average first time dog owner seems to adore them - their popularity (and price tag) certainly shows no signs of dying down!

This sounds really challenging.

Have you tried a Clinical Animal Behaviourist? They will be able to work closely with you and your dog and put a programme in place. They can deal with anxieties and phobias. this really worked for us. They got the right meds and introduced other stimulations such as sniffy games which really helped to calm them.

Get rid.

I really hope this is a joke.

Same here with ours. A 1.5 mile walk is really not a "big walk". It's half an hour, max.

As soon as I saw the title I knew what breed it would be about.

We are a big animal family especially dogs and know this breed well. Majority need a lot of walking/running as well as mental stimulation. They also need firm boundaries. As the saying goes give them an inch and they will take a mile.

You say the dog is 8, is this a new thing or have you only just recently got them?

The walking is not about the distance but about the time spent sniffing. The further you walk the fitter the dog but what tires them out is using their brain (or at least that was my behaviourists advice). Sniffing is really important, it's harder for them to walk on uneven surfaces than flat road and hence more brain used...

A set routine, a calm house, a quiet place the dog can go to get peace, someone home all the time, an adaptil plug in... All things that help a slightly neurotic dog find peace. I have a neurotic dog - a Bichon (after the thunder storms a few years back he got agraphobia that it took us almost a year of patience to sort out!)

Can you work around the dog and perhaps pop it in the car when you have guests so you don't have to listen to the barking (ours likes the car when it's not moving). Mine doesn't like being left at home much either so I pay a sitter, take him with me, leave him at my parents or pop him in the car where he'll wait for a few hours peacefully. He isn't keen on the car moving so we can't just drive him about without him getting a walk at the other end. We pay for an inhome sitter for a week during the summer so we can get a holiday without having to pander to him and she costs me as much as the damned holiday sometimes but she's known him for most of his life and he loves her. He loves other dogs but I am not sure how he'd share. We have never got a second dog for risk of just ending up with double the issues.

I guess what I am saying is I feel your pain. An anxious dog is tricky and you end up spending a lot of time, money and patience on trying to deal with it. An 8 year old Cavapoo would hopefully get rehomed if you gave him up but I couldn't take the risk with my little nutter. Ideally it sounds like he should be with someone with nothing to do all day but sit and keep the dog company (something mine has been campaigning for for years). At least I work from home so he is mostly not alone.

What are you doing to mentally tire her out?

We have a high energy dog and we do a lot of training on our walks (Every walk for the past two years), it's a bit pointless just going for a 1.5 mile walk twice a day (that also doesn't sound like a lot? We do 4 miles once a day and that takes a little over an hour, 1.5 miles would be around 20-30 minutes?).

You need to be doing mental enrichment both on walks and at home. Otherwise you just end up with a really fit dog whose almost impossible to tire out.

My lab needs two hours off lead each day. I don’t think your dog is getting enough exercise.

The dog is EIGHT!

i have a dog like this (though she is pure poodle). She ate through the garden fence to get to me once..

I have to say - getting a second dog was an absolute game changer. She’s still slightly mental but just regular dog mental now 😆

Cavapoos are generally puppy-farmed and badly bred and are known for having a whole host of behavioural problems.

Honestly, this is super typical for the kind of dog you've chosen. There isn't really a magic cure or answer because she's genetically predisposed to all of this thanks to her poor breeding.