The dog has some kind of special steel chewing teeth. Help me.

[largeginandtonic]

I am totally stuffed. The dog is lucky to be alive. I feel a breakdown coming on.

We have GSP. He is lovely. Very good for his 5 and a half months. No issues except when being left.

It is here it all goes horribly wrong. We have a crate and put him in there with his blanket/fave toy/kong etc.. He ignores them all in favour of finding ways to escape.

He is rather brilliant at this. He escaped a few times by arching his back and rocking the crate untill he could unclip the sides/door/base. We put him in a bigger crate. He opened the door. We bought a padlock. He still escaped. We bought 2 more. He was trapped, we did it.

Or so we thought.

Now he doesn't have hours and hours to manage these incredible feats. He is left rarely, maybe 2-3 times a week and for 2 hours max. Essential trips.

Yesterday dd had a hospital appointment. I put him in the crate at 1pm. Padlocks on. Barking started. When i returned at 2pm i could not hear barking. This made me panic as if there is no barking he is OUT. Trashing the house (he can open all the doors) He eats everything he can find and i worry he will choke or ingest something bad for him.

But noooo. He was in his crate. Well his body was. He had managed to CHEW the bars and bend them, squeeze his head through a minute gap nd trap himself. His neck was drenched as was the floor as he was obviously panicking and could not swallow (or bark) He was stuck. It sounded like Drath Vader was with us.

Dd and i frantically bent the bars and undid padlocks till he was released. I was expecting a trip to the vet with a very poorly dog. He was blinking FINE. Just licked us and went out for a wee. Went back in his crate to retrieve the treats he wont eat when we are out.

Help me. I can't put him back in the mangled crate. I can't leave him to roam the house. I HAVE to go out without him sometimes. What do i do?

Thank you oh wise dog lovers.

Is he related to my dog? He ate his crate. I leave him locked in the hallway, which works sometimes. Sometimes it doesn't and he opens the doors and empties the kitchen bin all over the dining room and encourages Whippy dog to steal washing up sponges to 'kill'.

I just have to make sure there is nothing he can get that could hurt him (not very easy)

Oh flip. Maybe they are related. It is so HARD.

His favourite place of destruction is the dinning room. I have a dresser in there that contains all the cereal. He can open it and empty the lot. Spreads it everywhere and sometimes poo's on it for good measure.

Kids are easier than dogs.

I have to pop out to the playschool run. He is coming. I leave him strapped in to the car and he barks constantly in there too!

Aww, he's soooo clever!

Do you only use the crate when you go out? I was told when my two labs were small that it was important to use it during the day when I was there as well so that it wasn't associated with me 'being away'.

I used to pop sweets in and talk to them while I did the vacuuming for example.

He could be panicking with separation anxiety - in that situation doing something apparently daft like leaving the radio/tv on can help to calm them.

I have no words of advice, just sympathy. We have a now 3 year old Border Collie who chewed his way through the house, including electric sockets, duvets covers, he chewed a hole in the door , he chewed books, curtains,table legs, chair legs, he also scraped at and chewed paint nad plaster off the walls.

It is hard to say whether he has terrible separation anxiety (sounds like it) or if it is just that he has learnt from an early age that if he works hard enough he can get out of his crate and now neither hell nor high water will stop his attempts.

Either way you can't carry on like this it is only a matter of time before he injures himself badly.

You will have to find another safe area of the house to leave him in, huge emphasis on the 'safe', however hard that is. Then you will have to start from scratch on teaching him to be left, if you are not very experienced with dogs then you may well need the help of a behaviourist or you are going to end up with a large, powerful, super destructive dog that cannot be left.

Several issues going on here but they can all be dealt with.

Although hard to give accurate advice without seeing the situation.

First what crate are you using? I have crates that no dog on earth can get out of so you need to find one of these. I can link but let me know the type he is escaping from.

First thing I would work on is him being left - make sure that you leave him every day and not only once or twice a week.

Always feed him in his crate - if he is the only dog in the house randomly drop the best treats in the world in his crate and so he will learn that when he wanders in there it is great.

Everyday several times a day Put him in a safe place (for me that would be an indestructible crate and leave the room - immediately come back in and take no notice of him at all. Come back in even if he barks but just ignore him when he is quiet let him out of the safe area without any comment

Pop him back into the safe area - give him a treat and again leave the room build this up in time - after a few days do not go back if he is barking - it can take them a while to learn this but he will stop!

I contrary to other people I do not give many toys in a crate - my dogs have learnt that the crate is a place to relax and sleep. So before I put them in the crate I would have a mad crazy game or training to tire them out and then time to sleep.

If you regularly encourage and teach him to be happy on his own then you will have a much more relaxed and calm happy dog generally.

Agree though about getting in a behaviourist if you are finding this difficult to handle - it will not go away on its own and will need consistent training but it can be changed.

Where does he sleep at night and what food is he on?

Thank you for the replies.

Saltire he doesn't chew really, unless is it steel He leaves all the children's toys alone (there are plenty) It is just thing's he can eat. He would steal food from the side in the kitchen for example, if we did not keep the door shut.

I always had dogs as a child, we grew up with many. From Lab's to standard poodle's to whippets and lurcher cross'. All had there own bizzare habits.

Rupert (the GSP) definately suffers from extreme seperation anxiety. We were going to crate him formt he word go, even have him sleeping in his crate at night. He howled for 3 staright nights. No let up. I almost went mad with sleep deprivation and felt awful as i am sure the neighbours could hear. He sleeps in his bed next to our bed. Goes up with us about 10 and sleeps through till 6 when he needs a wee or gets woken by a child.

I could leave him in the bathroom? Small room, wipe cleanable surfaces. The worst that could happen is he could chew through the pipes or manage to open the toilet lid and drown...

He is on Burn's puppy food and the crate is a giant one from ebay. Will go and have a look for it and link.

We never crate trained our dogs when we were younger so i am clueless in that respect. I have read tons of books. They all said he would stop howling and barking after a few nights in the crate. He didn't.

When we get home having left him he is so tired as he has been barking the whole time he falls fast asleep like a little angel. Grrr

So he's an eater as opposed to a chewer?. ours was mainly a chwer but he did eat things, I did a thread on here about him eating things which passed through him, he's had bits of red socks or white socks in his poo. He once at 3 wooden skwerers, which passed through him whole and came out the other end, I nearly fainted when i though about what could have happened

3 days of howling is very common and usually they stop after that. However as he is know only locked in his crate when he is left no wonder he goes a bit barmy.

I would work on the above and you need to decide if you are going to crate or not. My concern on him being out of the crate is that he will still get distressed and could come to serious damage if he chewed inappropriate things.

I would put his bed in crate in your bedroom in the same place as his bed is now and start from there maybe first night leave it open and gradually move it away from the bed or if you like him in your room gradually build up to shutting the door.

I just feel that in a strong crate he will be safer than left to chew and roam around the house (and it could work out expensive if he were to eat your whole house)

Get over the idea that crates are cruel - dogs learn to love them if used properly and it gives them an instant chill out time (a bit like up going to a spa we instantly feel calm and relaxed). The world can collapse around the dog but if they are in their crate all is right with them. So in my opinion worth working at.

I don't know what to do really.

His crate is HUGE and would not fit in our room. It would dominate the front room tbh. It is currently by the stairs downstairs (3 storey house) where the kitchen and dinning room are.

Front room, bathroom and 2 bedrooms on first floor, 3 more bedrooms and bathroom on top floor. To be in where we are most of the time his crate would have to come up a level.

Maybe a smaller crate? He is going to be a big dog and at 5 months already weighs almost 20 kilos and is quite tall, lab size but skinnier. I don't want him to be squished, plus when he was in his puppy crate he braced himself of the sides and popped the catches off!

I am being weak aren't i? Link me to a crate that would be ok for him. I have just emailed dh (he is away at sea, typical) and he siad lock him in the first floor bathroom if i have to leave him. Will he drown himself? Chew through pipes?

I know he needs to be in a crate when we leave him, i am worried about him eating something and really damaging himself. His sister from this litter died as she ate something and it became infected She lived in the same village as we do.

My sister refused to crate train her lurcher puppy. They would leave him in the kitchen. He once got himself locked in the bathroom (he can also open doors but only way. He let himself in the bathroom and couldn't get back out when the door shut on him)

He chewed the lino off the floor and the loo seat and eventually clawed a hole in the bottom of the door big enough for him squeeze back out, but not before pulling the towel rack off the wall and shredding the toilet roll. He'd only been left about 3 hours. They don't know how much of that 3 hours was spent locked in the bathroom.

My mum threatened to sell him to the local travellers (she didn't. He came here for a few days until she admitted she missed him)

Arf at the tunneling lurcher.

I want an indesrtuctable crate please. Might put myself in it.

The guy who taught me photography had a GSP who used to eat wallets. Nothing else attracted him, just wallets. He was a sneaky so and so too, would go around sniffing for them in people's pockets/bags.

No help but I thought I'd join in.

Uselful SOH, very useful. Things to look forward to maybe?

A lovely mate came over last night and took a panel from his puppy crate and kind of pliared it on the front panel of the chewed crate. It is now safe and (you never know) chew proof.

I will try when i have recovered from this weeks antics.

Just as an aside do dogs generally like fruit? Our others didn't as far as i can remember. Rupert seems to snaffle ANY fruit. Is it ok for him to have?

Ta you lot. Who'd have thunk it. A parenting website good for doggie tips too.

No to grapes or avacado. Devil Dog likes stealing tangerines

Ok. Grapes and avocados are as yet unexplored territory. Will keep it that way. Apple cores and tangerines are his fave.

Thank you!