Any ideas to stop my dog digging my carpets up while he's left?

[VivaLeBeaver]

He's not left for long. Approx five hours once or sometimes twice a week.

Some weeks he's not left at all.

I leave the radio on and give him a kong full of frozen cat food. He has the cats to play with as well! Which he seems to do a lot of when we're home.

He has full run of the dining room, kitchen and hall as its all open plan and also up the stairs and landing. Living room door is shut.

He's always scratched at the carpets outside my bedroom door and dd's bedroom door. So bad now that there's an inch of no carpet in places on the landing by both bedroom doors. He never scratches at the living room door.

I've tried putting heavy books, etc in the doorway but he just scratches near the books instead.

I don't want to leave the doors open as he does sometimes chew clothes and has wrecked a hoodie and a onesie of dd's as well as chewing some soft toys.

Any miracle solutions?

Sorry, not helpful, but IMHO 5 hours is too long to leave a dog. Mine would do a lot worse than scratch the carpet if they were left that long.

I did approach a dog walker but as the day he's left is a different day every week they said they couldn't do it as they'd never know where they were. I'm in a small village as well so I don't think they relished the idea of driving here just for me.

Can you put a stair gate on so he's only downstairs as it seems its the bedrooms that he's fixated on .

Could try a stair gate but I don't really want one that's there all the time.

Will have to investigate if there's any retracting type ones. If not it'll have to be a travel one though I suspect he may just scratch a hole in that. We used to have one with previous dog to keep him out the utility room/cat food and he managed to wreck it in days!

Do any local kennels offer a daycare service?

Perhaps you could just get a piece of hardboard ( or something similar) that you could block off the stairs with and then it could slip under a bed / behind a door when not in use . We used a thick piece of cardboard to stop our dog going in the downstairs loo when we were painting .

I assume crate training (taken slowly) is not an option?

Just wondering if there's too much space for him iyswim?

tbh I also wouldn't leave my two for 5 hours. If I have to be out that long I usually take them in the car with me (altho realise you may not travel by car).

They're much happier coming along and being in a familiar environment for perhaps 1 hour before I'm back to check them/walk them/drive to the next meeting.

Is that an option?

Cars not an option, we tried crate training and he hated it. No kennels between me and work. Kennels are in opposite direction to work and I don't have time to go there.

There's another dog walker about five miles away. Is it worth asking them? Will some dog walkers accept an ad hoc, occasional day arrangement?

I could use a bit of hardboard on the stairs, that's a good idea.

But accept maybe he's struggling with five hours. I think I'd convinced myself it was ok as its not every day.

You can only ask . I imagine some might be very happy to have the dog dropped whenever you need - perhaps if they have a few days' notice?

Also I don't know what the dog will be like with someone coming in the house when I'm not there. He's not the friendliest of dogs though this is improving. It's taken six months for dh to be able to come in without the dog going for him.

A neighbour used to let my last dog out but she's scared of this one.