Destructive rescue

[teaforthree]

We adopted a rescue about a year and a half ago, and a few months ago we went camping. It became clear that she was stressed by it, so we came home after one night.

Accidentally posted it!

Since we came home, she was destructive every day, she tried to dig through the walls, ripped her claws off, escaped out of the window and ran off etc. We went to the vets several times with her, and they gave us techniques to try with her (kong, super long walks, crate) and nothing worked, spoke to the rspca, where we adopted her from and they weren't any use either. She was unhappy too, not eating, not playing, just moping.

Eventually we found that shutting her upstairs with a stair gate, bed, food, toys and water worked and she became happy again, and settled down, until today. We went out for a few hours and came to back to find piles of broken crockery, torn down wallpaper, broken plaster, paperwork shredded. We have no idea how she got downstairs, the stair gate was still up, so guessing she jumped it.

Has anyone got any suggestions of how we can help her? Crates really don't work. She's terrified of clangy things. We can't afford to keep re plastering and re wallpapering and replacing things. The first few times, yes, but we've had her 18 months, shouldn't she have settled down with us? Any ideas are gratefully received, I love the dog so much, but we are close to rehoming.

Have you tried DAP pheromone treatment? It helped to settle our rescue.

Don't really have any other suggestions. Mad as it sounds though have you tried, dared, giving her the run of the house? We had problems with one of our dogs howling when we went out. We used to leave him in living room and kitchen. We left the doors open and it stopped.

Is that the plug in thing? We were going to try that last time, so thanks for jogging my memory! We have drop treatment that looks like a flea treatment so will try that too.

She used to have the run of the house except the living room and bedrooms and she was fine for over a year until we went bloody camping! She can't still be anxious over that surely?

Dogs are funny creatures. How long is she left for?

Sounds like something has happened while you were out which has frightened her. Have all these destructive behaviours happened in your absence?

If you're looking at DAP (Adaptil) get the collar, it works more consistently than the plug in. But you would be best to get a behaviourist involved who can help address the problem at the root. Ideally in conjunction with your vet, because some of these dogs improve more when given medication alongside a behaviour modification programme. Have a look on the APBC website to find a qualified behaviourist nearby.

Never left for very long, I only work out of the house sporadically, sometimes she's worse if we've been out for a short time, and better if we've been out longer. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.

I think you're right about something happening, we had a missed parcel card through the letterbox and the neighbour took it in, I'm wondering if he came to see if we were in and scared her? And then that's her go to behaviour - to wreck the house.

We went to the shop earlier, and moved the stair gate further up the stairs so she couldn't jump the bannister, when we came back, she seemed okay, we didn't hear whining (neighbours have told us she's done that before) and she'd finally finished her breakfast.

Going to get a DAP collar and look into behaviourists, it seems firework has started so she's panting with stress again now :( thanks for your advice

At this time of the year, don't discount fireworks. Round here they have already started.