This puppy...help

[PossumintheHouse]

We rescued a six-month old Boxer puppy four weeks ago from a charity and bloody hell... he's a challenge.
Both of us have had boxers in the past, but this guy is something else.
Leave him alone for even half an hour? He barks and smashes anything smash-worthy within his path. He knows how to open all doors and has already toppled the TV and destroyed a kitchen cabinet.
He follows basic commands so far - sit, lie down, dinner - but is selectively deaf beyond that.
Does anyone have any advice about how to calm him down?

You may find this group very useful but you must read all the guides (or get the book!) before posting.

I think they may now also offer personal virtual training sessions too.

I found the book really useful.

Or get a local dog trainer

He’s a very young dog who has been through a lot of disruption at a crucial developmental stage. Are the rescue giving you support with the behaviour?

It does sound like he might just not be ready to be left but crate/pen training may help

Don't give him the chance alone to get up to mischief . Be aware about what he could get up to next , I always aware the bin or work tops could be on his list , nothing is off the table .

He’s very young still, great that he knows the commands he does know!
Do you have a strong secure dog kennel?

He has company 95% of the time, and is a lovely dog with other dogs and children, and everyone else. But goes bonkers when left alone for a little while.

We're now doing this - nothing on the cabinets, as he's already stolen: a bag of puppy treats, a doughnut, a bag of pears, orange and a bulb of garlic.

Try to reframe his behaviour.
He’s not stealing, from his point of view he’s simply found these things.
Don’t react to the unwanted behaviour. Teach him a marker word (or clicker) and mark and reward every time he does something you do want. Don’t worry too much about ‘sit’ etc. mark and reward calm/quiet/feet on the floor/focus on you etc even if each behaviour is only seconds initially.
you will see an improvement quickly if you are consistent and the rewards are worth it.

Can you keep him on a leash tied to your waist, or in his crate? That way he’ll be safe rather than practicing behaviour you don’t want.

He may be anxious at being left. Or just bored and looking for things to do. That group above is awesome.

Thanks for the replies and suggestions. We don't have a crate and don't intend to get one, if possible. He's very behaved if we're in the house and good with other dogs and children. It's when we need to leave him for a small amount of time that the issues come up. We've tried staggering leaving him from 10 minutes to a couple of hours that he goes nuts.

Fair point. We don't tell him off for 'stealing' and we're trying to do this, but he hasn't responded much so far.

I have had a lot of boxers over the years, and currently have four. They're like velociraptors as puppies.
Is there a reason you really don't want a crate?
It's not something to use as a punishment but somewhere he has his own space to go and be calm.
He is still very young and has already on at least his second home so it will take him a while to adjust.

Four... are you mad!? ;)
I'm not an anti-crate person, but we've never had one.
He's settled, apart from the home alone factor.

If you can’t or won’t create a totally safe space then you can’t leave him for now. (I use a whelping pen with extra panels for pups.)

Very mad, yes 😂 I've always had them in groups of 2-4.

If he's not able to be safely left alone then you can't really leave him. He could do himself a real damage. And that may be something he never grows out of, one of mine is 9 and perfectly behaved when we are home but must be crated for his own safety when left !

I hope you find the right solution for you 🙂 have you tried contacting the charity? If they're a breed specific one they may be able to offer some valuable advice

I think you're starting too long on leaving him. Ten minutes at six months old for a dog that probably has spent a good chunk of its (very young) life in kennels is way too long. You're just reinforcing his worries ATM - giving him a nice new home then abandoning him (from his POV) for hours on end.

You need to start as you would with a puppy - 30 seconds at a time. If they cry, don't come back until they stop.

And I agree with PPs you can't continue to leave him if it's this bad. He could end up seriously injuring himself or dead if he's stealing so much

I have to ask - why are you continuing to leave a severely destructive dog alone and uncrated for up to two hours at a time? He could kill himself.

If you're not willing to crate train him or provide him with a safe, secure space when he's alone then you really can't leave him at all.

Remember, he's a baby. He's only been alive for six months and in that time he's had at least two homes plus been dumped in rescue - you need to dial it all way back and go from the beginning.

We took on a boxer x who had been at the rescue for a month, only age 7 months. He was utterly lovely but a huge bag of nerves and anxiety. He was claustrophobic, seemed terrified of small spaces so we weren't ever going to crate him (had probably been 'banished' to a crate as a boisterous puppy, the rescue said). We made a room totally safe for him, with lots of his things and treat 'feeders' like the ball they push around, a treat mat etc. and nothing he could break. My oh was around all day but when he went outside he put out something from the treat equipment. He only went for a few minutes at a time and slowly extended it. We also got him to some low-key agility training, which he loved and helped a bit with his focus on us. Anything we could do to help him burn energy helped him, too; so a laser pointer he chased was very good, for example, and walks on a long line. He's fine now (age 9!) and just settles down/switches off if we are out. Good luck, and bless you for giving him this chance x

You need a crate OP and a camera, to keep him safe and for your peace of mind.

Look at Kiko pup on YouTube, always recommended in here. She's amazing.

Stop leaving him. He sounds like he is a danger to himself and others. Even in a non rehomed dog 6 months is too early to be left at all and add rehoming into the mix it's a recipe for disaster. They don't get used to it - they get better at being dangerous.

You need to slow right down, stop leaving him alone, manage his environment so he cannot make mistakes and then take it from there.

My puppy now a dog has never chewed anything even as a very tiny puppy as we manipulated her environment to never give her the chance. If they never learn to do it they never do it, quite simply.

Crates are fantastic tools but realistically you need to take many many months to build value in them and make the dog WANT to be in there to avoid distress. They are not a quick fix at all.

@Devilshands Thanks both of you. Fair points and all taken on board.

We're no longer leaving him alone, haven't done since the two-hour incident. (Admittedly, this was a bit of an emergency situation, but still.)

Appreciate the advice to take it back to the beginning. To give a bit of context, we've left him alone for a total of five times - 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour and two hours. No incidents during the shorter periods. I accept this is too long.

The puppy has been in three homes. His original owners sadly experienced a sudden death. He was loved and we were told that they had started leaving him alone for short periods, although I have no way of knowing if that is true. They didn't have a crate for him. We rescued him from a small charity that deals with cats and dogs, and they all go into foster homes. - so no kennels for him. He was in a foster home for two weeks before coming to us.

We have created a safe puppy comfortable space/room for him with nothing dangerous to hand (or so we thought) but we didn't realise he could open doors until the last time we left him alone, so that was a bit daft and naive of us.

We aren't anti-crate, it's just not something we have used before with our past Boxer pup.

Thanks for this. Good advice and we've been trying to do this, we will persevere. He's a lovely dog, we'll find a solution!

He sounds like he's had a lot of upheaval - three homes (plus a foster?) is a hell of a lot when he's only six months old.

I would be tempted to go right back to basics and treat him like a 12 week old puppy, not a six month old one, and remember that it can take three months for a rescue dog to truly start to settle into their new homes.

So realistically that means not leaving him except for very short periods, lots of reassurance, toilet training from scratch, and teaching manners and boundaries as if he's never been in a home before.

None of his behaviour sounds unusual for a young, badly trained rescue but obviously boxers grow to be big, strong dogs so it's important to get that ground work in now as you know!

This is spot on actually. I hadn't properly considered the short periods of time with the breeder and his two-week foster period, and the issues this could subsequently cause.
We've also taken his age of six months at face value when really we should have dialled it back based on all the disruption he's faced. We had our previous pup 18 years ago and we got him at 14 weeks, so his training was a different scenario entirely.
We'll start back at the 10-minute periods and work from there. He is such a lovely dog, and his training over the past few weeks has been impressive. He's gone from only knowing 'sit' to understanding a lot of commands, he's excellent with toilet duties and he isn't a chewer or destructive. That has maybe made us to expect too much when it comes to trying alone periods.

Thanks everyone for the good advice, glad I started this thread.