Our dogs stay inside while we are at work (for the past 1-2 years) - they've recently begun randomly grabbing things off counters/tables/desks during the day and destroying as they see fit. It started with my husband leaving pizza on the counter (in the box) so they tore that up and had a pizza party by themselves. They've now moved on to drink coasters, magazines, notepads and cds. They have chew toys and squeaky toys but I guess those are too boring and I don't know how to fix it since we're not there to correct them.
I mentioned to my parents that we'd probably have to start crating them while we are gone and my mom proceeded to email me about how they are acting out because we have stolen their freedom from them by making them stay inside the house during work and at night. And this is all our fault for not dog-proofing the house appropriately, so it's a "terrible cruelty" to crate them and will cause them to have sores & skeletal problems (my dogs have never had any of those issues and i crate trained them as puppies and gave them house freedom once they learned to chew on only their stuff).
DogA can get out of our fence and DogB used to bark at the neighbor nonstop. So outside isn't really an option.
I'm not even sure what I'm looking for with posting this. I'm just really upset at my mom and right now don't want to ever speak to her again. I feel like she's saying that we're abusing the dogs. And she ignored my response to her email. I feel like I'm unreasonably angry but I don't know how to be un-angry about this.
I'd respond with "I'll give that all the consideration it's due" but I'm bad that way.
The crate can actually keep the dogs safe. They may eat something they really shouldn't, or they could break something and cut themselves. As long as they have room to move around in the crates, they should be good.
I'd stop talking to mom about this stuff. Seems like she still thinks she gets a vote in your life.
Crating makes a pooch feel safe, doesn't it? As well as having the result of removing the possibility of being naughty.
I don't know much about training dogs, but it does sound like boredom overtook them. A dog trainer friend of mine suggested, when I was pet-sitting a destructive dog, to rotate his toys so that he didn't have access to all of them all the time. She said he needed more stimulation, so I took him for longs walks as well as teaching him a new trick or so. He's a good boy!
You were already upset about the pooches, & then you mother made her unhelpful & inaccurate remarks, so no wonder you feel angry & frustrated. I say, crate her!
lol Saucy - at this point I'd just like to move far away and never speak to her again. They just rotated in toys 2 days ago and grabbed something off the counter this morning :( I think it was the pizza boxes letting them know sometimes things on the counter are tasty so now they are grabbing things and trying them out. And since no one can tell them no, they think they can just keep on chewing even if it's not food.
I won't mention the dogs or crates again - they were supposed to dog/cat sit for us soon and now I'm wondering if we should just pay a kennel instead. Of course, if I tell them we're kennelling the animals instead, we'll have to hear about how cruel it is for them to be in a cage the whole time :P
Crating dogs isn't abusive and sometimes it's the only alternative.
And I don't blame you for feeling hurt and angry. It's one thiing to make a suggestion, it's antoher to accuse you of cruelty to creatures you obviously love and value.
I did find that my schnoodle is more interested in his toys (and less likely to destroy other things) if I put them in a basket or box. He seems to like taking them out and will put them back as another amusement. Also I vary the container and put it in different locations to keep things as interesting as possible.
