My opinion is that there is no such thing as bad pets; only bad owners. You don’t take the time and make the effort to teach your new pet the rules, then whatever destruction and/or harm they cause is on you.
I have two Boston terriers, one of which was rescued from being a stud dog at a puppy mill. I got him when he was 5. He’d never been housebroken or had any sort of socialization to people whatsoever. He’d never had a belly rub, or a treat, or been taken for a nice walk to a park. I had trouble training him at first because he didn’t recognize a treat as something edible he could have. It was not motivating. What did motivate him was lots of petting and love.
But breaking down the canine-human barriers and teaching this dog how to communicate cause him to bond very closely to me and that resulted in separation anxiety. I ended up hiring an animal behaviorist, who helped me come up with a behavioral modification therapy that I used in conjunction with anti-anxiety meds. (Prozac for dogs; I called it Dog-zac. And it worked like a charm!)
In between the meds and therapy, of course, I had this other dog, who is basically a big sweetie that I adopted when she was a puppy. (I’m a crappy dog trainer, but this dog is pretty good. I think she’s smarter than me.) Other dog was having neck problems, so the vet recommended that I take an old gym sock and fill it with plain uncooked white rice and knot the sock closed. When the dog’s neck hurt her, I was supposed to nuke the rice sock for a couple minutes and then use that as a warm compress on the dog’s neck. She hated it.
Rescued Dog loved it, however, because it smelled like slightly cooked rice, a dish he’d become familiar with. So one day, I wasn’t thinking and left the damn rice sock on the coffee table in the living room, well within reach of both dogs. Rescued dog managed to get a hold of it while I was at work and somehow, flung every single grain of rice (about a pound of rice) from inside the sock to every nook and cranny in my house.
I walked in the door to discover that a wedding had exploded in my house. The dogs were grinning from ear to ear, so proud of themselves that they’d killed and gutted the mean old nasty rice sock. I got out the vacuum and was disturbed to realize that I couldn’t find the sock. Oh, please tell me that damn dog didn’t eat the entire sock. I looked and looked and couldn’t find it, but the dog seemed fine. I cleaned up all the rice and went back to work.
When I got home that afternoon, Rescued dog left his first dump of mostly rice in the yard. He proceeded to poop dry raw rice for the next three days. When I got ready for bed the first night after The Great and Terrible Rice Sock Incident, I flung the covers back and found the rice sock! One of the dogs had taken it to bed (ahem, I’m looking at you, Other Dog) and “buried” it under the covers. Again, my bedtime was delayed while I picked grains of rice out of my sheets.
Now, I think this story is hilarious. I love telling it because it makes me laugh to think about the joyous abandon with which a dog will fling a quickly draining rice sock. I could picture the little BT dance they did as they “killed” the rice sock. It still makes me giggle. Was that incident endearing?
Nooooooot really.
What it did was underscore the problem of separation anxiety and it prompted me to get professional help. I clearly did not have enough dog experience to really work with a rescue properly. After the behavioral modification and meds, I was able to calm the dog enough that now, in his old age, he really only eats paper and cardboard that is left within his reach. And I also stopped leaving things within his reach. But I don’t blame the dog and think he’s a bad dog. He had a terrible life and doesn’t have the best dog trainer in the world (me), but he belongs with us now and we lurves him.
But I don’t expect the dogsitter to put up with him, so he gets kenneled whenever I have to travel. I don’t expect anyone else to tolerate his nonsense, just because I do because I heart my dog.
ETA: when I moved out of that house two years later, I found grains of rice behind and under furniture. 
