I am the proud owner of a lab-whippet mix. We rescued her at the tender age of 1. She had been in shelters pretty much her whole life, except for a failed adoption a few months before we took her in.
For the first three months of ownership, she was so skittish that she never dared chew on anything. She has both typical whippet anxiety behavior as well as the problems commonly associated with rescued dogs. We could barely get her to eat if we were in the room. Thankfully, she’s overcome that – and now we have the opposite problem: At night, and only at night, she insists on chewing the shit out of whatever she can find. Our comforter has holes. Toys she normally just plays with get reduced to mush in the nighttime. She chewed the wall!
We have tried to give her things to chew on. She has a deer antler, for example. But she gets bored of it and goes looking for other targets. We’re also slightly concerned about giving her anything too chewable, for fear that she’ll swallow a bit of rope or whatnot and get an intestinal blockage. We’ve tried spraying bitter spray (three different kinds, so far) on the various things we don’t want chewed to no avail. She is a chewing machine that could care less about her taste buds. And we’ve tried punishing her when we catch her chewing on something we don’t want her to, but this generally happens at 3AM so we don’t catch it until the morning, and figure she won’t associate the punishment with the act after 3 hours.
So…I’m sort of at my wit’s end. Do we need to keep searching for the ideal chewtoy that she won’t get bored of? Do we need to start from scratch and try to crate train her again or something? Any advice is appreciated!
You could try keeping her in a cage at night. I know several people who are doing this. It is supposed to make dogs feel safer and her reaction may be fear or anxiety based. In any event, it will keep her from chewing on anything outside of the cage. You can probably find tips online for acclimating a dog to a cage.
This doesn’t always work. We tried it with Blackjack. Anyone want a cage with the hinges and latch busted out?
-Like most whippets, we really likes to snuggle with her owners when she sleeps. We like this too (she keeps my wife’s feet warm).
-Part of the reason she plays at night is because that’s when she feels most comfortable; she knows where everyone is, nothing is required of her, and there are no scary noises, etc. Denying her nighttime play takes away one of the happiest parts of her existence.
-Whippets don’t have a lot of body fat, and have sort of been bred to sit on padded surfaces. If we put her in a crate with bedding, she will almost certainly chew and ingest some of it, creating a health risk.
Would nighttime crating be a temporary solution? Would she eventually learn to calm down at night?
You say she’s part lab and labs are notorious for chewing/eating just whatever they can get their mouths around. I’d second the crate suggestion but if you’re really not keen on that, perhaps she’s just not getting enough exercise during the day. Chewing can be a symptom of boredom, which would make sense if she’s doing it at night when everyone’s sleeping. Try wearing her out during the day with playtime and plenty of walks so that come bedtime all she want to do is sleep.
I think she would learn to calm down. Dogs don’t chew forever. I don’t know a lot about whippets, but I know labs are chewing demons for the first three years or so, and then mellow out.
I understand why you are reluctant to crate her, but I really think that is the answer to your problem. I think it’s more than possible that if she’s crated at night, she will sleep and learn to do her playing during the day, when it’s appropriate, with things that are appropriate.
Ultimately, dogs aren’t people, and getting overly concerned about their “feelings” isn’t a good idea. Dogs need to know the rules, have consistency, and be disciplined. That will reassure her and make her feel safer. Don’t coddle the bad behavior; it will just escalate. I know you feel sad because she had a hard life and everything, but stop. She needs you to treat her like the dog you want her to be, and then she will become that dog, you know?
Find her a crate, and talk to the people at the petstore about bedding that won’t be easily chewed, or won’t hurt her if it is. Use the crate for 6 weeks, then try letting her out at night to see how she does.
The way I see it, you only have two choices: put up with her destroying your stuff, or crate her. She might outgrow this behavior eventually but she almost certainly won’t if you don’t curtail it in some way now. She needs to learn that there is stuff she can chew and stuff she can’t. You’re not able to supervise her in your sleep, but if she’s contained you can make sure she only has access to chew toys.
You can buy a nice big crate/cage - my 20-lb dog spends her prison time in a giant 48x36 one - put in a bed that she is unlikely to want to chew (I wouldn’t recommend regular blankets or pillows), and give her plenty to do/chew while she’s in there.
You won’t be able to just pop her in one night and every night thereafter, though - you’ll have to work up to it slowly and carefully to make sure she has a positive association. The crate should be a place where she feels safe. My dogs usually choose to sleep in their crates rather than anywhere else.
I have to agree, the crate. We have had at least one young Lab in the house most of the time since 1991. Without using crates, we wouldn’t have a house left. One of my current projects is replacing some of the vinyl siding and trim the one ruined last summer.
One factor not mentioned so far is the dog choking or having an intestinal blockage for a chewing misadventure.
It is only natural that a puppy resists its crate at first. What the puppy wants more than anything else is to be others, you, anyone else in the household, and any other pets. In our modern society, even if we are home, other things distract us from the attention an uncrated puppy must have. The only real solution is to crate the dog when you aren’t around. The dog may be happier in its den than loose in the house. It relaxes, it feels safe in its den. It rests, the body slows down reducing the need for water and relieving its self. Dogs that have been crated all along do very well. Many of them will rest in their crates even when the door is open. I think the plastic ones give the dog more of a safe, enclosed den feeling. Metal ones can be put in a corner or covered with something the dog can’t pull in and chew. Select a crate just big enough for the full grown dog to stretch out in.
Leave it some toys. Perhaps a Kong filled with peanut butter. Don’t leave anything in the crate the dog might chew up. It will do fine without even any bedding. You will come home to a safe dog and a house you can enjoy.
A dog that has not been crated since it was little, may take some work. Start out just putting its toys and treats in the crate. Praise it for going in. Feed it in the crate. This is also an easy way to maintain order at feeding time for more than one dog.
The “shut the puppy in a safe room” is a fallacy. Very few houses even have a safe room. How many of us have a room with a hard surfaced floor and nothing else? Most rooms have electrical cords to chew if nothing else. In addition to destroying anything a bored puppy finds to chew, it may choke or have intestinal blockage from the pieces. I had a friend that left her dog in a “safe” room. It ate a hole in the floor covering. The safe rooms fail to give the dog the comfort of the enclosed space their instinct requires. Nor do they restrict activity extending the time the dog can go without relieving itself.
I’m going to go against the majority and say you can master this without crate training. We tried to crate train our dog and she did not take well to it to say the least. Instead we take her out for a nice long walk right before bed or we play fetch for a good hour or so on days where we can’t walk her because of weather or injury. Then when we go to bed she comes with us and is given a greenie or denta-chew or some other edible chewy thing. Most of the time she is so exhausted she buries her chewy in the blankets and then goes to sleep. She also has access to about 50,000 chew toys of all varieties, including kongs filled with treats, rubber balls, nylabones, and anything else we’ve determined is pretty indestructible to keep her busy should she decide she’d like to nom on something. She hasn’t chewed anything she isn’t meant to chew on in quite a while now so it is working very well for us.
First, give her more exercise during the day, or at least in the evening. Both physical and mental - has she been to any training classes, or are you working on general structure and obedience, even tricks or whatever? Motivational training - think of obedience training as “structured play” is a great way to build confidence in a shy dog. I think it’s sort of sad that she feels most secure when she’s alone (if your assessment is correct) and I’d work on changing that.
Second, crate at night. There are “indestructible” dog beds. Put her in there with a stuffed Kong or something really interesting and tasty that will keep her occupied. Have the crate right next to your bed. Start by feeding meals in the crate, make lots of positive associations with it for her…lots of good info on acclimating a dog to a crate online,this video is absolutely excellent.
All dogs in my house - my own and foster dogs - are crated initially, it’s a good skill for a dog to have. As soon as they can be trusted, they’re rarely crated except maybe classes, trials, travelling or such - but there are two open crates in my house right now and they’re almost always occupied. I’ve had several dogs who were destructive because of boredom, anxiety or whatever, and crating helps teach them how to find their “off” switch and is a temporary tool only.