Destructiveness? - Doberman Forum : Doberman Breed Dog Forums

usmclove · 12-18-2012, 06:16 PM

So having known many people that own huskies, they can be extremely destructive if left for any extended period of time... My 15 week old girl Justice does fine if I'm only gone 2-3 hours (uncrated) and come back. (well for the most part, the TP in the bathroom if the kids don't shut the door, takes a beating lol) As of right now I keep Sacha in the kitchen with a baby gate... Are Dobes half as destructive if left longer than 2-3 hours as a Husky, or more so? I'm not planning on leaving her or anything, I'm just really curious about their tendencies.

Adara · 12-18-2012, 06:38 PM

It depends on the dog. Flirt was awful. Ate sheetrock in the kennel run, ate a PVC water pipe hubby put in the kennel run (I did get to say TOLD YOU SO) and she flooded the whole run and ruined the flooring

She ate roofing paper an employee left in the back of the kennel run once and when she threw it up I thought she was dying throwing up blood. Can't count the number of shoes she got (my fault). I called poison control on her 3 times. She opened a drawer once and got my closet open once. Once I retrieved a pair or tweezers from her.

GingerGunlock · 12-18-2012, 06:43 PM

Elka brought me a penny once. I still don't know how she picked it up.

She also eviscerated some couch pillows (no pictures), chewed the walls in the kichen when gated there, eviscerated her bed (no pictures), chewed only my left flip flop (still wearable), chewed an xbox controller....

Yeah. They need supervision, and they need to be occupied and redirected.

KevinK · 12-18-2012, 06:48 PM

Hard to say. My girl Dakota, is one of the most obedient dogs you could ever meet, she will literally drop anything she's doing to listen to any command. And we don't leave her out for more than a few hours. She gets bored, and we all know what happens when a dog gets bored lol.

p.s. she's 2.5

vivienne00 · 12-18-2012, 06:58 PM

Lana is now 7 mths and is just starting her destructive phase. She has started eating the bedding in her crate and in the dog area of the car - she ate the ends off the clamps that hold on the cover for the back seat. She has been making a mess of my bedspread lately and I have been patching it. She chews the zips out of dog beds and the corded edging on those Kirkland beds. If she is quiet, she is chewing something. She gets bones, nylabones, bully sticks and rubber toys. She chews on the furniture and loves tissues (used is best).

PortersMama · 12-18-2012, 07:23 PM

Our Porter was the best dog ever and never once chewed something the wasn't his - never once, not even as a puppy. He had a particular affinity for tissues that were in the garbage and would pluck them out with gusto, but he never destroyed anything.

Grizzly, who is now almost 10 weeks old, loves to chew his blanket, gnaw on our entertainment center, and shred magazines. We don't leave him to his own devices ever - if we're not home, he's crated - so we always stop him immediately, but damn. I can't imagine what he would do if he wasn't supervised!

Thor_Red · 12-18-2012, 07:34 PM

I'm a firm believer in crating them. They always say your dog will behave until he doesn't

. One obstruction surgery was enough if I can help it.

**Brandy&Melanie** · 12-18-2012, 07:49 PM

Lol I love the word "eviscerated"! It is such a perfect word for Dobes!

Anyway, as long as you give them something to do, or crate them (probably the best option), Dobes aren't too bad. If they aren't in the crate, you really have to watch them or else they will go "shopping" around the house!

usmclove · 12-18-2012, 08:40 PM

I have never left them for longer than 2-3 hours AT MOST. Justice sticks to her stuff, except the occasional swipe of a toy (found a few barbie shoes in her poop) but is really good about chewing on whats hers and only whats hers. I don't have too much trouble with Sacha, but she's an opportunist, if the opportunity that mom or dad is outside smoking, she'll grab a toy and run around the living room with it --- not chewing just running with it in her mouth. For the rest of the time, she for the most part sticks to her bones and toys, except she likes the foot of my dining room table as of lately but I attribute that to her just laying there lol It's not all the time or even often, just once in a while. I give them hooves and femur bones, and BOTH pups eat them up; no problem. they have a nylabone and a hard rubber bone and neither is interested in it. Love the tug of war toy though. I haven't started crate training because with Justice, we learned that if we start too early she just messed in it, and we waited until around 13/14 weeks to start that.... Sacha however, whines and barks if I am anywhere she can't get to, so I'm afraid that she would bark and whine all day and some nosy neighbor would call animal control on me.

MaxsMom · 12-19-2012, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adara

It depends on the dog. Flirt was awful. Ate sheetrock in the kennel run, ate a PVC water pipe hubby put in the kennel run (I did get to say TOLD YOU SO) and she flooded the whole run and ruined the flooring

She ate roofing paper an employee left in the back of the kennel run once and when she threw it up I thought she was dying throwing up blood. Can't count the number of shoes she got (my fault). I called poison control on her 3 times. She opened a drawer once and got my closet open once. Once I retrieved a pair or tweezers from her.

You get First Place!!!!

Hank · 12-19-2012, 01:31 PM

Crate crate crate! Can't get destructive if they dont have the option

VZ-Doberman · 12-19-2012, 01:45 PM

Bacchus, as an older puppy, crunched one of my hearing aids. I was taking a shower and he was in the bathroom with me. The hearing aids were on the counter all the way at the back.

lestat1978 · 12-19-2012, 01:51 PM

Ivan was very destructive. Took a long time slowly giving him access to more of the house. He's a year and a half now and every so often will still be a little naughty. I do make a point of hiding treats for him and giving him a chew to keep him entertained while I'm gone. It also depends on when his last bout of really good exercise was.

I went through two wicker hampers before calling it quits (i.e. I don't have a hamper). He pulled curtains off the wall on several occasions - rod and all. Ate a hole in my mattress after several days of restricted activity because of an injury. Had a thing for magazines, Kleenex boxes, etc. for a while. Liked chewing on plastic laundry baskets, plastic garbage cans, etc. He doesn't get foam or stuffed dog beds anymore because he loved wrestling with them. (Doesn't chew on blankets though.)

usmclove · 12-19-2012, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VZ-Doberman

Bacchus, as an older puppy, crunched one of my hearing aids. I was taking a shower and he was in the bathroom with me. The hearing aids were on the counter all the way at the back.

My mom's cocker chewed/ate part of mine... it was DONE! lol I learned to put my hearing aids in a drawer for that exact reason... apparently dogs like the taste of ears and the silicone of my earmold is alluring >.< lol

usmclove · 12-19-2012, 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lestat1978

Ivan was very destructive. Took a long time slowly giving him access to more of the house. He's a year and a half now and every so often will still be a little naughty. I do make a point of hiding treats for him and giving him a chew to keep him entertained while I'm gone. It also depends on when his last bout of really good exercise was.

I went through two wicker hampers before calling it quits (i.e. I don't have a hamper). He pulled curtains off the wall on several occasions - rod and all. Ate a hole in my mattress after several days of restricted activity because of an injury. Had a thing for magazines, Kleenex boxes, etc. for a while. Liked chewing on plastic laundry baskets, plastic garbage cans, etc. He doesn't get foam or stuffed dog beds anymore because he loved wrestling with them. (Doesn't chew on blankets though.)

Yeah Sacha kept trying to chew on every dog bed we tried so we've since given up the notion lol

AlyssaN · 12-19-2012, 01:56 PM

Why don't you want to crate them?

To be honest, and maybe this is just me because I'm a way overprotective mama, but I would never allow my dog to eat anything while I'm not watching. This includes bones and bully sticks. There is just way too much of a risk of swallowing. Heck, I don't even let him eat an antler alone because I'm scared he'll trip and choke!

You still have time to introduce them to crate training. Finding a Barbie shoe in stool is not funny, it's very serious. Perhaps you will understand the seriousness when you have to pay $1500 or even up to $5000 after all is said and done.

We bought a crate on ebay for $50. Worth every penny.

lestat1978 · 12-19-2012, 02:08 PM

In Ivan's case, his destruction has greatly decreased to only the rare occasion. In a year and a half he has never eaten anything inappropriate. Just shreds and spits it out.

In my case, Ivan would be crated 9 hours a day, roughly, while I'm at work. I don't want that for him. Now if he had a history of swallowing the stuff he chews, completely different story.

I know a woman who had to listen to her dogs scream while they died, crated, in a house fire. I'm not going to live my life or dictate my dog's, within reason, based on the numerous what-if scenarios.

ETA: Ivan is crate trained.

usmclove · 12-19-2012, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlyssaN

Why don't you want to crate them?

To be honest, and maybe this is just me because I'm a way overprotective mama, but I would never allow my dog to eat anything while I'm not watching. This includes bones and bully sticks. There is just way too much of a risk of swallowing. Heck, I don't even let him eat an antler alone because I'm scared he'll trip and choke!

You still have time to introduce them to crate training. Finding a Barbie shoe in stool is not funny, it's very serious. Perhaps you will understand the seriousness when you have to pay $1500 or even up to $5000 after all is said and done.

We bought a crate on ebay for $50. Worth every penny.

We ARE going to crate train, but we learned with the first pup that doing it too early would end up in a messed crate... we waited two weeks and she's fine in the crate now. So we're going to start the crate training when she hits about 13/14 weeks.

I wasn't saying it was funny by any means! I was just getting at the fact that she swipes toys on occasion because I have two small children and as soon as I put away their toys, theres another down on the floor to replace it... I can explain over and over and over again to keep their toys up, and I can pick them up over and over again, but the fact still remains, they are 5 yrs old and every now and then my pups very sneakily swipe something that the kids have brought down and forgotten about and left on the couch or the coffee tables.

I agree on the bones thing, I don't leave them with any little things unsupervised, and I put up any bones when I leave, so all they have is rubber chewy balls and things of that nature.

I think most women are protective with their fur babies

thats a good thing in my opinion.

Julie W · 12-19-2012, 02:15 PM

All of my dogs at all ages are confined when I'm not home. If I am going to be gone briefly they go in their crates. If I am going to be a long time they go in indoor/outdoor kennel runs. Consequently I have never had anything destroyed by any puppy. Until Ethan. He is a blanket eater. So I bought Kuranda beds for his crate and the indoor portion of his kennel run. He then started literally eating the kennel building, plus I caught him throwing up gravel. The next day he went out in his kennel run he was sporting a greyhound kennel muzzle. He's been wearing it ever since while he is in his run. I figured that since he was now having to wear a muzzle he could have a blanket on his kuranda bed in his run. Wrong. He is still able to shred and eat the blanket through the holes of the muzzle. So no blankies for him except in his travel crate in the car. He's fine there.

usmclove · 12-19-2012, 02:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Julie W

All of my dogs at all ages are confined when I'm not home. If I am going to be gone briefly they go in their crates. If I am going to be a long time they go in indoor/outdoor kennel runs. Consequently I have never had anything destroyed by any puppy. Until Ethan. He is a blanket eater. So I bought Kuranda beds for his crate and the indoor portion of his kennel run. He then started literally eating the kennel building, plus I caught him throwing up gravel. The next day he went out in his kennel run he was sporting a greyhound kennel muzzle. He's been wearing it ever since while he is in his run. I figured that since he was now having to wear a muzzle he could have a blanket on his kuranda bed in his run. Wrong. He is still able to shred and eat the blanket through the holes of the muzzle. So no blankies for him except in his travel crate in the car. He's fine there.

Wow, through a muzzle? Thats talent. She doesn't like hunt for things to chew on, it is very rare she DOES chew on stuff thats not hers, but it does occasionally happen once in a while, no blankets though... or shoes, oddly enough... which is what I expected would be a given.

Hank · 12-19-2012, 02:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by usmclove

We ARE going to crate train, but we learned with the first pup that doing it too early would end up in a messed crate... we waited two weeks and she's fine in the crate now. So we're going to start the crate training when she hits about 13/14 weeks.

I started my pup at 8 weeks old and the only time he ever made a mess in his crate is when he had diarrhea.
If you let them out often enough, they shouldn't have a mess.

usmclove · 12-19-2012, 02:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hank

I started my pup at 8 weeks old and the only time he ever made a mess in his crate is when he had diarrhea.
If you let them out often enough, they shouldn't have a mess.

We would let Justice out 2x (not 2x a day she goes out MUCH MUCH more than that... but I mean with in the hour before we planned on crating her) before putting her in her crate. we would leave her for a very short amount of time and we would come back and it would be messed. this consecutively happened for a week. Now, that shes a little older, we can put her in the crate, and no messes no issues about that while crated. So Idk... we had talked to her trainer about it and she suggested waiting until she was a little older and try again, so that's what we did, so we figured we'd start crate training Sacha around the same age.

LuvMyDobes · 12-19-2012, 07:09 PM

My experience has been if they do not get adequate exercise, they tend to become destructive. Even at the age of 5 years, Sweep will find things to get into if she has not been exercised. Three days of rain a couple of weeks ago resulted in a destroyed pair of prescription glasses that were on the nightstand for weeks.

usmclove · 12-19-2012, 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LuvMyDobes

My experience has been if they do not get adequate exercise, they tend to become destructive. Even at the age of 5 years, Sweep will find things to get into if she has not been exercised. Three days of rain a couple of weeks ago resulted in a destroyed pair of prescription glasses that were on the nightstand for weeks.

ouch!!! I usually take them to the dog park every day or every other day (my friend has a malamute/wolf mix that absolutely loves my puppies and they run like crazy) or a walk around our housing areas until they're tired and they run and play around the house even after all that lol so I think that may be partly why I don't have a destruction problem --- YET. they're still young lol