Still having problems with chewing

Nikkole said:

We do crate her when we arnt there. My hubby and our schedule has changed so for 2weeks now shes been in the crate for 7hrs so i dont want to crate her longer then that. once i get home she goes for a run, we play, dinner then cuddling time. Sometimes she sleeps with us and sometimes shes on the couch. But recentely shes been chewing on the couch and the pillows at night

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Nikkole said:

so here is a rough schedule with her during week days;
wake up at 7am she goes outside for 20mins does her business and then comes inside for breakfast. I get my daughter up at 7:30 all of us play and cuddle til 8:15ish. Porsha gets crated from 8:45 to 12-1pm Home for lunch (i work 3blocks away) from 3:30-5:15 we are home. When we get home we play tug of war and hide and seek, we cuddle and our daughter wears her out, by 6:30 our daughter is in bed and i take Porsha for a 3mile walk, not to mention we play everynow and then with our neighbors **** hound and some of her litter mates. on weekends we take her everywhere and just this last weekend ive spent 3hrs on saturday and sunday 2hrs.

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Is there any daily training, and mental stimulation in here? If not, sounds like a typical bored dog to me.

Especially at a young age, you should be doing a few short training sessions every day. Doesn't have to be anything long, a few minutes, a few times a day. And you should give your dog jobs to do, can be anything. In the fall, I have Dakota help me clean up the yard. She will take sticks, and help me carry them to the pile in the yard. This then translates to other things, "help me do xxxxxx". Once your dog has a good understanding of basic commands, like come, heel, drop, pick up, etc., you can now use these to get your dog to do things. So now, it's a matter of, "Dakota, go get a stick" and she'll go get a stick. Then I'll have her follow me to the pile, and reward her drop near the pile. Now, I'm not looking for perfection here, like sitting on a chair with my feet up while my dog cleans my yard lol. But it's a great way for us to be interracting together, and for her to work on commands in a way that isn't boring. Get creative... Maybe it's something as simple as at play time, ask your dog to go get a specific toy, and if she brings the right toy, she gets to play. Something my dog loves is scent detection... Tires her out big time. We also do lots of training, and lots of tug/bite wedge as the reward for training.

Dakota is fairly drivey, and I say fairly because she has an off switch. But when she's on, she's on. She can literally be half asleep, too tired to stand, and she won't drop the tug if I'm willing to keep going. So, to take advantage of that, at a young age we started doing scent detection, lots of tug, and we recently started using a bite wedge. The bite wedge tires her out fastest. I'll do some obedience commands, and her reward for listening is she gets to bite. So, she's thinking, working, playing, (we make it as fun as possible) and at the same time she is getting tired. I have been using her bite wedge to free shape behaviors, much in the same way you would use a treat. I get the behavior, "yes", which is her release command to take a bite.

What works best will depend on your dog. If you can find the way to take advantage of your dogs natural drives, help build those drives, and then use the drives as a means of reward, you're going to cut out half of the work. It will come together, because now your dog wants that reward more than anything, and what you do in training will carry over to other things.

The outcome of doing something like this consistently, is a well behaved dog, who shows the bad behaviors significantly less. He will be more obedient, and he will WANT to listen, vs. simply doing what he's told.

Hope this helps..