Pet Forums Community - View Single Post - Pup SBT naughty when left home alone...by MEN..Owner puzzled!

staflove · #9 (**permalink**) 08-03-2009, 06:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oblada

Hi!

I have a 10months old SBT and hes pretty good all round! Mostly well-behaved and obedient and very friendly!

He's not particularly destructive although if he gets his jaws on sth tasty..

Seriously normally I am the one to leave him alone at home (as I leave later than my partner) and hes mostly well-behaved during that time. He had a few "accidents" (spoiling but also chewing on the wooden boards) at the beginning but now hes mostly good! I take him for an hour walk/run in the morning and usually same in the afternoong, and some more during the week-end and we try to exercise him "mentally" as well (with "find-games", "dog-puzzles" etc)!

Anyway the point is; when my partner leaves him alone (rarely) he will LOOK FOR sth naughty to do..for example, if there is a bag of some sort on the dining table, its been there for weeks and he didnt care, but the day my partner leaves him alone he will grab the bag (god knows how! Hes grown up without my realising i suppose!) and try to destroy it..and everything else he can lay his paws on..he even had a pretty bad go at the wall once..I left to go to India for 2 weeks and my partner was alone with him...well the house wasnt in a pretty state when i returned (oki, not that bad but still!! far from what he would normally do!!)

AND its the SAME problem with a dog-sitter we have; basically we have a couple who comes over when we need Diego taken care of (when we have to leave him alone more than 6hours say - it used to be once a weeks roughly, now it is less frequent), and mostly they come together or just the girl...but the days the guy only comes Diego does exactly like when its my partner!! Chews on everything etc etc (we usually leave him with a chew bone but he normally waits for me to be home before he starts on it..dunno why..but on those occasions the chew bone has usually disappeared by the time im home!)!

So I dont know what to think really..
Why the need to chew/destroy when he is left alone by my partner or the male sitter and not when its me or the girl??
Both guys are very good with Diego so I dont think its a dominant/anxious type of problem...

Is it sth to do with the fact that they are men and hes a male too? How?
Or is it because he is normally left alone by either me or the girl and he is not used to being left alone by the boys..?

What to do??
Any suggestion welcome

Cheers

Isa - a really puzzled owner!

Hi there hes still only a young a dog and staffies are prone to chewing things up, my rescue lad had real bad sepertion anxiety to the stage were he ate my sofa my stair carpet and pvc door, he is now crate trained, but i leave him in the crate and get back hes fine but when my OH left him he had tried to escape.

So i made OH do more work with him so he was not just attached to me and trusted him now he his fine and doing really well, dose he follow you around the house were ever you go, if yes you need to point and tell him to move do not allow this behaviour to happen or he will attach to you to much and then you have a problem, make sure he as had a real good walk burned of some energy and give his brain some stimulation, get him a kong and fill with some of his dried food and grate some cheese stick it in the microwave for 30 seconds and give him it it should take a few hours to finish and then he will be knackered cos he working his brain and not been board hope you sort this out and let us no how you go good luck