Dog damaging door

Dukesmom

Mod note: This post, and all following posts, have been split from an old and tempestuous thread from a year ago, to avoid old arguments from being rehashed.
Thanks,
DBB


My dog is an inside dog but has always stayed on yhe back porch while I am not home. Hes almost 9 years old and has been happy about this forever. . He's recently started scratching on and destroying the door to the porch. Ive replaced the insulation around the door, but he's just done the same thing again. Fencing and leaving him outside is not an option. What can I do to keep him away from this door? Heh as food, drink, toys, blankets on the porch. I let him in whenever I'm home. Any HELPFUL advise?

RubyGirl

Dukesmom wrote: »

My dog is an inside dog but has always stayed on yhe back porch while I am not home. Hes almost 9 years old and has been happy about this forever. . He's recently started scratching on and destroying the door to the porch. Ive replaced the insulation around the door, but he's just done the same thing again. Fencing and leaving him outside is not an option. What can I do to keep him away from this door? Heh as food, drink, toys, blankets on the porch. I let him in whenever I'm home. Any HELPFUL advise?

Is he outside when your at work? Why not try crate training him or just leaving him in the kitchen or utility when your out. Why do you keep him out when your gone, do you not trust him alone inside?

Dukesmom

He is crate trained, but when I'm gone for several hours, I leave him on the porch for more freedom. He's an 85 lb. Airedale and you're right--don't trust him in the house. When he wants to, he can destroy a lot in a short period:).
He's afraid of gunshots (we live in the county) fireworks and thunder. If any begin before I get home, he'd tear up the house. I hate to leave him in his crate for so long. I mean how long is too long in a crate?

DBB

A couple of things to bear in mind Dukesmom.
First of all, as dogs get older, they can start to get startled and wary of sudden noises and other things that they were able to cope with a bit better as a young dog. This can be one of the early signs of Canine Cognitive Dementia (CCD), which can be treated very successfully by dietary manipulation, and medication if necessary. Don't let this go unchecked: you'll need to talk to your vet about it, as well as getting regular health checks specifically aimed at an ageing dog, to keep an eye on ageing kidneys, liver, eyes and ears etc etc. That's assuming you haven't done all this already!
An age-appropriate diet means increased protein, lower fat, increased anti-oxidants and foods which promote cellular repair: fresh green veg, carrots, oily fish (essential to the ageing brain and joints) and low fat meats are great, but if there are other medical issues to consider (eg liver or kidney problems), you'll need to get specialist help to design an appropriate diet.

Second, if your dog is afraid of gunshot, and your living in a rural area, I'm guessing you have shooters hunting the area, and your dog is hearing sounds which frighten him. As he already has a known fear of noises, and as he's ageing, it is reasonable to assume that he's going to panic: someone might have let off a shotgun really close to your home and scared the bejayzus out of him. As dogs create very easy and rapid associations with the environment around them at the moment of a scary event, he now probably has a very good reason to dislike being left alone in the porch, and in his attempts to escape from it, he is doing damage.
I would be very slow to leave him in a crate if he's a panicker: what if the shooters come around nearby again?
There are a number of steps you can take to alleviate his anxiety and to reduce the problem: use a playpen instead of a crate, to give him a much bigger area but at the same time, protecting your furniture. This means you can leave him in the house, and not the porch, as he has a learned association with the porch now.
You could leave his crate open in the playpen, cover it with a thick blanket leaving just the door open, and put lots of soft, fluffy blankets inside so he can bury into them if he wants.
Leave a radio playing quite loud whilst you're out, to drown out as much gunshot as you possibly can: even very distant pops and bangs will panic a noise-phobic dog.
A DAP Diffuser (now called Adaptil) is an important piece of kit for noise-phobic dogs, it should be plugged in as close to his den area as possible, and you might consider the use of a Thundershirt.
During the year, start to desensitise him to sudden pops and bangs by downloading shotgun/firework noises, and playing them at a very low level, at mealtimes, and at times when you can take a few minutes out to throw delicious treats at him. As he starts to ignore the low-level noise, you can gradually raise the volume. That said, I often think it's not just the noise that dogs react to: deaf friends have told me that they can "feel" a firework, thunder-clap, or gunshot. Maybe dogs can too, and if so, would make this part of the sensation of noise-phobia harder to treat.
However, there's plenty to be getting on with in the meantime.. good luck with it!

Dukesmom

Thanks so much for the info. We're at the lake but there is hunting across the lake--and sound does travel. I just got a thunder shirt in the mail, but it's too small so I'm ordering another. I did try leaving the radio on when he was on the porch but that didn't help. They are building a house next door to us--I'm wondering if that might be one of his issues. We moved his crate into the house so I can leave him in ther with the fan and the radio on. But how long can he stay in there without being cruel?

DBB

You would want to be 100% sure that he won't panic if left in his crate before leaving him in it at all. You'll need to experiment re duration, but I would worry that all could be well for weeks, and then one day a thunderstorm will pass over, or a shotgun go off nearby, which will cause him to panic in the crate just as he did in the porch. So, even if you establish that he can be safely left in his crate for 3 hours, you can never say the above won't happen with a noise-phobic dog.
How long are you talking about leaving him in the crate? The general rule of thumb is that a dog shouldn't be left crated, unsupervised, for more than 1-2 hours, as the dog needs to be able to stretch, move off a soft bed to a hard floor if he wants to, toilet etc.
Now, before I start a storm, night-time is a little different as the dog is going to be asleep anyway, and a pup generally has enough room to be able to do the above in an average crate. But a large, ageing dog needs to be able to get himself comfortable, and lying on the one spot for hours will not help. This is why I have come to prefer playpens to crates, as they are far more versatile but do the same job. I would be happy to leave a dog in a playpen for hours, as long as I knew he was happy being alone.

Sound travels across water like nothing else, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if a gunshot over the other side of the lake was enough to scare him witless.

I'd imagine the house-building next door is not helping him, as it will disrupt his normal frame of reference. There will presumably be drills, cement mixers, con-saws, angle grinders, diggers, and worst of all for your fella, nail-guns going off. Also, lots of strangers coming and going.. if he's a rural dog, he is perhaps used to a quiet life, and this sort of thing could really upset him? A dog with any phobia tends to generally be a more sensitive soul anyway, and less able to cope with change generally. So, try the radio again: there is some evidence to suggest that classical music, and talk radio, are most effective to soothe anxious dogs. You will need to turn it up pretty loud though. Noise-phobic dogs are generally fearful of sudden, punctuated noises (pops, bangs, crashes) rather than continuous background noises such as radios.

Great though that you're onto the Thundershirt already! I forgot to mention interactive food-toys, like Kongs, Nina Ottosen toys, stag bars etc, though I'm guessing you might have tried these already?

Dukesmom

He has multiple kongs, but I'll look into the others. I will use the radio--hes pretty fond of country music and fox news :) It's not uncommon for me to be gone 3-4 hours, which is why we used the porch. We kinda overbought on the crate and it's taller than him and about 1.5 times as long, so his pillow is in the back and open area in the front. He loves it--when he gets tired of us he hangs out in there. What kind of play pen? Dog specific? Or a baby type playpen? It would have to be pretty big.