Distructive spaniel....! The last straw!!!

oliviacharley

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I dont really know what to do...my spaniel is 3 yrs old and when he was a puppy had a chewing problem....he chewed door ways, doors anything he could really. After his 1st birthday he seemed to mature and stopped doing it. We have recently had builders in so his normal bedroom( the kitchen ) has not been habitabal so he has been sleeping in the 2nd bedroom. Once the builders had gone he was back down in the new kitchen and doing fine. All of a sudden last week he has started to howl at the bottom of the stairs which are in the kitchen at 4am!! scratching and ripping at the door..although we were patient and stayed as we were in the end we had to go downstairs as he would have ruined our door..we decided to put him in our large bathroom after three nights of no sleep and he seemed to do fine, until the following morning we come down and find he has ripped the door to pieces and has scratched half the paint off the wall....We put the mesh around the bottom of the stairs again to stop him from ripping at the door which again seemed to work for a night.
Today Ive come home to find he has chewed my new wooden door in the kitchen to pieces...!! Ive just sandpapered it down...
I dont know what the problem is...he is normally well mannered, put its like he panics and turns into this mad crazy dog which has to fight his way out of an area if we are not present.
He gets plenty of exercise and has a t-shirt of ours in his bed, so dont really know what is going on and how to stop it...!!
 
hello everyone...nope to a crate just because I think that would drive him more crazy...he has alot of energy and doesnt like being enclosed and panics...
He is a cocker spaniel and gets a 2 mile walk in the morning, a run around the field at the horses in the evening and before bed a run around a 2 mile block so he gets some sleep...!
Weekends gets lots of walks too..he goes everywhere with me really but is used to be left too...
He has a radio on to keep him company, has a kong with paste sprayed in it and I hide small biscuits around for him to find, plus he has chews and loads of blankets which I scatter about so he can chose were he wants to lay....
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difficult did he do it before the new kitchen was done???how long ago was it all finished it could be that it has unsettled him as it all looks different, i would have also suggested a crate to sleep in with all his stuff that he normally has as they often see them as their safe place to go but would also stop the destruction
 
I too have a cocker but thank goodness she has never been destructive, she has always had her own 'things' since she was tiny and if there was any chewing to be done she chewed her stuff not anyone elses.

This does sound like seperation anxiety to me. You have had upheavel in the house which is compounding the insecurity.

Can you not leave the doors open and allow your dog a crate for sleeping when necessary? In the long run this dog is going to cost you an absolute fortune not to mention the fact that you are all going to get more and more stressed about the damage.
 
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