Your dog destroys the house

Dog destruction

Destruction is drive without an outlet — chewing, digging, and tearing what the dog was never taught to leave.

It started with a shoe, and you told yourself it was a puppy thing. Then the corner of the couch, the baseboard, the rug. Then you came home to stuffing across the living room, or a hole dug through the yard, or the crate bent where they tried to get out of it.

Now the dog goes in the garage when you leave, or in a room with nothing in it, and you're still doing the math on what it's cost you.

Why is your dog destroying the house?

Destruction is almost never spite or a dog being bad. It's a drive that had nowhere to go, and your house was what was available.

Prey drive is the dog that saw a squirrel through the window and took the couch apart because it couldn't reach it. Prey aggression is the shaking and tearing — soft toys, hoses, anything that comes apart in the mouth. Scent is the dog that dug through the yard or tore into a bag because its nose told it to.

Then there's the other group, and it's about the day your dog is having. Boredom, with no work for a body and a brain that were built for it. Frustration, from a drive that keeps getting switched on and never gets satisfied. Anxiety, which does its worst damage at the door and the crate. And fear, which puts a dog through a wall or a window trying to get away from something.

Those look identical the next morning. A chewed baseboard tells you nothing on its own. What matters is which of those your dog is doing, because the fix for boredom makes an anxious dog worse.

And every episode that happens unsupervised teaches your dog that the behavior is available.

How we stop the destruction

We find out what drive is behind it, we give that drive a job, and we stop letting your dog rehearse it while you're gone.

First your dog's temperament is evaluated — drives, disposition, engagement. The evaluation tells us whether we're looking at prey, boredom, frustration, anxiety, or fear, and which way to work your dog.

Then your dog gets a map: the foundation first, then the commands this rests on — focus, sit, down, stay, and place — so your dog has a way to settle in a house full of things it wants. Chapter 42 comes after that, matched to the motive your dog actually has.

Alongside it we build the outlet, because this is the door where that matters most. Chew items a dog can actually work on. Nose games and searching for the dog that digs. Real training and real work for the dog that's simply under-employed. A drive with a job stops looking for one.

And until it holds, your dog isn't loose in the house unsupervised. Crate or kennel when you can't watch — not as punishment, but so the behavior stops getting practiced.

The finished picture is a dog with an outlet for what it was built to do, and a house you can leave it alone in.

20+ years · author of Building A Solid Canine · every dog is evaluated first

Two ways to start.

Bring your dog to a Saturday.

Garrett reads your dog live at the Saturday workshop in Placerville, CA — that's a Working Evaluation, $200. You get the full day, the printed workbook and the full book, and your dog's written route through it. Every dog is evaluated first. Bite histories welcome with honest disclosure.

Or we come to you.

An In-Home Session at your house, up to two hours, with the same workbook, book, and written route.