Back to the Crate?

[Laura and Angus]

Hey DK folks!

It's been a minute since I've had to post a question/issue. Angus is now 3.5 years old and we seem to be having some regression in behavior/training. We moved to our new home in April and a couple months later we were able to start giving Angus a little more freedom in the house while we're out - and he did great! In fact, we had about a month or two with free reign of the house while we're gone. He mostly seems to just lay around. 

The issues began toward the end of the summer where Angus began jumping/biting the leash toward the end of walks. We're at a point where he is now doing this at every walk - we have to pause and wait for him to calm down before continuing or have him "sit" and give him a stick to chew while we walk. Now in the last week, we have found that Angus chewed the corner of my antique clock (actually a family heirloom kinda piece) that was on our bay window sill, the corner of an end table downstairs, and the leg/rail of an antique tea cart. We have not seen this behavior in years and it just recently started up again. The other new-ish thing is that he started at a new daycare in the last two weeks (going twice a week).

The current plan is to start back with locking him in the crate during the day and requesting the dog walker return to locking the crate door. It also seems like we need to resume regular training, but I'm also kinda just confused as to what the heck and why now?! 

I plan to get in touch with our trainer for consultation/maybe a private session, but wondered if any of you all have any thoughts?

TIA!!

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

My first thought was that he might be associating chewing the stick on your walks with chewing wooden things in the house.  That seems pretty unlikely since there are many dogs who chew sticks outside but don't chew furniture when they get into the house.  Since it is at least a possibility it might make sense to stop giving him the sticks to chew. I really think it's great that you aren't moving forward on your walks when he's in that excited state of mind.  I really don't think that introducing the Daycare would cause this kind of a change in behavior.  Do you have a room where you could gate him that doesn't have any wooden furniture that you value?  I still gate my two guys in our bedroom while we're gone.  There's really no trouble that they can get into there, and it keeps them from "guarding" the door.  I leave the TV on so there are no outside noises, and they relax and sleep.  Also do you give Angus things to chew when you are there with him....maybe antlers?  Scheduling a consultation with your trainer also seems like a great idea.  Please keep us posted and good luck.

[Laura and Angus]

Thank you so much for your thoughts! Unfortunately, he finds sticks in our yard and on the ground even if we don't give them to him on walks. Somewhere along the way (when he was growing up) he learned to grab a stick to chew to calm himself down...he literally searches frantically around for one when he's getting all amped up on a walk and will grab the leash when he can't find anything. He's a very weird dog, which is what's making it hard for us to figure out how to solve this issue. The other weird thing is that for a while, we thought that stopping on our walks was reinforcing his bad behavior because it seemed like during the summer when he as hot he WANTED to stop (even after a few minutes) and would get all agitated, so there was that. 

We can definitely get him in the room where his crate is, but he can likely just hop over gate at this point - he would do this when we were gating him downstairs - we'd come home to find him on the stairs waiting for us with the gate still up. I have a feeling that the chewing may happen when we're at home with him - he can be vindictive if he wants to play/has energy and we don't play with him. He's too smart for his own good. This would suggest that we can't let him be "free range" anymore and need to reel that back in...ughhhh. In answer to your question, he has antlers, puzzle toys we use with him, hard rubber tug toys, hard plastic bones, and real bones. What he really wants is to play with us 24/7, which is why he's back at daycare with the thought that he needs more doggie play time. We're bumping him up to 3xweekly starting next week!