Puppy Consistently Misbehaving

[harmony.bordercollie]

We have a 4mo border collie puppy. She is misbehaving (chewing, digging/scratching on inappropriate items) daily, usually around the same hour at night.

We think there's two different scenarios where she misbehaves:

 

1. We believe she sometimes behaves for our attention.

 

During these times, she would do the misbehaviour for a few seconds, pause and looks at us, then continue, then look at us, and repeat…

 

She likely learned that it gets our attention, since in the past, we have tried to redirect her attention with toys when she chews and digs inappropriately. After we think she is doing it for attention, we recently started to ignore her during these moments, but she would escalate her behavior since we are ignoring her. Often, she would get increasingly frustrated and then it would turn into zoomies.

 

2. However, there are other times where we just can’t figure out why she is misbehaving.

 

It doesn’t look like she is misbehaving for our attention because she doesn't pause and look at us during/after misbehaving. There are times when we would be giving her calm pets occasionally (giving her attention) while she is chewing on her chew toy, and then she would suddenly get up and misbehave.

 

We also don’t think it is because she is hungry (plus it’s usually a while after dinner time), because sometimes, we would be giving her treats occasionally while she is settled down and relaxing, but then she would suddenly get up and start misbehaving. We think that if she is hungry then she would stay down to continue getting treats instead of getting up misbehaving.

 

We also don't think she is under-exercised during these times, because if we tried to play with her, she would be snappy, she would no longer chase the toy enthusiastically, or she would no longer bring the toy back to us but would lie down away from us instead and chew on it. This is often also at night time, after a day of various activities and training. We also don’t think she is mentally under-stimulated because if we try to train her, she would show signs of bad concentration.

 

We have tried to put her into her crate during these times to force her to sleep because we suspect that she might be over-tired, but she would throw a tantrum and chew on her bed and crate, or even have zoomies in the crate when she gets too frustrated that we are not letting her out of the crate. She does not have a fear of the crate or dislike for the crate because she sleeps in there fine overnight or when she is in the mood to nap during the day (sometimes she would even go into her crate herself to nap).

 

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We are wondering if anyone has any insights as to why she might be misbehaving, and how we should respond or teach her not to misbehave, or if we are doing something wrong (e.g. accidentally reinforcing her for her bad behaviours). We COULD just give her a kong to keep her distracted, but we’d like to figure out the root cause of the problem to make sure we are depriving her of her needs. Also if she is actually already super tired, we’re not sure it’s a good idea to give her a kong which would just make her even more tired.

[2bc4me]

When each of my dogs were that young, I had x-pen gating that I could set up in what ever room I was in.  As they got older, the x-pen space grew until it was nearly a quarter of the room.   In the x-pen there were the safe toys and chews.  They had quiet time in the x-pen that time of night so there was not much destruction going on.   They also learned that evenings are a settle down time.   It was a perfect time for the stuffed kong.  They were with me in the room, but had to amuse themselves.   I also made sure to get the smaller 2 ft ones so I could step over them.  Since they were never used unsupervised, I easily taught my dogs to stay in and not jump out just cause they could.  

[harmony.bordercollie]

We have a x-pen, and are usually even in there with her or playing with her in a more or less puppy proof room when her antics starts.

Chewing on the x-pen, crate, and digging at it extremely hard is also not appropriate or safe behaviour for her.

[Hooper2]

Your 4 mo old puppy is "misbehaving" because she is a 4 mo old puppy.  All the  training and mental stimulation and exercise in the world doesn't negate the fact that she's a 4 mo old puppy, and 4 mo old puppies chew and scratch at whatever catches the attention of their 4 mo old puppy brain.  If chewing on a Kong in her crate keeps her out of trouble, give her a Kong in her crate, and praise whatever diety you worship that you live in a world where Kongs are available.  If she throws a tantrum in her crate, let her throw a tantrum.  She'll stop when she figures out that tantrums don't work.

[urge to herd]

If she chews on the bed remove it. Pop her in with a kong, leave the room and let her settle herself down.

Ruth & Gibbs

[harmony.bordercollie]

Would giving a kong to her while she's tired make her overtired, or is that not much of a concern?

Are there any tips to stop her misbehaviours once she has started them? If we give her a kong everytime she misbehaves, she will quickly learn to misbehave for a kong. She has already picked up patterns like if she chews on the bed she gets our attention (we walk over and remove it).

[Icaraa]

Our Ben chewed on our kitchen wall for absolutely no reason on Saturday morning! Hes 8 months old.

He hadn’t damaged a wall for months prior to that. 

 

We were upstairs in bed, had not long woken up. He’d only been awake for half an hour or so himself, so I don’t even believe it was boredom! He hadn’t barked, didn’t need the toilet or anything. 

This is a puppy who is perfectly well behaved on his own when we are at work, I do go home for lunch.

I just put it down to him still being a puppy, and doing random things  

 

 

[Mandy1961]

Our puppy is nearly 8 months old. There isn’t many items of furniture that he has not chewed. Even today he started chewing on a chair seat that has been in the same place it has always been.

when he was younger he always had a mad 10 minutes where he went crazy, this was usually after his last meal in the evening. I know this is typical and he has calmed down a lot, but we do still get a crazy time, occasionally. He does understand now when I tell him to rest.

[terrecar]

I don’t think giving your pup a Kong is going to make her overtired. I agree with Ruth; give her a Kong, put her in a crate or x-pen and leave her to settle herself down. She is coming into her teething stage, so you might expect chewing behavior to continue in earnest for awhile. She will need appropriate chew toys, i.e. the Kong, to provide an alternative to inappropriate items like crate or x-pen bars. 

Hooper gave you some excellent advice. It might help to think of her as a puppy doing puppy things, rather than a misbehaving pet. I am not saying you should be overly permissive of unwanted behavior. I’m just saying it might help to look at her antics as normal puppy behaviors for which you need to find positive, mitigating solutions.

You said your pup will stop bringing the toy back to you and go off to chew on it. I am assuming you leave her alone at that point, which you should, because letting her go off to chew on an appropriate toy while you remain in the room is reinforcing her ability to settle and amuse herself in your presence. Not saying you do this, but I could see her becoming overstimulated if you were to try to play with her every time she goes off to chew on her toys. 

 

[D'Elle]

Your puppy is only a baby. forget trying to figure out why she is doing these things, because there's a very simple reason: she is a puppy. This is what puppies do.

The best way to handle a puppy is to make things work in such a way so as things you want her to do get rewarded, and things you don't want her to do do not ever get punished, but at the same time something she doesn't want happens. So, if she is doing something you don't like, pop her gently but unceremoniously, and without anger or comment into her crate. If she has chewed the bed, don't give her one. If she throws a tantrum, ignore her. Cover the crate so it is dark, or put it into another room and close the door and let her settle down. An "off switch" needs to be trained. Re-directing is fine as a training tool, but it's not the only one and if the pup is taking advantage of that, do something different. Make the puppy believe that it is simply a universal law, like gravity, that crate time happens when she does (fill in the blank).

And, for everyone's sake, I suggest you stop calling it "misbehaving". She doesn't know that it is "wrong", she is just doing what puppies do. All you need to do is show her, with 100% consistency (that part is very important) that something undesirable to her (being separated from you) is the result if she does it. She isn't being bad, just doesn't know better yet. 

Best of luck.

[jami74]

Our boy has always been the hardest work in the evening. Certainly at four months old I dreaded the evenings. Now at nine months old he is still very active in the evenings but he is better at entertaining himself and while sometimes it's annoying when he's being bouncy and flinging toys around it is so much better than when he was four months old and it seemed to take a whole family of us to keep him out of mischief.

I second the Kong. Absolutely use it! And have lots of toys of different materials that can be chewed. We've thankfully not had any really damaged furniture (a few holes in socks though!) but we have done lots of re-directing. And still occasionally hear the clink of teeth against something they shouldn't be clinking against and have to remind our boy what is appropriate to chew.

It does get better.

[ShellyF]

We followed the advice as noted above to crate (without a bed) but with a blanket over the top of the crate and it worked worked well (crate in the kitchen). 

We would chat normally so that familiar voices and noises were gently burbling and he eventually fell asleep and got used to nap time.

A great tip we read somewhere was that when pups are playing with toys then they want to play but if they start chewing baseboards or digging under sofas then it’s nap time haha! 

Good luck and don’t over analyse - as others have said - it’s all perfectly normal