SparkyTansy Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 I hope that Champa is ok Kirty... sounds like he got all the active traits of the lab and the GSP! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enigma01au Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Big Calming / Healing Vibes from me Kirty.... My puppy is currently in time out after counter surfing and knocking a glass of egg-wash off the counter onto the floor....my situation seems miniscule compared to yours, but I know how angry I felt (even if it was my fault...I should've known better and it's my responsibity..he is still just a puppy)! Feel free to vent as much as you need. It will keep you sane long enough for you to step back from the situation and calm down / gain perspective before doing anything rash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
New Age Outlaw Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Champa sounds to me like he is displaying chronic anxiety. I have seen this in dogs before and it is not always caused by having suffered abuse in the past...like people, some dogs are just like that. Many dogs that display this kind of extreme behaviour are (as you have found out) very difficult to manage. Medication may help (worth disscussing with your vet?), but there are some dogs that don't respond not matter what you do. I'm sorry that doesn't help you; I do hope you can get it sorted out, for your own sanity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
persephone Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Thinking of you & Champa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MsKatie Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Hugs to you Kirty - hope all goes well at the vet - no advice just sending supportive thoughts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ash&elar Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Hope he goes ok at the vets good luck. When i was growing up as a kid my dad had a gun dog 'tinker' he was a lab x curly retriever and he was the best duck dog ever owned and worked by a man (just ask my dad) but for his whole life if he wasnt working with dad he was making his own fun in my mothers yard.... digging holes nearly 6ft deep, getting out and traveling the country side, ripping washing off the line, pulling plants out of the garden and just generally being a huge pain in the butt, my mother hated him so much one day after one of these episodes she threw him out of the yard and told him to bugger off (in not so nice words ) my dad came home later that day from work to find tinker calmly sitting at the front door ' what have you done this time you silly bastard' my dad says and puts him back in the yard.... when he had to be pts at nearly 11yrs old due to health problems we all bawled our eyes out in the back yard while my dad dug him a grave my mother included, these days we fondly remember the days where tinker did this or that and i love to see the twinkle in dads eyes as he talks about his still number 1 dog. I agree with the other suggestions. good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oakway Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Why do you tolerate the dog when he upsets you this way. At 8 he's not going to change. I know people who would not live with a person like this. I am so sorry for you because I know what it is to live with a dog like this. I was given some good advise over 30 years ago. My way or the highway. It was actually a relief when that dog went. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lab_Rat Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Cant offer any help re destructo hound, but just wanted to say I hope your boy is ok - and give you a big hug! Rat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aidan Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 I hope he is OK. I've dug something up that might be helpful: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P...j00367-0050.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirty Posted July 8, 2010 Author Share Posted July 8, 2010 Thank you all so much for your support. We are back from the vet and Champa is fine. He threw up all over the car as we were pulling in to the carpark and was much happier then. By the time the vet saw him, he was fine. The vet felt his tummy and said its all food, not air. He gave him a shot of Maxalon to help move things along, but he wasn't concerned that he was going to torsion or anything. He said not to feed him today and probably not tomorrow either. The dog seriously looks like he has swallowed a barrel but he was STILL trying to scab a treat off the vet!! Little bastard. The vet was lovely and very sympathetic. He suggested that Champa was "missing a link" somewhere! LOL! So $70 and a filthy car later, we are home. I have calmed down now. I don't think I was hoping to achieve anything by posting this, I was just in shock I guess. I don't want to have him PTS and I certainly wouldn't rehome a dog like him. He does NOT have anxiety. He is a confident, happy dog. He is just a major turd. He can't do any sort of rigorous work to tire him out because he has a dodgy shoulder. Anyway, thanks again for the support. I'll get my husband to fix the door on the weekend and I'll look into the containment systems. He can't be put in a run because he howls, but the idea about the electronic barrier sounds good. Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ridgiemum Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 How awful for you, don't know what to say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aquaticmalamute Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 (edited) Sorry to hear about Champa's destructive behaviour. My boy is very similar and has tested the nerves on more than a few occasions! Infact his breeder commented to me not long ago that he is lucky he is with me, because if he was with a different owner that wasn't so patient he would have been through the pound many times by now I even offered (half joking half serious) him back to his breeder, who flatly refused My boy is diagnosed as having anxiety and is also not allowed to consume meats (is on a fish based diet). His anxiety as far as we can tell is hereditary, and coupled with his scatter-brained reation to meats he is one of the most difficult dogs I have ever met, or had the not-so-privledge of owning. He is also VERY routine orientated, one thing out of the ordinary and the place turns to shambles. Another thing that you mentioned that Champa does that my boy does is watching your every move, and the instant you are out of sightm BAM! the little prick destroys something or beats the crap out of my old girl (overly boisterous playing). The dollar amount of things he has destroyed in his short 2.5yrs is in the thousands. It is quite stressful and you have my utter most sympathy! As an example, a month or so ago his routine was disrupted. On a Fridays I wash him in preperation for a show. He had a small hotspot on his cheek and I was unsure if i'd take him to the show, but washed him anyway. I decided to go to the show and toddled off to the vets with him for a Cortisone shot and Apex cream, and came home. In the morning he wasn't much better so I decided to not go to the show. I left him at home and went out and visited my family. WELL! He was bathed and ready for the show and i'd gone without him! Not part of his routine so decided to trash the place didn't he? List of things I came home to that evening: Wooden retaining wall was chewed the entire length of the top rail around the patio (a good 30m) and no less than 16 new holes emerged in the lawn. He broke into the 'people only' part of the yard which is barricaded off with electric fencing, and trashed the entire part of the yard. He undermined the AC fan box, ripped out ALL the wiring under the dog trailer and ripped the plug off, chewed the tap off my 1000L IBC tank letting 1000L of saltwater (for my marine fishtank) flow into the yard, ripped towels off the line and shredded them, destroyed 5 of my soft rubber horse buckets by ripping them and chewing the handles off each and every one. He also chewed the hose in half and dragged it across the lawn and pissed on EVERYTHING! Pissing on things I find is the most offensive thing he can do. The entire length of the house and garden shed, clothesline, dog trailer, hydrobath, pushbikes, 200L feed drums and a garden bench got pissed on Moral of the story is you are not the only one that feels that way towards their dog, a small minority of us out here deal with it too. And in my books it's OK to feel that way towards the dog, it's human nature. Just so long as you vent and get it out of your system and move on. See if you can visit with a behaviourist, not that I feel they can do much to stop the behaviour, but they will help with setting up a routine with your dog to hopefully decrease the anxiety problems, and thus the ammount of destruction. ETA: My boy is also a happy go lucky dog, never had any reason to get anxious over anything, yet has anxiety if his routine is disrupted or loses the plot on the wrong foods. He halso gets exercised with 15klm of either running with the bike, or backpacking in the mountains around our house daily. Edited July 8, 2010 by aquaticmalamute Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bow Wowy Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Kirty, I don't have any advice, but I just want to say that you seem like an incredible person. You dedication to cat rescue is amazing and I can only imagine your heartache at having some of your resources destroyed. Keep your chin up Kirty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corvus Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 He is also VERY routine orientated, one thing out of the ordinary and the place turns to shambles. Ooo, that's a proactive coping style indicator. Thing with proactive coping styles is they aren't very flexible. The animal tends to have one way of dealing with anything that is out of the ordinary and one way only. Sound like Boh? My family briefly had a dog that dealt with everything remotely out of the ordinary by threatening to bite it if it didn't get out of his world this instant. It was just how he was. He was like that from 8 weeks old and only got worse as he got older. He was something else. Destructive was about the only thing he wasn't! When I got Erik I saw echoes of that dog in him, and Erik is also very sensitive about routines, but I think he sits somewhere closer to the middle of the avoidance-proactive coping styles continuum. He has a few things up his sleeve and he doesn't have the anxiety the other dog had, so he can cope with strange things much better. He is nowhere near as bad, but he certainly reminds me of the poor dog that thought he needed to attack anything that was not within his comfort zone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MsKatie Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Wonder if it's a dog form of ADHD or Aspergers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirty Posted July 8, 2010 Author Share Posted July 8, 2010 (edited) I don't do routines here. Its hard enough to get my kids in a routine let alone the dogs. Walks and meals can happen at any time. For the most part, I have found it keeps them more calm because they are never expecting a meal or a walk. bow wowy, thanks but I am far from incredible. If you had seen me sitting her a few hours ago cursing and bawling my eyes out you would have thought (probably correctly) I was just a crazy woman! LOL! Edited July 8, 2010 by Kirty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aquaticmalamute Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 He is also VERY routine orientated, one thing out of the ordinary and the place turns to shambles. Ooo, that's a proactive coping style indicator. Thing with proactive coping styles is they aren't very flexible. The animal tends to have one way of dealing with anything that is out of the ordinary and one way only. Sound like Boh? YES!!!!! So that's what you technically call it! I'll be doing some research on that! Googleing 'anxiety' and 'routine' didn't bring me much relevant information. I don't do routines here. Its hard enough to get my kids in a routine let alone the dogs. Walks and meals can happen at any time. For the most part, I have found it keeps them more calm because they are never expecting a meal or a walk. I was the same with my lifestyle, never been a routine person and frankly found it VERY hard to change when the vet told me Boh NEEDED routine. We forced ourselves to start up a routine with the dogs and honestly it's been the best thing that we could have done, literally saved our sanity. Except on the days the routine slips and Boh goes into destructo mode, lol! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trishm Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 (edited) Feel free to vent Kirty, if you can't vent on here where on earth could you vent? I admire your patience. I'm glad he is OK, sending Edited July 8, 2010 by Trishm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSoSwift Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Glad to hear he didn't bloat - although dog spew in the car is not too handy! I admire your tenacity in dealing with his behaviour and I can honestly say I am not sure I would have your patience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muttaburra Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Champa sounds to me like he is displaying chronic anxiety. I have seen this in dogs before and it is not always caused by having suffered abuse in the past...like people, some dogs are just like that. Many dogs that display this kind of extreme behaviour are (as you have found out) very difficult to manage. Medication may help (worth disscussing with your vet?), but there are some dogs that don't respond not matter what you do. I'm sorry that doesn't help you; I do hope you can get it sorted out, for your own sanity. Sounds like that, and/or related to separation anxiety, our family had a Labrador that would pull the clothes off the line when no-one was home, and a lot of other antics. They are playful, boisterous, naughty and intelligent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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