chewing and barking

Question
my husband and i have two lively but very lovable jack Russell, Phoebe who is two yrs old soon and Jonny who is eighteen months.
The problem we have is that when we leave the house for more than 3/4 hours one of them chews the furniture sofa and pillows mainly yet when either one or both of us are in they chew their own toys, i am at my wits end.
The other problem is that my female phoebe will bark at everyone who comes to the door,and enters the house, if she feels she knows them she becomes quite excited and wants to play.
The problem is is that she really dislikes my mother in-laws new husband matt.
Matt has been in the family for about a year and a half and would hyde and or bark until he left our house, at the moment mother in-law and matt are living with us in their house as they are moving to Australia in a couple of months and we will take over the mortgage. Phoebe has wet our bed because she will not go down stairs if he is there.
I have given him treats to give to her, but she does not want to know, i put her in his arms the other day she went mad and almost broke her neck jumping out of his arms (hes a little over ft) please help me i am so worried she will stress herself out and give herself a heart attack. They are our children and we love them very much.

Answer
Katy -

I can solve one problem easily, but the other one is going to take some work.  The other thing to keep in mind is that your dogs are now teenagers - the time when they tend to start testing you to see what they can get away with.

The first one about being destructive is easy - Crate them.  The vast majority of dogs do not mind being crated when no one is home, and many of them end up liking them as their own personal space to relax in of their own free will.

Now, the one about Phoebe being afraid of Matt is going to take a little work.  Please read the information at the link below. It is written as a recommendation for dogs who are too big for their britches, but a watered down version works very well for scared dogs. For some reason worried dogs tend to be more confident when someone acts like they are not there and just goes about their own business.  

Matt needs to be the person who feeds Phoebe. Put them in a room alone, have him measure out her food and put it down.  Then walk away and sit quite a distance from the food and ignore her (do something quiet like read the paper).  Once she eats, he picks up the dish and she is free to leave the room.

She may well skip a meal or 2... she will be fine, but you all have to stick with the plan.  She needs to have an experience where the thing she likes & needs the most comes from him, but at the same time she does not feel cornered or like she has to be really close to him (like she would if he tried to feed her a treat).

the secret is for him to ignore her. If she doesn't eat, pick up the dish and try it again the next mealtime - she will eat sooner or later.  Gradually, once she is eating regularly with him in the room he can start talking to her from a distance, and then very gradually stay closer to the dish a little at each meal.

Once she will eat with him being within 4-5 ft, it's time to go to the next stage.... where he is the only person who takes her for a walk. Start with him walking her around inside the house, then just in the front yard, and build it up a little every time you have a good experience

Basically, you are trying to make her interact with him very very gradually. I would expect that if everyone is committed to this, he should be ready to take her on the leash within a week.

The trick to all this is not to move to the next stage until the last one is good more than 1 time.  If there is a bad experience, then the next time you go back a step to the last one that was good.  The point being to make sure you have lots of good experiences and try to make the steps so small that you avoid bad ones....

OK - here's your reading homework, and remember that what I am describing above is a watered down version of this same program

http://www.cairnrescue.com/docs/NILIF.pdf

Please ask any questions you may have, and let me know how you make out

-Beth