beagle escape artist

Question
We adopted a 2 yr old beagle from a no kill shelter.  We kept him in a crate until he was house trained and then let him stay out while we were at work.  He doesn't chew anything but does scratch our front door until the paint is gone.  He doesn't do this when we are home.  How can we get him to stop doing this besides putting him in his crate, which he hates?  When we keep him in his crate he barks for an hour straight and sometimes he will deficate in it.

We also know that Beagles love to sniff scents.  Our neighbor constantly has rabbits in her backyard.  Our beagle won't stop beagling until we bring him inside.  This has irritated our neighbor.  Our dog has bitten and dug under the fence to get out.  He has also dug up all of my plants and ripped out our screens from the outside.  Why is he doing all this damage?  Is he bored?  He also scratching up his face from sliding under the fence after he has bitten it away. We don't want to give him back but we spend all of our time fixing everything and trying to take him on walks to let him sniff away.  Help!

Answer
Obviously leaving him outside isn't working. When you arent there he is rehearsing a lot of behavior you don't want, and of course if you don't see it happen, you can't influence the behaviors. He may be bored, he may simply be responding to the environment (rabbits are pretty important to a beagle) or he may be suffering some degree of separation anxiety (the deficating in crate makes me wonder about this) I wonder if there might be an inside area which is less confining than the crate, but not damagable which he might stay in while you are gone (even a kennel run in the garage) with some really high value chews or a stuffed kong. Would doggie daycare be an option? or a friend with an appropriate dog he could visit during the day? Beagles, even more than a lot of dogs, are pack animals, and he may be very lonely by himself. If you suspect it might be separation anxiety, I'd get with a local positive trainer or behaviorist and work out a program for him. Here's an excellent article on separation anxiety.
http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/2002/sa.htm
As the article mentions, anti anxiety drugs may also be something you need to consider, but of course that is best done under the supervision of a veterinary behaviorist. Sandy Case MEd CPDT www.positivelycanine.com