Weening off of crate

Question
QUESTION: my 1 year old beagle is a great great great dog!! I have one problem with her and I am desperate for an answer!  She behaves perfectly in her crate... ALWAYS!  When I try to ween her off the crate, even for a few minutes, she chews something!  i leave her gated in my kitchen and she has chewed chairs, area rugs, she even ripped a piece of my laminate floor up!!  she doesn't go to the bathroom.  please, i do not want to leave her in her small crate anymore, she is over a year old.  

I should add, she has never ever chewed anything in my house when I am home, the occasional piece of paper, but never furniture, shoes, nothing of the sort.  Please help me with some advice.

ANSWER: Hi Jennifer.   Let me make sure that I understand.  You say "When I try to ween her off the crate, even for a few minutes, she chews something!", then you go on to say: "I should add, she has never ever chewed anything in my house when I am home, the occasional piece of paper, but never furniture, shoes, nothing of the sort."  I can only surmise from this that you have left her outside the crate and went outside for a couple of minutes and she still chewed something.  I'd think that obedience training would certainly help.  Some times people ask me what that has to do with the dog wrecking things when you are not home, and it's really a matter of the dog being able to learn easier, and good practice for you on following through with commands that you give.  If you give them a command to 'sit', make sure that they 'sit' each and every time, and that will help them with their learning.  Sit Means Sit!  You also have to remember that this dog is only a year old, and some take a bit longer than others.  It's not completely out of the question for the dog to be doing things like this at this young of an age without obedience, and if the dog does have a good bit of obedience, I'd give it a bit more.  What I would do, to keep from ruining the house, but yet getting your goals accomplished, would be to start by putting the dog outside the crate, but in a confined area, and to go outside and watch through a window.  When the dog gets into something that it isn't supposed to, I would come right back into the house (you would see this through a window or something), and enforce something that the dog knows.  In other words, you may want to come back in, and have the dog 'sit'.  No yelling and screaming and carrying on, just a 'sit' command, and see to it that the dog does it immediately.  I would then not take the object out of that area.......leave it there.  The dog needs to learn to leave it alone.  I would then go back outside, with the article still there and watch, and repeat this procedure.  You may not be outside watching for very long at first, but it won't take long.  DO NOT leave the dog outside the crate during this process during any time that you will be away for awhile.  The dog has too many repetitions of getting away with this.  You also may want to see if there is a "Sit Means Sit" trainer in your area to get a free evaluation on this as well, which may give them a better idea of the obedience already in this dog.  The better the obedience, the faster the process will go.  If the dog has no obedience, it will be great for you to begin this process 'hands-on'.   The dog will get pretty good, pretty fast, if you do this a number of times, because ultimately, you are going to be doing the teaching to your dog.   The dog is still young, and you probably have an active dog there, so it may take a little longer than another dog you may have had.   Good luck to you, and hope this helps.

Fred Hassen
Sit Means Sit Dog Training

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you, I appreciate your help and I do think more training would be good for her. I think I explained myself wrong though. I was trying to bring the point across that I have never seen her chew anything and that she does not do it around me.  If I go outside to get the mail or take the trash out, she doesn't touch anything. If I leave and come back, something is destroyed.  she's a great dog, who is house trained, sleeps through the night, is now good in her cage, etc.  Its like she turns into another dog when I leave.  

Question:  I think your tactic is excellent, but how does the dog not see you if you are peeking in a window.  My dog definately would.  i keep her in my kitchen and the only "window" is a sliding glass door.  she would so see me.

Answer
Hi, I'm obviously not familiar with your house set up, and when we do an evaluation for the people at their house, we can usually find a room that has a concealed window to some degree.  Since you've said that your dog does this when you are gone, it really would not matter what room you were in.  It's very difficult to communicate to a dog when you are not actually there, but remote training makes all of this so much easier.  As I said, feel free to get a demonstration from one of our locations at no charge if there is one in your area.

Fred Hassen
http://www.sitmeanssit.com   

We have locations in the following areas that deal with puppy training, housebreaking, destructive habits, and basic dog obedience.  We also provide both 1 on 1 training, and dog training classes.  We have numerous dog training videos on our site to see the results as well.

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