A friend of mine just got back from Kenya, and brought a dog with her.
The dog's a total stray/mutt/dingo, originally from the streets of Nairobi, and incredibly sweet. From the family she lived with in Nairobi, she's completely house-broken, really nice towards people and dogs, and very well behaved.
The only problem is, Houdini has a problem with confinement & abandonment. She chews through leashes if you leave her tied outside a restaurant. She's climbed 6' fences to escape back yards. She's jumped down from 2nd-floor balconies. Houdini was left in her travel-crate while my friend went out for an hour, and Houdini gnawed through the rugged plastic wall, widening the 2" window to a 6" window, and pushed herself through. Note that every time she
does get out, she shreds wooden doors/walls searching for her lost owner. Not cool.
Yesterday, Houdini was left in her (new) crate for
twenty minutes and did the damage below.
I have no question that in a couple hours, she'd be out of that (second) crate. The problem isn't only that she's shredding stuff when she gets out; she's also really hurting herself in the process. That sharp metal is digging into her face, and in the picture at the top, you can see scars on her nose where she's pushed through windows in the past. (Seriously. The dog put her head through a glass window.)
So, how do I help this dog recognize that she hit the doggy jackpot, and chill out? We got her a muzzle, but in the half hour she was alone today, she pulled off the muzzle, ripped off the loose bar picture above, and loosed three more, doubling the damage pictured above. This dog is about to get crate number three.
Do we just get stronger and stronger muzzles/crates? Do we put socks on her feet so she can't scratch at the muzzle? At some point, I feel like we're putting her in a doggy straight-jacket. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] Does anybody have any experience with those "doggy pheromones", that help dogs chill out in high stress? They've always seemed really hippy to me, but this dog is wrecking her one chance to escape the mean streets of Nairobi.
Thanks.
-Sam
