Destructive Behaviors

If your dog has chewed the corner of your couch, eaten a shoe, dug through the garbage, shredded a pillow or their dog bed, or started remodeling your house without permission, the first question shouldn’t be, “How do I stop this?”

The first two questions should be:

“Why is my dog doing it?”

And:

“What role did I play in this destruction?”

Because destructive behavior isn’t really a diagnosis. It’s the evidence you’re looking at. Two dogs can destroy the exact same couch for completely different reasons.

Destruction Is Usually Doing Something for Your Dog

Fortunately, contrary to popular belief, dogs don’t destroy things because they’re trying to be bad, get revenge, or teach you a lesson. That is absolutely not what your dog is doing.

There’s simply something in it for them.

Chewing can just feel good. Shredding can be incredibly satisfying. Stealing something can start a game of chase. Getting into the garbage can produce what they consider a jackpot. Digging can satisfy a very natural instinct, depending on the breed and age of the dog. And sometimes destruction is simply something to do when nothing better is available.

Other times, the reason can be very different.

• Boredom or unmet physical and mental needs. This is especially common with working breeds, herding breeds, and high-drive dogs, but it can happen with almost any dog.

• Normal puppy exploration and teething. Puppies naturally explore the world with their mouths. Unfortunately, sometimes that means whatever happens to be available.

• Lack of impulse control. Wanting to do something and having the ability to stop themselves from doing it are two very different things.

• Too much freedom too soon. This is a big one. A dog cannot destroy what they don’t have access to.

• Stress, frustration, or anxiety.

• Difficulty settling.

• Attention-seeking behavior that has accidentally been reinforced.

• Separation-related distress.

These aren’t all the possible reasons, but they’re definitely a good place to start.

Figuring out which one — or more often, which combination — we’re dealing with matters, because the solution shouldn’t look exactly the same for every dog.

“But He Knows He’s Not Supposed to Do It”

This is one of the most common things owners tell us.

You walk into the room, see the destroyed shoe, and your dog immediately lowers their head, backs away, or gives you that look.

It certainly looks like guilt.

But your dog doesn’t necessarily understand:

“Twenty minutes ago I chewed Dad’s sneaker, and now Dad is angry because chewing sneakers violates a household rule.”

What your dog may understand extremely well is:

Destroyed stuff + human walking into the room = human might be upset.

Dogs are incredibly smart and very good at recognizing patterns and reading our body language and tone of voice. But that’s very different from understanding the rule you thought you had taught them.

If you’d like to test that theory, try this sometime when your dog hasn’t done anything wrong. Walk into an empty room using the same body language, the same angry tone of voice, and the same demeanor you might have when you’ve discovered something destroyed.

See if you don’t get those same guilty-looking eyes.

As a general rule, if you discover something your dog did after the fact, you probably shouldn’t punish them for it.

There could have been ten different things your dog did between destroying the shoe, peeing on the rug, or getting into the garbage and the moment you discovered it. In your mind, it’s obvious what you’re angry about. In your dog’s mind, that connection may not be nearly as clear.

Yelling, getting angry, or correcting them at that point can create more confusion instead of more understanding.

If you actually catch the behavior while it’s happening, that’s a different story. Now you have the opportunity to interrupt or correct the behavior in the moment, when your dog can make a much clearer connection between what they just did and what happened immediately afterward.

And yes, finding something destroyed and not getting angry can be incredibly difficult.

But we’re always working toward clear communication. If we’re going to tell a dog that something is wrong, we want them to understand what they’re being corrected for — not have to guess.

Freedom Is Earned

This is especially important with puppies, newly adopted dogs, and dogs who have already shown us that they’re willing to make some questionable decisions when nobody is watching.

We use a line on our Puppy Training page that applies just as well here:

In the puppy world, freedom isn’t a right. It’s an earned privilege.

Honestly, that applies to plenty of adult dogs too.

If your dog repeatedly gets into trouble when they’re unsupervised, they probably have more freedom than they’re currently prepared to handle.

Crates, gates, pens, closed doors, leashes, and simply keeping tempting objects out of reach aren’t failures in training.

They’re tools for management.

Management prevents your dog from practicing behaviors you don’t want while you’re teaching the behaviors you do.

Every time your dog successfully raids the garbage, destroys a pillow, chews a shoe, or finds something else they’re not supposed to have, they get another opportunity to practice that behavior and discover just how rewarding it can be.

Simply put:

A dog cannot destroy what they don’t have access to.

Training your dog while continuing to give them unlimited opportunities to practice the very behavior we’re trying to stop makes our job unnecessarily difficult — and in some cases, potentially impossible.

Give Them a Legal Way to Be a Dog

Our goal isn’t necessarily to eliminate your dog’s desire to chew, shred, sniff, dig, forage, or use their mouth.

Often, that’s unrealistic and/or completely uncalled for.

Instead, we can give those natural behaviors an appropriate outlet or place to go.

A dog who loves chewing should have appropriate things they’re allowed to chew on. A dog who loves searching can work for food. A dog who enjoys shredding may be able to do that safely with appropriate items under some type of supervision.

We’re never trying to remove the dog from the dog.

We’re teaching them:

These things belong to you. These things do not.

Like almost everything in dog training, this becomes much easier to teach when the rules are taught consistently.

Exercise Helps — Both Mental and Physical

Physical exercise and mental stimulation absolutely matter. A dog whose needs aren’t being met may go looking for their own job. And you might not be on board with their new career choices.

But trying to outrun every behavioral problem isn’t a training plan. A good training plan should help stop the unwanted behavior with far less effort than trying to physically exhaust your dog enough that they simply don’t have the energy to do it.

You can create an extremely fit dog who still hasn’t learned how to relax, make good decisions, be okay with boredom, or leave things that don’t belong to them alone.

Exercise is extremely important. It can help reduce unwanted behaviors while also giving your dog appropriate outlets for behaviors we actually want and need them to do.

But so is teaching them an off switch as part of the training plan.

Your dog should learn that sometimes nothing exciting is going to happen — and that’s okay.

What Happens After They Steal Something?

This one can sneak up on owners.

Your dog grabs a sock.

You notice.

You chase them through the house.

They run.

You yell.

They dodge you.

Eventually, you trade them for a treat.

From your dog’s perspective, stealing that sock may have just produced five minutes of your undivided attention, a fantastic game of chase, and food at the end.

Your dog’s probably thinking:

“How can I get more humans in here with an unlimited sock budget?”

That sock may have trained your dog in five minutes to do something it could take you weeks to untrain.

And this is where understanding operant conditioning becomes incredibly useful. Dogs pay attention to what happens after their behavior.

If stealing a sock consistently leads to something your dog values, the behavior can become more likely to happen again — a.k.a. reinforced.

Sometimes we’re accidentally helping maintain — or even strengthening — the exact behavior we’re trying to eliminate.

Destruction When You’re Gone Is Different

This distinction is extremely important.

A dog who casually chews a chair because they’re bored while you’re at work isn’t necessarily the same as a dog who becomes genuinely distressed when you leave.

If destruction happens primarily around doors, windows, crates, or other exit points — particularly when it’s accompanied by frantic behavior, excessive vocalization, drooling, escape attempts, pacing, house-soiling, or an inability to settle — we need to consider separation-related distress or anxiety.

That’s not something we want to dismiss as:

“He’s mad that I left.”

The why matters.

A dog entertaining themselves and a dog panicking may create similar damage, but they need very different training plans.

Catch the Behavior You Want

Preventing destruction is only half the picture.

We also want your dog learning what does work.

Choosing their own toy.

Settling on their bed.

Walking past the garbage.

Leaving the shoe alone.

Relaxing while you’re busy.

Those decisions may seem boring compared with catching your dog doing something wrong, but they’re exactly the decisions we want to reinforce.

Your dog is constantly learning from what happens next.

We want good decisions to start paying off.

What We Work On

Before deciding how to address destructive behavior, we want to know when it’s happening, what your dog is destroying, what happens immediately before and afterward, how much freedom they have, what appropriate outlets they have available, and whether stress or anxiety appears to be involved.

The dog destroying things because they’re bored, the dog doing it because it has become a rewarding habit, and the dog doing it because they’re genuinely distressed may leave very similar evidence behind — but we wouldn’t approach those three dogs the same way.

From there, the plan may include management, appropriate outlets, obedience, impulse control, teaching a reliable Leave It or Out, building duration and calmness, changing reinforcement patterns, and gradually giving your dog more freedom as they’ve shown they’re ready for it.

And this is one of those behaviors where what happens between training sessions matters enormously.

We can teach your dog the rules, but everyone in the home needs to make those rules as black-and-white as possible. If the shoe is forbidden Monday through Friday but becomes a hilarious game of chase on Saturday, your dog isn’t being inconsistent.

The humans are.

The Good News

Destructive behaviors can be incredibly frustrating because, in some cases, the overwhelming evidence is sitting right there in front of you.

But in many cases, once we identify why the behavior is happening, prevent the dog from repeatedly practicing it, provide appropriate alternatives, and teach clear expectations, things can improve dramatically — and often very quickly.

The goal isn’t a dog who never wants to chew, explore, investigate, or entertain themselves.

It’s a dog who understands what belongs to them, what doesn’t, and what career path to take when nobody is entertaining them.