Preventing Doggy Boredom
 

Recently my little guy has been exhibiting some destrucitve behaviour. I believe this to be an issue of him being bored.

He gets a good walk (30-40 minutes) every morning before I go to work. When it was just him and I on our walks we would go a quite a good pace and I didn't let him do too much stopping and sniffing as I wanted him to get excercise and tire him out. I must admit now that we have our new guy who is a little older and slower, I don't think Bailey is getting as tired out on our morning walks as he used to but I just don't have the time in the morning to do 2 separate walks.

My FIL comes over during the day to let them out and give them a quick walk so he's not alone for great lengths of time.

I also leave him with toys like stuffed Kongs etc. but I still come home to shreaded paper etc.

I'm just wondering if anyone has any suggestiong for some ways to provide Bailey with more stimulation etc. to prevent his destructiveness. We have since cleared off our hall table to remove all paper etc. that he could get into but I don't want him moving on the other things to chew.

TIA.

Edited to add that he does not have the run of the house. They are both confined to the front room on the main floor.

Get him a sister to play with:D

What I found with Jemma was that playing for a bit was actually more stimulating and tiring than any length walk. She used to jog with her owner 45 mins a day, but still ate a whole diningroom set. With us, she got 30 mins of ball chasing and she was done for the day if she had to be (her ideal was to go on chasing forever).

I agree with Prin - play is much more of a workout than a walk, especially if it is combined with training. A trainer I used to go to (alas, she is too far away from us now...sigh...) always said that she'd rather we did 20 minutes of training/play than an hour long walk. Things like teaching to fetch, to rollover, to spin, etc...hope this helps!

Thanks everyone for the great suggestions. I do find that after a game of tug Bailey is pretty worn out so I'm thinking a shorter brisk walk followed by some training and games may help alleviate the bordome and subsequently the destruction.

Thanks again.

We have an Aussie mix who is a bundle of energy and needs to have a job in order to be kept from being bored. We've also found that mental stimulation (ie: tricks and training) is far more tiring to her than walks. Her obedience instructor made it a point to show us on the first day of class just how exhausted the dogs were at the end of the one-hour session. As we looked around the room, we saw that every dog was lying flat out on the floor sound asleep! We didn't do much with them that day as it was introductory class, but the few things we did do exhausted every dog there because it was all so new to them and there was a lot of thinking involved. Good luck!

Update
 

Just wanted to say thanks again to everyone for their helpful suggestions. I have started giving Bailey shorter walks in teh morning so that I am left with additional time ot do some training with him.

The past 2 mornings I have done this have been great. I have just been doing all the basics we covered in obidience class but mixing them up and asking for various combinations etc. Sometimes he does sit, stay, paw and hten he gets his treat. Other times I make him do a little more and other times a little less.

Also, I found a class that is offered at our obidience school that is called "Tricks for Dogs" that I have signed us up for. I think this is going to be a great way to teach Bailey new comands and give his brain a good workout.

Thanks again.