Classic Mistake - Lured into a false sense of security!!

[Shirley]

People are always asking me how I cope with leaving two cockers in the house while I work.  Even when it was only Morgan they'd say "Aren't cockers very destructive?" and I tell them, quite proudly, that Cooper is happy in his crate with his Kong and his toys and Morgan has always been an angel in this respect - never chewed anything - stole things but never chewed them  

Well, today I had a brainwave and decide to leave Cooper out with Morgan in the kitchen.  Gave them both a kong, came back at lunchtime and they'd obviously slept all morning - there was even stuff left in the kongs - highly unusual  :shock:   They both got a treat for being so good and an hour later after a good run in the garden off I went back to work.  

I only work 1 1/2 hours after lunch, but you wouldn't believe the mess that I came back to at 3 o'clock  :shock:   :shock:   Cooper (I know he was the culprit 'cos I've seen him do it before  :roll: ) had been paddling in the water bowl - it's heavy ceramic so he can't tip it, he actually jumps and lands with his front paws in the bowl pushing it so the water slops out over the sides.  The kitchen floor was like a swimming pool - wall to wall water.  I'm not sure if he did this before or after he toppled my (once lovely) big spiky palm tree thingy (okay so I'm not a plant expert but I like them all the same  :wink: ) and pulled approximately 3/4 of the leaves off it and ate some of the compost fromthe pot

I know I've got nobody to blame but myself but it's back to the crate tomorrow.  I'm not having that little whipper snapper corrupting my well behaved golden boy      




Anyone else been to quick to trust their pups?                    

[padfoot]

Sorry about this but...    

Toby has his days too. Some days he is an angel. Today, I took my little one to playgroup, got home...and found my house upside down. Loo roll everywhere, my washing (I had foolishly left it on a chair in the kitchen) strewn over the house, another Barbie doll chewed up...I either had to laugh or cry so I decided to laugh  
I don't crate Toby, he has never taken to the crate despite my best efforts which is a shame. I ALWAYS crate young pups if I foster them though. I am only out of the house for 1-2 hours maximum during a day (not all at once) so the crates are a Godsend.                    

[PennyB]

Know how you feel. My 2 were little angels when we went to stay with my mum for 5 days. Now they're back home they feel the need to bring in everything they can from the backyard. One minute I'm sitting in relative tidiness 1st thing in the morning, I then go upstairs to do some work and then come down for a tea break to find half a bush scattered around the sitting room. Wilf's motto is that if it fits through the catflap then its fair game :roll:                    

[Anita]

Oh dear      

I understand how you feel. We kept Phoebe in the kitchen when we were out until at least 12 months old. Then she started junping over the stairgate. So, as she hadn't chewed ANYTHING until that time, we thought ok then we'll take the gate down and she'll be fine.

I was wrong.......so wrong! Skirting boards proved to be very tasty (probably because they were new!). So bigger gate and back into the kitchen. Never chewed anything again.

Now she's not kept in the kitchen and the stairgate has been taken down and everything seems (?) ok. Maybe she just wanted to makeher mark :roll:                    

[*Jay*]

Sorry Shirley but that made me laugh      I only work 2 hours after lunch and I find thats when they do the most damage :roll:  :evil: Because I'm storing some of my brothers stuff in "the dogs room" they now just have the run of the hall and the kitchen. i felt sorry for them one day and thought I would also leave my bedroom door open for them so they could have a nice big bed to sleep on if they wish. Came home to find my new lilac vertical blinds were no longer vertical :shock:  Another day, I forgot to close the bathroom door properly and when I came home, there were towels strewn all over the floor, the toilet brush was chewed to bits and a 6 pack of toilet roll was all chewed up and shredded on the hall floor. The bin was also upturned and its contents had obviously been well inspected cos there were bits everywhere. (The bin has to be kept in the bathroom cos no matter where I put it in the kitchen, even if its on a worktop, dallas will get to it with his climbing!!) I know its Dallas thats corrupting Vegas :evil:  The thing is, Dallas will be 2 in October and I know that if I left the bathroom door tomorrow, I would come back to the exact same thing :roll:  So i now have to make sure all doors are firmly closed before I leave :wink:                    

[Gilly]

I'm sorry Shirley but your story is hysterical      

I must admit, I haven't really ever come home to much distruction, usually pieces of wallpaper on the floor...where Butty's been doing some home improvements :twisted: ....she pretends she's not guilty...but the white plaster marks on the end of her nose give it away    
Sometimes the TV magazine gets it to  :roll: never the TV pages that have already passed though....just the ones for the rest of the week  :shock:                      

[Pammy]

lol - typical Cockers  

We're fully paid up members of the troublesome two club as well

On their own - J n B are usually as good as gold - leave them together and trouble is awaiting our return - usually instigated by Buddy I think. He will pull anything of a worktop he can reach then they'll play tug of war. Have you any idea how far a loaf of bread can go :roll:  

They love to open the post and read the papers too - very intelligent my boys - and they make sure they spread them out so they don't miss anything - then they opt for bite sized chunks - helps share it between them I think.

They then test the quality of my tea towels - performing a range of tests from polishing the floor, resistence to extreme pressures from opposite ends of the cloth and then strength when wet - such angels

They then like to ensure I get the chance to test out how effective the hoover and any other cleaning products I have may be.

But the final test is how gullible Mum may be - coz it was never us that did that :shock: honest                    

[jakieboy]

lol lol lol i know i don't post much anymore (always in a rush), but i always have a quick read, but this has really tickled me.  Ebbie stopped going in her crate when she was about 9 months old, finn on the other hand - well he is 16 months old and still in it, he's not a chewer, very obedient, well trained - great big dopey softy.  

So i left him out a few months ago, for 5 mins when i went to get jake from school, came back to big lumps of wallpaper pulled off the wall, and toys from the kids rooms brought downstairs - all in 5 mins.   Hence he is still in his crate, have to say i relented again the other day, and he was fine, so (cockers are so good at giving you a false sense of security), left him for 5 mins this morning - came back, he'd been on my desk and nicked a pack of choccie biccies.  And i do mean on my desk, they were right at the back out of reach cos i know ebbie loves them.

At least when ebbie does this she hides the evidence (in her stomach) he'd only licked the choc of one biscuit then was cuddling them when i got in.  

Nikki  xxxx                    

[shaz]

hi everyone,

i can not help giggling at these posts, when my mellow was a pup, to my horro ripped up the whole of the kitchen lino, now i have ceramic tiles and i have a large puppy pen, so now when they are pups, the puppy pen goes up and they go in it when we are out and at work, i put in there bed,
 plenty of toys, water, food  etc, and they are happy and out of harms way, and when we come home they are taken out of it straight away and given lots of loves and kisses for been such well behaved puppys, flo was in it untill we could trust her and now harley is in it, and i have not had any kind of disrtuctive behavier from any of them so far. this way works for me and i am sticking to it.

sharon x mellow x flo x and baby harley.                    

[Luvlylady]

oh no shirley ,poor plant    this is a reason why we never crate our dogs dogs , they have to learn the cant do what they like  ours now have the run of the house the only thing i get is my makeup chewed if i leave it on the side so it goes in the draw apart from that everything is fine ,we had one nasty accident of mydads recording of his mother chewed so big lesson that day was learnt everyone was so upset we ignored her the whole day .. your right if you leave him out morgan will start too ,  these cockers are little minx's arent they , glad the wrecking spree wasent to bad ive seen them do alot worse  :shock:                    

[Mary]

That's so funny Shirley   Some great stories here

Perhaps my decision for not getting another cocker is for the best :wink:

Lottie seems like an angel compared to all yours.  She's never been very destructive, obviously chewed certain things when she was a puppy BUT.....why in the last couple of days has she begun chewing the rug again (not done that for over a year now :? ) and also has discovered a liking for slippers :?:   The sock fettish is still on going but it's never been slippers until 2 days ago :?  :evil:

Oh, just remembered (and how can I forget :roll: ) she's a nightmare in the garden though   That's the one place she really does run riot :evil:                    

[Mary P]

I'm glad you can see the funny side Shirley :wink:
Tia just attacks the post now that she's settled in. I hope I'm not speaking too soon :shock:
Cheers,                    

[Shirley]

Ooohh I'm so glad that I' not alone     It makes me feel much better knowing that other have naughty cockers too.  If it wasn't for my precious Cooper I'd have little to worry about as Morgan was never chewed furniture, wallaper or skirtingboards.  He peed on curtains, mind you  

Gill, I would have loved to have been a on the wall when you came home to your redesigned blinds       And what exactly is it with Cockers and toilet rolls - The number of rolls that have been wasted in this house is shocking (the photo in the other thread was not staged - I promise).  One day I had visitors coming round and it must have been shopping day as there was only one roll left in the toilet.  You guessed it, they got hold of it and in the end I had to pull off most of the outside layers and hope that my guest didn't notice the teeth marks when they went to the loo

Who'd be without them though!!.........says she, who has spent the entire evening trying to stop Cooper from humping Morgan                          

[Silver Surfer (indiesnan)]

Who'd be without them though!!.........says she, who has spent the entire evening trying to stop Cooper from humping Morgan      

I can just picture the scene Shirley.                          

[Mightyjoe]

They all seem to be the same, Oscar was left in the garden alone for about 15 min. When we went to check on him he was sat in the middle of what used to be a piece of turf shredded around him and he had the look on his face as if someone had planted it on him. We now have a nice square piece of soil where the turf was; well it’s off to B&Q for a piece of turf. Not much you can do, you to look on the funny side of it or i think you would go mad  :shock: Good luck to you all this weekend i hope all your gardens survive.