I let my 2-yr-old dog loose overnight but she destroyed some pillows after 3 hours. I told her NO and put her in the crate. Did I do the right thing?

Hi Cindy,

Thank you for all the great training advice you have given me in the past. I have another issue regarding my 2 year old female GSD. I raised her since she was 8 weeks old and followed Leerburg's protocol on making sure she is crated when not attended to. Thanks to this great and simple advice, she has never destroyed anything in the house.

Now at 2 years old I would like to start leaving her out of the crate overnight and possibly while I am at work. What I have done up to this point is allowing her to be out of her crate and leaving the house for short periods of time. I started with leaving her for just 15-30 minutes, then gradually longer. Two weeks ago, I was able to leave her out for about 5 hours during the day and overnight.

I also make sure I remove any items that I think she may be interested in destroying such as my shoes and clothing. Nonetheless, last week, she destroyed a pillow when I left her out overnight. I woke up when I heard the thrashing noise and gave her a very firm "NO!" and sent her into her crate for the remainder of the night. The following couple of nights I tethered her to my bed and all was fine. As such, I tried again last night and after just 3 hours of being alone, she again destroyed a pillow.

I think I should go back to tethering her to the bed, but how will I know when she will be ready to be not tethered? Or, am I approaching this the wrong way altogether? At first I thought she may not have gotten enough exercise and resorted to destroying the pillow out of frustration, but the first incident was on the evening she trained at the club and I know she was exhausted. This leads me to believe that she is destroying things out of anxiety and perhaps I should have started this conditioning much earlier? I would appreciate your advice on this since I am picking up a new puppy next week and would like to get this part right.

Thanks again,
Jeffrey