This is probably a weird question, but how many "puppyhoods" with a dog go through? Our little Bishop, now a year and three quarters (still light at 85lbs) has been having some mood changes. He is no longer obessed with our older dog and interacts more with us (we love this, he has gotten sweet), he actually can nap in the middle of the day (instead of GO GO GO), he has been doing good on the whole crate thing, but here is the BUT, he's developed a taste for all things leather and trash cans. He has never chewed in the past or been a trash dog. All of the sudden he has developed a puppy-vice. He has plenty of toys, chews and attention, but if you leave something leather out it disappears and you find it later in pieces (in his poop most of the time) Luckily we can hear if he tries for the trash (it has a lid). Any clues, a second "puppyhood"? My husband believes he's still a puppy. He squats to pee and he just now found his bark (part Malamute - he's the strong silent type).

thanks,

Sarah

He is just a big puppy, I consider a dog a puppy to some extent till well beyond 2 years old, and you'll even notice a big difference between a 3 year old and a 6 year old dog, dogs are like people in alot of ways, compare the way you think now to 5 years ago, and 5 years before that, and 5 years before that etc every 5 years your way of thinking has probably changed in some considerable way.

As for the trash can and leather stealing... that's a training issue. My dog walks around the house with shoes in his mouth, but he doesn't destroy them so I really don't care if he does it (and believe me, I could correct him all day long n he would still do it 10 minutes later), in fact, I tell him to drop the one in his mouth n "go get the other one" n he brings me the other shoe, I never even trained it -- just kinda "got it"... he doesn't touch any of the shoes on the floor at night when I go to bed, he only does it when he's hyper n bored, best solved by a game of fetch in the back yard.

I would restrict your dogs freedom, my dog is 20 months old and lives in a crate when I'm not home, n lives in the same room as I'm in when I am home, he follows me around everywhere so he can't do anything that I can't "catch" him doing. If you can't watch for your dogs leather thievery, firstly, keep the leather out of reach, that just seems obvious... but what I would do is throw a leather item on the floor, then bring him into the room on a drag line or an e-collar n when he goes to get it, tell him leave it, n if he doesn't leave it, correct him for it (assuming he understands the leave it command).

I don't think a dog has "numerous puppyhoods", I think a dog has one, n when the dog has too much boredom and energy on his hands, he gets mischevious, n for all intents and purposes, the dog is still a puppy at the age of your dog even though he looks like an adult.

by allowing the dog access to the trash, you are setting him up to fail, and reinforcing bad behavior. he is definitely still a puppy. keep things you don't want him to get into out of his reach, so that this cannot happen again. you are letting him develop a habit that is going to be very hard to break. just remove the opportunities. aside from the training issue, you could wind up with a dog in surgery or a dead dog.