I have a 4 year old male GSP who has broken out of every kennel that we have bought or had made, even steel.  He is able to break the welds on the cage with his teeth and get out. We then gave him the run of the garage and he has chewed off 7 door knobs to date.  He has severe seperation anxiety when being locked up for any period of time.  Any suggestions?

fourpointers@yahoo.com

I know exactly what you mean. I have 4 escape artists and it took me a while of trying new things to see what worked. I ended up putting a concrete slab under my kennel and attaching a line of electric fencing on the bottom to juice the kennel. I also found that my 4 GSPs needed more than an 1/2 hour of hard exercise to drain their pent up energy. Seperation anxiety was a thing of the past once I bought a used tread mill and exercised them all for 1 hour  in the AM and 1 hour in the PM they are now entirely different dogs!

Lack of exercise seemed to be my problem and lots of unwanted behaviors stopped almost immediately. The best Shorthair is a tired shorthair! Good Luck!

I had the same problem recently!!!  My dog did well in his crate and after a few months we lstarted to lock him in the kicthen with our 7 year old chihuahua.  He escaped from the kitchen and a small latch on the door stopped that.   We started leaving him for short periods of time and increased to full days.  He did really well  all day for a month or so.  There was No destruction and he seemed calmer than when he had been in the crate.  After a month he just got bored I guess and decided to open all the drawers and chew the corners off one day.  Now it is back to the crate.  I was really hoping to give him more freedom.  Has anyone else had any succuss doing that with this breed? 

I hope chewing the cage doesn't come next!  So far I think I am OK there!   You def. have a challenge on your hands!!!!

Speaking of escaping.....Jackson accidently put too much pressure on the window after peaking in the window repeatedly to let us know he is ready to come in.  The bell works well to go out.....but maybe we need to teach him to ring a doorbell to come in..

 Here he is modelling his work  (along with paw and nose marks.).. (from the inside)

What a cutie!

Even though they tend to bring such mistchief witha face like that it is hard to be upset isn't it? Looks like he knows what he wants!  My oldest boy was a severe seperation anxiety case for the first 2 years. I wanted him to have more space as well, but it came down to his safety and my security deposit on my apartment that brought me to putting himin his crate full time while we were out. We also hired a dog walker to come and take him out if  we were going to be out for more than 8 hours. It gave him a chance to get out and gave our wood work a break from being eaten! Of course this was when we only had 1 and now we've got a pack of Shorthairs!

Hope you find a safe and happy solution! That picture is a crack up!

Luckily he is just 7 months old.....I was impressed that he did not destroy anything for a whole month of being left in  the kicthen when he was between 5-6 months old.  I guess it just took a month before that got old.  Luckily I am a teacher so he gets periods where I am home on breaks to help break up our work schedule.  I also have a mother in law who does help in teh afternoons on long days.  I hope as he gets old it will also get better...    I am not ready for a pack of shorthairs yet!    hats off to you! 

 Yes having a pack of shorthairs is very demanding. Especially when you have (1 )6.5 years, (1-) 3 years and( 2- )2 years! Talk about a house full. Our oldest is a rescue that we went to Illinois to pick up(from Vermont). The 3 year old Jazzy we bought at a local GSP breeder that has its own Pheasent farm and 25 years of hunting and GSP background. The two youngest are litter mates from Jazzy and Rio(our oldest). The two young boys, Chisel and Freckles are to of the birdiest guys around and also a challenge to have in the house all together. They live mostly outside and are brought in the house 2 at a time for my sanity. They require a lot of Patience in numbers like 3 or 4. Just having 2 wasn't bad though!

It sounds like you have a good support tem and a pretty consitent schedule so just hold on and he will get better. Have a good Day!