Dealing with devil dogs and crazy cats

Kim Campbell Thornton • E-mail

When Watachie, a German shepherd, was just 4 months old, he totally demolished a sofa, ripping the cushions to shreds.

“I got home from work and the living-room floor was covered 3 feet deep with fabric pieces, fiber, magazine scraps and who knows what else,” says his owner, Liz Palika of Oceanside, Calif. “Standing where my sofa used to be was a 2-by-4-foot frame with springs attached.”

Calico kitty Angel perched on top of a computer monitor and urinated into the air vents. “All of a sudden, my screen went all weird and the monitor started hissin’ and smokin’,” says Wendy Christensen of New Ipswich, N.H.

We’ve all heard about them — the dogs and cats with what could charitably be called extreme behavior issues. Indeed, the stories make for some good laughs and entertaining home videos on TV, but the end result isn't always so funny.

The leading nonmedical cause of death for dogs and cats is euthanasia for unwanted behaviors. That’s tragic, because most such problems stem from normal, natural behaviors — barking, chewing, scratching, eliminating — that can be controlled with early training, regular reinforcement throughout the animal’s life and an understanding of a pet’s need for exercise and mental stimulation, as well as certain standards of hygiene. In extreme cases, anxiety medications can help.

There goes the house
Dogs, in particular, often are given up for their destructive tendencies. They’ve been known to chew the siding off homes, dig up newly installed sprinkler systems and underground wiring, and destroy mail delivered through a door slot.

Check out MSNBC.com readers' mischievous pets. Submit photos of your naughty four-legged pal.

It's not hard to see why when you consider that dogs have been bred for generations to pull sleds, herd sheep, hunt all day or guard flocks. So they need plenty of mental and physical activity to occupy themselves, and simply having a yard to play in while people are gone all day isn’t enough.

After Watachie destroyed the sofa, Palika called a dog trainer for help. Watachie went on to earn an obedience trial championship, attend the Frisbee World Finals, learn to pull a wagon and become a certified search and rescue dog. Palika herself is now a dog trainer and author of "The KISS Guide to Raising a Puppy."

“The No. 1 reason dogs end up in shelters is that people don’t start training early enough and then don’t continue with the dog’s training either at home or with a trainer,” Palika says. “Puppies should begin training as soon as their vet gives them clearance to do so, and owners should continue training throughout the dog’s adolescence.”

Tips for preventing behavior troubles — Research breeds and pick the right pet for your family and lifestyle. — Provide enough exercise to your pet. — Sign up for puppy-training class as early as possible. — Provide mental stimulation to your dog with agility training or other canine sports. — Enrich your cat’s environment with tall climbing posts, interactive toys such as kitty fishing poles and food-dispensing gadgets. — Scoop your cat’s litter box daily and clean the box and change litter every one to two weeks.

Animals usually are surrendered to shelters during the adolescent period, which starts at 8 months of age and continues until about 2 years, says Jill Goldman, a certified applied animal behaviorist in Laguna Beach, Calif.

“Behaviors that were seen as puppies may have been manageable because the animal was small and wasn’t able to do much damage," she says. "But when the animal becomes larger, then the problems become larger as well and less easy to be managed.”

When it comes to bad behavior, cats most often are abandoned for house soiling.

Sara, a 7-year-old cat, up and stopped using her litter box. Instead, she was urinating throughout the house. In frustration, her owners banished her to the garage, where she began pulling her fur out from stress.

Many cats in Sara’s situation are given up, often to the local animal shelter, where they’re more likely to be euthanized than treated and placed in a new home. Sara was lucky. Her owners sought the advice of Sheila Segurson, a veterinary behaviorist at Sacramento Veterinary Behavior Services in California.

Sara, as it turned out, had an aversion to her litter box because her owners only scooped it every four or five days. She was also fearful of visitors to the home and felt threatened when she saw other animals outside the windows of her home.

Segurson advised scooping Sara’s litter box daily, changing the litter and cleaning the box weekly and placing the box in a room that was quiet and out of the way. She also recommended enriching Sara’s environment by providing regular playtime and giving her a tall climbing post with a high perch where she could see everything going on in the room and feel safe. Within three weeks, Sara was living in the house again and her fur was growing back.

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