Dave 'Hughesy' Hughes dog Ginger is eating his house!

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Uh, just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with, uh, Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining: Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. Uh, and I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address, otherwise the vote does not count. Thank you.

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It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for some free dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things. Yeah. Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then I get one like, oh my God, what the fuck have I done? And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet and I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. I go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, the podcast hopefully giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout, it's okay, it's friendly. My name's Jack Lawrence, not a dog trainer, just a dog training enthusiast. But of course, that's why we've got Max O'Neill, Down Under Dog Trainer. The man in the know when it comes to dog training. And of course, the people in the nose when it comes to Australian pet insurance is Knowse, a multi-award-winning Australian pet insurance company built to help pet parents stay informed and supported throughout their pet's life. Australian company, check them out. They're phenomenal. knose.com.au, issued by Pacific International Insurance. Today's a bit of a bonus episode, Max O'Neill, because it's a Q&A without the Q part because the person didn't ask the question, but we're going to give them an answer.

We are.

Old buddy of mine, Dave Hussey. Here's Hussey. Who I worked with for many, many years, is great. He's an animal lover. The man's got so many animals, lots of cats, dogs he's had, and he's a rescuer. So he's got a rescue dog called Ginger, and he posted on his Instagram the other day quite a funny video. Here's what it portrays to.

Ginger, just because you're bored, you don't have to eat the wall. Why are you eating the wall? It's not logical. I don't even think you're hungry.

So Ginger, for those obviously who can't see, Ginger is sat in front of the wall of the house, and Ginger has basically eaten or chewed through the plasterboard of the wall. And obviously Husey's caught Ginger in the process of doing so. I'm going to say straight off the bat that this is purely some boredom going on here. And even Husey says, just because you're bored. So I think he even understands that Ginger's got a bit bored and eating the wall. But this is actually more common than you might think, like dogs eating drywall.

Oh yeah, I showed Jack one off air and I probably shouldn't post it in the group because it's a private thing, but—

It is just insane. It looks like builders have come over and started tearing the house down.

Oh, it's like if you told the FBI, hey, someone's hidden some meth in these walls, and they've just ripped it apart. And they've just ripped it apart. Like anything that is like under chest height that dog could reach, it had pulled off the wall. The house was back to the frame, like it was gone. And the thing is, like, only half the amount of it was on the floor. So the dog's eating it at some stage.

And that, I mean, that is just insane. I mean, in fact, my brother-in-law who has a French bulldog, his French bulldog also chewed, and it was a rental at the time, and the dog just destroyed like a whole section of drywall, just eating through it. Why do dogs, obviously, again, I'm saying, I believe it's, you know, obviously boredom and frustration, but why walls? Why are we chewing through a wall?

I think it's the dry, crumbly sort of texture that's probably Similar to bones.

Okay. But they don't know that until they start eating it.

Yeah, but there's something. Yeah, that's it. They just, they poke around and they've probably tried different things. And then at some stage go, oh, okay.

Scratched on the wall and something's fallen off. It's like, that's good.

And, but walls and doors are pretty common because our dogs will typically chew or, you know, scratch at the things that confine them. So, you know, at the crate door or the door, the, you know, that we went through the last place they saw us. But, you know, if they're walking around the perimeter of an area they're in, you know, she's tried the door, the wall, this and that. Eventually they start chewing at the Again, the perimeter or the things that confine them in the wall, they go, oh, this is actually kind of nice, I kind of like this. And, you know, for our dogs, because they love to disembowel their prey and dissect it, the moment they start seeing progress— like, that's why they love cushions, because they can rip it up and put stuffing everywhere.

Oh yeah.

It's why they like chewing, uh, drywalls, because all of a sudden they can see holes, there's stuff everywhere, they can grab a bit and pull it off easily and throw it. And it's like Oh, that instant satisfaction of just completely destroying shit.

All right. Well, before we get to more funny stories of things that you've seen over your years of dealing with dogs, on a more serious note, if someone has got an issue where their dog, they've come home and the dog has destroyed the drywall, attacked the house. I mean, firstly, I'd be suggesting we need to crate train the dog, but that's another thing. But how will we tackle this so that the dog is not destroying the wall?

So a couple of things. Again, with every, you know, behaviour we see, 99% of the time it's a natural behaviour being practised, which chewing is, in an unnatural circumstance or an unwanted circumstance. We look at that and be like, all right, I know you've got to chew, but I don't need you doing this. So with everything, we just do a behaviour transition. We're like, hey, I'm going to give you 2 or 3 better options. And if our dog's got a chewing problem, we like to try and look at things that will be a nice replacement for it. So if your dog likes hard things, You know, looking at bones or things like that, coffee wood sticks, things they can really get their teeth stuck into. Or if your dog more so, we think, likes the element where they get to pull stuff off and make a bit of a mess, then we look at things like enrichment balls where they get to pull them apart, and then you can always pop it back together for them. So we first got to give them better options, but then we need to set some boundaries and show them, hey, that's not on, that's not allowed. And if your dog does this right in front of you, that's pretty easy. Just Set a firm boundary. Don't let them do it. Correct them for it. But if your dog's doing this in secret, what Husey needs to do is set up a camera, make him think his dog's gone. And then when Ginger starts getting stuck into the drywall, coming back in, capturing the act. No, don't do that.

Kevin Hart here. And it's cashbacking season. I'm getting scary amounts of cashback on all my Halloween stuff.

Do you like scary movies?

Have you seen my movies?

Yeah, big fan.

All right, scary guy. I'll see you around. It's cashbacking season with Chase Freedom. Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member of FDIC.

At Edward Jones, we believe rich isn't about having life all figured out. It's opening yourself to all the possibilities. That's why your dedicated financial advisor provides long-term planning built around you, meeting you where you are and helping you get closer to where you want to be. So no matter where you're starting from, you can move forward with confidence. The key to being rich is knowing what counts. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones, member SIPC.

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I know with Kira in the past, I've given her stuff to chew and she's like, yeah, she doesn't pay much attention to it. But if I've put her in a, in a crate and then put that thing in with her, because there's no other option, she goes, well, I'll have a go at this. And then she'll start chewing it. She's like, oh, hold on a second. This is actually pretty damn good. So then from there on, she knows that if I bring that thing to her, she's experienced it. And she goes, well, actually, I like chewing that thing. I'll chew it. So if you've got a dog that's going, you know what, I just don't want to chew that, maybe try that. Maybe put them in a situation where they have no other option but to have a go at what you've put with them. And because again, with dogs, if they've got too many options, then they'll just dart around until they find something that they want. They go, I'm not interested in that. I'll go try and chew the wall instead. Spot on. But obviously you've been doing this for a long time. Like, what are some of the most insane things you've seen a dog sort of destroy, do you think?

Yeah. So when you asked me this off air, I quickly had a quick think and wrote down the 5 that came to mind, some of the crazier ones. So there's a drywall one that I spoke to you about.

I mean, that was insane.

That was insane. The other 5 I'd say is, number 1 is I'd say I saw a dog who learned how to scratch and chew through doors. So doors inside our house, you'd think are like solid timber, but they're typically 2 really thin pieces. And honestly, there's a lot of cardboard. Almost like a lot of air, not a lot in there at all. And I had this Amstaff client whose dog figured, you know, and they're sorry, the Amstaff figured that out pretty quickly. So if you would go to another room and shut him out, he would figure out he could get through that thing pretty quickly. Straight through the door. They go, oh, we didn't realize, we were just in the shower, we could hear all this scratching and we thought, oh no, like we'll just ignore it. We, that's what we're told to do, which is cool. And then at some stage the noise got louder, we're like, oh, that's And then before you know it, the dog's sticking his head through the door going, can you hurry up? Come see me. Then once he learned to do it though, he started doing it everywhere and it became a real problem. Like he would just bust into rooms and start going for it and then get really pissy if you, you know, didn't let him do it. So it was a bit of a problem. Yeah, that was pretty hectic.

Here's Johnny.

Legit like The Shining. Then we had a dog who had chewed a couple of headrests.

In cars?

Yeah, in cars. They'd left him in there. He got a bit bored and just started going for the headrest, just like that scene in The Hangover with Mike when they stole Mike Tyson's tiger and he starts—

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, it's a pretty common one. We see quite a bit of that. Uh, a funny one growing up before I was a dog trainer. So, um, someone's— we, uh, we had a friend who had a chocolate lab called Roxy, and, um, she chewed the kids' new iPods on Christmas. So think of like that, all the kids have got new iPods back when iPods were like the thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And this kid had got a Nano or a Touch or whatever, and They'd all gone out for Boxing Day to the beach the next day, and Roxy just decided to rip into these things and destroyed, chewed the iPads. Didn't like obviously swallow them whole, but I think ingested quite a lot of broken glass and battery acid.

Well, see, that's the other problem that happens is like, you know, your dog's chewing these things and a lot of it's going in the gut.

Yeah.

It's like you see people with, you know, dog beds inside crates that have just been absolutely destroyed and you just, you're like, there is so much now stuffing inside that dog's stomach.

Yeah. Yeah. You try and put all the pieces of foam back together and you're like, this is not going to work.

We are missing a lot here.

We are missing a lot.

Yeah.

Roxy ruined Christmas on that one. Um, one of my clients— this was a few years ago. Do you remember when like PS5s were on backorder from—

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like a full thing and all that. Um, yeah, one of my clients got one and, you know, set it up on the TV unit and thing where the dog slept in the lounge room. And same, just one night they woke up, this big bang, and he just pulled it off and, um, and then started getting stuck into it. But he'd already done like the controllers at that point. And, um, yeah. So safe to say it was pretty stuffed pretty quickly. And then, uh, the other one was some clients a few years ago where it was on Christmas Eve, waking up Christmas morning. They'd had a big one that all the adults had been on the drinks, kids were asleep, Christmas trees under the presents, under the Christmas tree, dog left in the lounge room. They woke up, the dog had unwrapped everything and destroyed probably half of it. Just, you know, like the blister packaging all the toys were in, just got in every toy and chewed. And they're all kids that, you know, are going to have like all these plasticky trucks and dolls and action figures. And it just obliterated everything, got into the— what is it, that kinetic sand? You know that stuff?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sand was everywhere. Slime was everywhere. Action figures were everywhere. Eaten, you know, a couple of those Cadbury stockings full of chocolate. So I woke up Christmas morning, was straight to the emergency room and another dog that ruined Christmas.

Well, I mean, in saying this, I mean, the dog I've spoken about in the past, which, you know, we'll go back into the details of that. But, you know, it's before I understand all the stuff about, you know, enrichment and crate training, all that sort of stuff. And we— I had a German Shepherd cross Kelpie dog.

Yeah.

And, you know, even from a puppy, I remember, never forget, we— my wife and I went to work and we gave— because it was a wet, rainy day, we gave the dogs— because we had 2 dogs at the time— we gave them access to the laundry area.

Yeah.

Which had a doggy door.

Yeah.

And came home and opened that door to the laundry. And honestly, it looked like a crime scene. Like, I mean, not only was there mud up the walls, And the thing was only a puppy, only a small little puppy, but it had got on top of the washing machine.

Yeah.

It had. And luckily we turned everything off at the power point because it chewed through the washing machine cord, power cord that was plugged into the wall. But we had to turn off the power, thank God. And this is why you should be crate training your dogs, people, because things like that. Because I mean, if it was on, I mean, we would have come home to fried puppy.

Yeah.

But yeah, the dog bed was ripped up and it was just honestly the scene that we came home to was just It was just insane. And that was purely because the dog was bored and frustrated and just wanted to, you know, cause a ruckus. And, you know, I didn't do— I didn't know about crate training and I didn't know about any of this stuff. So, you know, learn from others' mistakes, everybody.

Yeah. Including ours.

Yeah. So there you go, Hughesy. If you want—

Any quick guess on which dog ate all the Christmas presents? What sort of breed?

Labrador.

Yeah.

It's always Labrador.

Yep. Always.

Yeah. So there you go, Hughesy. Some unsolicited advice for you with your beautiful dog. So yeah, get, get Ginger trained, mate.

Come on. What are you doing?

Ginger Ninja. Come on, mate.

All right. Any questions, as always, go to the Dog People Podcast Facebook group and we'll get them answered for you. The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill. Edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

Kevin Hart here, and it's cashbacking season. I'm getting scary amounts of cash back on all my Halloween stuff.

Do you like scary movies?

Have you seen my movies?

Yeah, big fan.

All right, scary guy, I'll see you around. It's cashbacking season with Chase Freedom.

Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA member FDIC.

At Edward Jones, we believe rich isn't about having life all figured out. It's opening yourself to all the possibilities. That's why your dedicated financial advisor provides long-term planning built around you, meeting you where you are and helping you get closer to where you want to be. So no matter where you're starting from, you can move forward with confidence. The key to being rich is knowing what counts. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones, member SIPC.