I’ll explain more about why I think my dogs are behaving this way.
My wife and I moved into a new house two weeks ago. We’re both away for work 10+ hours twice a week and can’t leave our dogs inside that long. Two of our four dogs can’t be left outside because of the stress they go through. I’ve tried leaving them outside for a week (2-5 hours at a time), and they’ve hurt themselves trying to get back inside every day.
We have a yard that’s divided because two of the dogs don’t get along. Last week, we came home to find one of them had climbed a 1.6m wall and hurt himself badly, even grinding his claws down to the flesh. There was blood all over the wall.
I’m really at a loss about what to do. We used to leave them inside since we lived nearby, but now we can’t. Both of us work full-time and commute 30-45 minutes each way. I can’t leave them inside for 10 hours, but I can’t leave them outside either.
We live in Thailand, so dog trainers and temporary dog homes aren’t easy to find. We don’t have the money for a sitter, and the dogs don’t trust strangers. We’re also busy with house issues and chores, which makes training them hard.
I don’t know what to do. I need help. I love my dogs so much, but I’m becoming distant from them because I’m terrified of something bad happening. Life was already stressful, but this situation is making it worse.
Here’s the full story:
We had two dogs that could stay outside when needed. We found our other two dogs abandoned when they were puppies. They were too young to be away from their mom, but we took them in, hoping to find them a home. Sadly, there are so many stray dogs here in Thailand that we ended up keeping them.
We had a parvo outbreak in our neighborhood, and they couldn’t go outside until they had their vaccinations at 6 months. Then, because of COVID, they didn’t get outside much. Since they were so young when we got them, they didn’t learn to socialize with other dogs. This caused them to be socially behind.
We moved to a new place with no boundary walls, so we couldn’t leave them outside without supervision. We built some basic bamboo fences, but they didn’t last long. We had to keep them inside while we went to work. We worked close by, so we could come home for bathroom breaks.
The dogs started fighting, I think over dominance. One fight was so bad, it looked like something out of Fight Club, and we almost lost one of them. After that, we kept them separated.
Now we’ve moved to a new house further from work, so we can’t come home during breaks. The house has boundary walls, and we put up a yard divider to keep the younger dogs separate, but it’s still been really stressful. One dog tried to dig through a back door and hurt his face badly. They’ve also scratched up the sliding doors, and one dog hurt his feet while jumping into the yard section with his brother. They don’t get along, so luckily they didn’t fight.
I’m constantly worried about them—about the damage they’re doing to themselves, the house, and whether their noise will upset the neighbors (because poisoning dogs is sadly common here). I’m afraid they’ll jump over the wall and cause problems outside.
They’re fine being left inside. They don’t make accidents, and they just relax on their beds until we get home. We can’t leave a door open though, because of mud and local wildlife.
I’m sorry for the long message. I’m really stuck and don’t know what to do. Please help.
