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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scotley" data-source="post: 1444325" data-attributes="member: 11520">I'm am no expert, but I can share some positive experiences. We have a wonderfully well adjusted 4-year old Boxer named Rolex (good watchdog...heh). Time and more room to roam will make a big difference. Having a "friend" will help too. We got our Boxer a cat. Sounds like a cat wont work for you, but having a buddy in the house makes a huge difference. Of course Rolex was having seperation anxiety pretty bad. Boxers are high energy dogs too, but they really want to be with their people and hate to be alone. We found the leaving the tv or radio on was good for him too. They are considerably larger than a Jack Russell (btw, whats this Parson Russell stuff?) and capable of epic destruction if not properly trained. You might consider another dog. We felt Rolex would be too jelous of another dog and that's why we chose a cat. 70 pound Rolex does sleep in our queen sized bed with us. He's pretty spoiled and expects to be the center of attention. As a side note, a co-worker of mine recently lost the older of her pair of Jack Russells and now the remaining one has started to be destructive, so far Murphy is only tearing up pet toys, but she worries he will get worse. When Rolex was 8-12 months old there was much destruction at our house. He tore thru a door and chewed up some door frames, a couple of large window seat cusions, a couple of cell phones and even a stair at the bottom of the landing. We did put a little hot sauce on the corner of the stair and that stopped his chewing there. Worst of all he tore into a backpack of my gaming books and destroyed my brand new 3.0 dungeon masters guide. We also went thru about five remote controls as well. We have kids at home and keeping everything Rolex might chew up put away was beyond them, so he had to learn. He learns better than they do.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Anyway, we gradually got away from the crate at about 6 months because we felt he was so much wilder after a few hours in there (we were able to let him out at lunch). I really feel 11-12 hours in the crate plus nights is asking too much of your dog. It sounds like you live in an apartment, is there anyone who could come visit during the day? Anyway, we started with some gates and a closed door in the kitchen. We moved out anything he could tear up and gave him some room during the day. He did destroy a door and we found a gate he could see through was a much better solution. It was tough and the damage he caused was upsetting, but we only used positive methods and a stern voice (and a couple drops of hot sauce once). We would also make short trips so we could return and "catch him being good" before he got started destoying something and then reward him.Now we only have to keep the remote controls out of reach and he has the run of most of the house during the day. He is much happier with more freedom and his cat. He hasn't had an "accident" or chewed anything up in years. We do keep a gate at the hallway to the kids rooms because we worry about him getting choked on a small toy, but really I doubt he would even bother them. We do have dog toys and raw hide chews all over the house and he has a bay window seat where he can sit and see what is happening in the neighborhood. I think that ability to see out and have some room to roam were the most important components in turning Rolex into a well adjusted dog. His pet toys do eventually start to come apart with play (he's very strong and no cloth in the world can stand up to his jaws and paws for long) and we discard them, but he leaves shoes, footballs, pillows, cordless phones, books, backpacks and all the other stuff that gets left out at our house when he is alone alone. I wish you the best of luck and hope you'll give us an update. Scotley</blockquote>

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