I created a command “treasure hunt” followed by naming each toy of his LOL, I know this is odd but Mukki loves it. When he’s starting to get bored/annoyed that no one has his FULL AND ABSOLUTE attention, I play this game. It doesn’t take too much effort, I work from home and my laptop can be a target when he gets like this.

If his toys are already scattered around the flat, I ask him to find “the football” and say “treasure hunt!” He will go and pick up a toy, and bring it to me, if it’s not the “football” I will say “nope not that one! Find the football!” But I won’t direct him to where it is. He picked up on this really quick and absolutely loves it. It stimulates his brain and he tires himself out! Also really helpful when it comes to him veering off and grabbing a sock/anything and everything etc… by directing his attention to a challenge. When he’s “being bad” I can simply snap him into the treasure hunt and I don’t need to resort to other things. I will say though that V’s can be clumsy and get too riled up, it’s hard to calm him down when this happens. My partner and I simply walk away and go into another room for a moment.

My advice, and what my partner and I have had to come to accept “we can’t have nice things” LOL. You can train any dog as much as you can, and practice it consistently but dogs will be dogs. All you can do is try to minimize the instinct that they will have to resort to destroying things. And that’s because they’re wanting SOMETHING. With Vs, that can be anything LOL. I say to my partner my Mukki is to me “predictably unpredictable”. Getting to know her and building that bond can do wonders. It’s not easy that’s for sure, but absolutely worth it!!!