One thing that has worked well for me in training hard headed labs is to punish them with what ever they destroyed( Im not advocating animal abuse but the dog needs to understand who is the boss), and then tie it to there collar for 3 or 4 days. I had a lab that didn't understand how strong he was and liked to play with the cats, Thinned the cats population but was not veiwed lightly by the family. Another time was with the chickens. Once we tied them to him after he killed them, we would leave him in his kennel for a day or two. He would never look at them again, in fact he would leave the area if he saw them. As for house hold items this method works equally as well with a little persistance.
I'm all for any tough love that "hardwires" out said bad behavior!
I once had a Siberian Husky that just loved to run and run and run. One time I was playing a baseball game about 20 miles from home and see him waiting for a red light at a busy downtown Kirkland stoplight with the other pedestrians. Got home and there he was waiting for dinner. So my folks and I got tired of picking him up at the pound so we had to figure out a way to keep him in the back yard. He was a big digger and would dig his way out.
A co-worker who trained guard dogs suggested that however he gets out of the backyard is how you get him back in the backyard. Basically if he jumped the fence throw him over the fence. If he dug under the fence shove him back thru the hole he dug. Great idea in principle but a wee bit tougher to apply. So he escapes again and after his rounds he returns home and I grab him by the collar and start to drag him to the backyard. All was cool until he saw his hole and figured out what I was going to do. Took about a 1/2 hour and we where both a bloody mess and extremely pissed off at each other but I finally got him thru that tiny little hole and he never dug his way out again!
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