Still very mouthy at 11 months old?!

Hi!

Well, Ruby will be 1 next month. I can't believe it! Here's something I'm noticing with her that I haven't with my other 2 dogs. (she's my first and only Cavalier) She is still quite mouthy! Wanting to chew everything in sight, sometimes her toys and other times shoes, chair legs, you name it! Anyone know if Cavaliers take a bit longer to mature on the mouth side of things? It just seems like the poor thing has to chew!!! :lpy:

--Oh, she has no puppy teeth left and there's no blood when she's chewing. It doesn't seem painful, more fun than anything! Also, she gets lots of attention, exercise and has been to obedience class!

Thanks!

--Jessie and Ruby

Polly is the same way at 10 1/2 months old. I call her my little billy goat because she chews on shoes, clothes, boxes, etc. She has tons of toys as well but still chews on things like this. I have no doubts that she will eventually outgrow it

Well, Daisy is almost 4 and we have to police anything small enough to fit in her mouth, making sure nothing is within her reach. She has given up on shoes, socks, and the cabinet corners, thank goodness, but small toy pieces are still a nightmare. She even pokes her head through the mesh screen on the fireplace to grab little pieces of lava rock to chew on. (I know, I know, we talked to the vet about it and he said it could be very dangerous if she swallows them, so we have clipped the two sides of the screen together and moved all the rocks way to the back. But I actually don't think she is interested in swallowing them, she just keeps working them around her mouth for long periods of time and then she spits them out and walks away. Maybe that's why the vet told me today that her teeth are very clean!) It is unreal. But give her a nice rawhide chew toy and she wants nothing to do with it.

She will stand on her hind legs and reach as far as possible with her front feet onto the big coffee table we have in the family room to try to rake off anything small enough to put in her mouth. She just chews things till they are destroyed and then leaves them on the floor. Our last significant casualty was the little plastic safety device to my son's new BB gun he got for Christmas. Totally mangled. She also is obsessed with his foam Nerf bullets and rips them apart whenever she finds one (Boy, we sound violent, don't we? Guns, bullets... Couldn't be further from the truth -- no one in this house has ever shot a living thing! Nor do we plan to!)

To my knowledge, she has never swallowed any part of these little things, but it scares me that she will. Sometimes she is clearly holding items hostage because she goes running by us with them in her mouth very excitedly and then sits right in front of us. We say "drop it!" but she will just hold it in her mouth till we go get a treat and then she spits it out immediately like yesterday's news. It is hilarious but annoying, too.

So hopefully your Ruby will outgrow it, but Daisy has not. I never dreamed we would have to be this vigilant with a full-grown dog. I don't know if she's the exception or the rule, but I was unprepared for it based on my prior dogs. Good luck!

You can add Lucy to the list of Grab it & Chew its. She's just a year old now, and we also have to police anything small enough to fit into her mouth. She sounds exactly like Daisy.

Daisy was just a total beast of destruction...
Holly has a lot of catching up to do.She seems relatively happy with her little box of toys and will happily chew nylabone keys,toy puppy and a kong and a few assorted hard balls.
She finished off the wooden computer table that Daisy started to eat,we've replaced it with a toughened glass one and it has stainless steel legs.She's also gotten the four corners of a coffee table but they're just at such a perfect height for cavaliers so all in all, a decent box of toys is a good investment.(they'll eat the box too)
Puppyhood seems to last quite a while for cavaliers...
Sins

Many dogs chew til around age 1, some longer, and some are this way for their entire life. My two males liked to chew til about 1 then suddenly just stopped, but I know cavaliers that would be better classified as termites!

Best policy is always management: do not leave anything out that you do not want chewed; do not leave the dog unsupervised around anything you don't mind being chewed, and make sure the dog has plenty of good chews to satisfy that need; redirect attention to the chews. Kongs are good -- stop feeding her from a bowl and give her meal in a kong in her crate, so she has to chew and work for it.

The act of chewing seems to give dogs a lot of pleasure - rather like small children with a dummy (or their thumb - perhaps it does have something to do with suckling). Oliver will sometimes bring in a piece of gravel and just roll and roll it round his mouth. Aled is a bit more destructive (edges of files and books that land up on the floor in my small office) but I think that's a hangover from boredom at the puppy farm, and he can be diverted with a chew. Finding something like a kong that they enjoy chewing and endless persistance in making clear that furniture is a no-no and kongs are a good idea seems to be the only answer - and leave them crated or confined to a chew-free area when you're out if you can't move the furniture every time!

Kate, Oliver and Aled

Chaos is 6 and although she has never chewed anything she shouldn't. she still likes to have a good chomp on her nylon vanilla flavoured bone. Her cavalier friend Leyla likes them too and when she is over they quite often lay down together having a chew. The other dogs are not interested in these at all. When she was younger I did use to give her hide chews and marrow bones but stopped that as they used to fight over the marrow bones and the hide chews would get stuck in her throat and nearly choke her. So would recommend the nylon bones.