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Arrrgg!!! Chewing Everything!!!

moniechris

Well-known member
I am soooo enfuriated and my hubby is about to throw Cody and Zoey out the window. We just bought a new house in October and in doing so, purchased all new furniture (not cheap either). Cody and Zoey have this lovely little habit of chewing on the corners of our new chairs and this afternoon DESTROYED one of our livingroom chairs and had stuffing all over the place. The have also chewed on the corners of our tables, arms of the lounge chair (not to mention every pair of underwear that I own).


How do I stop this??!!! I have bitter appled everything in the house and I swear they think it is ketchup!! I try my best to keep all clothes off the floor and I know this is the only way to prevent then from chewing that, but seriously, I laid down to take a 30 minute nap today and my chair now has to be completely tossed.

I have bought bully sticks in bulk but they fight over them, so I can't trust them with bully sticks unsupervised. HELP!!
 
I corral them in the kitchen when I leave the house, but I hate to have them barracaded all day even when I am home :( I usually don't let them loose for 30 minutes alone, but the damage can be done as quickily as a quick trip to the bathroom. :confused:
 
Maddy has been pretty good except for one thing. She loves fake plants and trees. She bites them up and tosses them around the house. I have temporarily moved them into the basement.
Pam
 
How old are they? If under a year, they will be more inclined to chew.

I would agree that they are chewing because they can. The only way you can stop this is training and supervision. This means you cannot let them loose in the house with access to things you don't want chewed. Keeping them in a single room is plenty of room when you aren't home, so I'd not feel bad about that aspect of things. I'd never leave my dogs with the run of the house -- simply would not trust them with that much access or freedom.

Dogs generally chew because of boredom, anxiety, or simply needing something to chew on. A lot of dogs feel a lot LESS anxious without a whole house to wander in (two of mine are this way). A whole house is a big empty space and can be intimidating when suddenly no human is there with them. But you are saying the issue is really when you ARE there -- which means a management problem.

So the best answer is really -- first, don't give them that kind of access; second, make sure they have appropriate chew toys and are always immediately redirected to them and praised when you are there; third, never left in a situation where you are not watching them where they might get a chance to chew (every time they are able to do an unwanted behaviour reinforces that they ARE allowed to do this. Prevention means lack of access combined with training/redirection when you are there. Lots of dogs could care less about bitter apple and other deterrents of that sort -- never bothered Jaspar one jot!). If yu go to the bathroom -- then crate the dogs or confine to a safe room. Close doors so they don;t have access to the rooms where the problems occur unless you are there.

Finally -- they likely will encourage each other in unwanted behaviours sometimes and this can be twice as hard to stop as a consequence. You are effectively having to do double the training as each dog must be worked with individually.
 
Oh, welcome to the world of young dogs. This is the way it is unless you set things into place to stop them from doing this. If I remember correctly, your youngest is still under 12 months old right? These things are easily sorted by using an x-pen, or even a couple joined together if you want them to have a bit more space. And yes, you just can't leave clothes & shoes laying around on the floor. It is too much to expect of a young dog not to have a chew.

I never forges the funny but sage words someone told me....

If your dog does something naughty. Pick up a rolled up newspaper, & belt yourself over the head 6 times, all the while saying "naughty mummy, naughty mummy, naughty mummy".

As flippant as this may sound, that is along the lines of a conversation that we had at obedience classes last Sunday. Our teacher said that every time our dogs do the wrong thing, it is because we did not do the things that we need to do to ensure it does not happen. So, just a little planning and you will have this all under control. :flwr:
 
Like others have said, the only thing that works consistantly is constant supervision. Maybe you need to buy an x-pen and put them in it every time you leave the room. A lot of work for a while, but may be the only sure thing. And be careful about locking them in a kitchen or bathroom; most kitchen and baths I have seen have wood cabinets.

With little puppies around, you should see our house! Seems like legs of furniture get the worst of it. As an experiment, last year I made a coffee table and used 1 1/4" copper pipe (polished and laquered it) for legs. That worked great, so sometime this summer I'm going to replace the legs on our dining room table with polished and laquered copper. We always buy furniture with our dogs in mind: chew resistant (not always possible), colors that work with the fur, etc.

Those cute little puppies sure can be a lot of trouble. Just one of the costs of starting with a puppy.
 
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