[Lanilessard]

Alrighty, this is about Bubba, the same dog I posted about last time. However now I'm trying to tackle an issue of his, he has started to destroy everything. He's 8 months old and only in the last month he has chewed up a pair of flip flops from the shoe bin, makeup brushes out of my bag, my can of air freshener, a CHUNK of my drywall, and has made confetti with all his tennis balls, a Kong stuffed animal, most of his ropes, and the toy box that held these items. He has a kong treat thing, bones, antlers, rubber toys, and one giant rope left. He has plenty to chew but he's been choosing my things instead. And only recently. I've had him since he was 7 weeks old. He doesn't do well in a crate, he has diarrhea as soon as I close the door on it so I don't put him in it. I'm not sure what to do.

 

[kelly528]

Whenever you can, put things high up and out of reach. If he has issues in his crate (which, don't get me wrong, are completely solvable but I'll address one thing at a time here) either make him a "doggy-proof" spot by tethering him to something sturdy like a table-leg or a bannister, or screwing an eye-hook into a wall stud and having that as your tether point. You can also look at putting him in an ex-pen, depending on his size.

Chewing is largely a matter of habit formation. If he is simply prevented from chewing on anything other than bones and kongs for 10 months straight, guess what will be his go-to's for chewing when you give him reign of the house?

 

[Dawnben]

I he getting enough exercise he sounds bored.

 

[ChessaQ]

If he's getting into that much stuff, he's probably not being watched enough. I've never let my dogs wander the house until i know they're trustworthy. The only way to stop chewing is to put everything possible up and have them always in sight so you can stop it before any real damage is done.

I have a pup that's a little over a year, and she's always been quite the chewer. But whenever she's inside, she has always been supervised, so she's never gotten into anything except chewed the corner off a book while i was sleeping. Every time she looked at something that wasn't hers, i said no and took it, or moved her away. Now i trust her to wander the house for short periods of time, and she's fine in my bedroom if not left for more than 4 hours or so.

It takes time and patience, and mostly, always supervising them.

 

[Horam90]

Baby gates have been our saviour. If for any reason we can't be around to watch Luna then we put her in the kitchen/hallway with baby gates across the stairs and lounge doors.

If we left her somewhere she could get in to things then we would have no sofa cushions or coffee table left.

Definitely look into restricting her space when you don't have your eyes on her.

I've also found raw bones are great, it gives them a good 40 minutes of chewing.

 

[timber]

He could be starting the dreaded teenage phase where many things learned are forgotten. Basically the only thing that can be done at this point is making sure things are out of reach at all times, giving extra exercise (both mental and physical), praising lavishly when he chews on things he's allowed to, and teaching important commands such as "leave it" and such.

Tynan went through a phase where he also ate the drywall. The only thing that made him stop instantly was making a hot pepper paste and putting it on the spots on the wall he was eating. One taste of that and he never did it again...ever. He literally ate all the way through to the insulation. While I didn't want to do anything mean to him as a prevention method, the thought of him potentially getting to something in the walls life-threatening (insulation, wiring, etc), I weighed the lesser evils and went with hot pepper paste.