About Your Dog's Destructive Chewing

Chewing is normal behavior for inquisitive puppies who may be teething, but older dogs might practice in destructive chewing for any number of reasons. Chewing provides a skittish, bored, or lonely dog with an outlet for her emotions.

The phrase “destructive chewing” might sound redundant, because by its very nature all chewing is destructive. Your dog has strong jaws full of sharp, pointy teeth: almost anything your dog starts to chew on is probably going to show the results of it inside of a minute. So just to make this clear, if I use the phrase destructive chewing, I’m talking of inappropriate chewing: the kind of chewing that’s centered on your possessions and household items, instead of on your dog’s own designated toys and chews.

The three primary reasons why dogs chew:

- Most dogs have a natural desire to chew. It’s fun, it passes the time, and it’s a self-rewarding, self-reinforcing past-time (for example, if your dog's chewing on something that's tasty.)

- Chewing allows for a tense, bored, or lonely dog with an outlet for her emotions. To a nervous dog, the repetitive routine of chewing is relaxing it’s the doggie equivalent of consolation food.

- Fat dogs often use chewing as a way of using up nervous energy and granting themselves an activity to do.

- How to preclude destructive chewing -

Dogs are perfectly capable of learning not to chew your belongings you just have to put in a bit of effort first, that’s all.

1. Take control of the situation: manage your own possessions. Your first step should be to dog-proof your home. Even if you own the best-behaved dog in the world, there’s still no reason to test her self-control after all, dogs experience the world with their mouths.

Dog-proofing your house requires taking what you don’t want to end up in her mouth, and making it unavailable. Consider your dog's size and agility when deciding whether something’s out of reach: can your dog jump? Can your dog climb, or leap onto something else to reach the desired object? How tall is your dog whenever standing on your dog's hind legs?

Common targets in the home include books, eyewear, clothes, slippers, garbage, and small crunchy appliances like cameras, cell phones, and remote controls.

It should go without saying that all food has to be put securely away: don’t leave snacks on low tables (or even countertops you’d be amazed how acrobatic your dog can be when there’s food at stake!), put all food into containers or the pantry. Rinse your dirty plates clean of any food scraps prior to leaving them by the sink.

2. Prevent her from discovering the joys of illegal chewing. The more times your dog manages to snatch a mouthful of a forbidden substance a chair-leg, a pillow, a running shoe the more readily your dog will target those items in the future. If you can prevent her from chewing your stuff in the first place, it’s much easier for your dog to realize what you expect of her. Practically speaking, this means confining your dog in a dog-proofed area until you’re confident of your dog's understanding of the house rules.

3. Don’t set her up for failure by confusing the boundaries between your dog's stuff (OK to chew) and your stuff (not OK to chew). Don’t offer your dog old clothes, shoes, or towels to chew and play with: realistically, you can’t possibly expect your dog to be able to tell the difference between your current shoes and the one your dog's got in your dog's mouth that you gave her a few minutes ago.

4. Provide her with lots of tasty alternatives to your stuff. If her environment is somewhat barren of attractive, appropriate chewing toys, you can hardly blame her for targeting your possessions. Remember, many dogs need to chew; if she’s an adolescent (under three years) or a puppy (under one year), your dog's needs will be even more pronounced. Go on a toy and chew shopping spree, then give your dog two or three to play with at a time. Rotating the available toys every few days will keep things fun and interesting for her.

5. Spend lots of time in active supervision. True, it might be easier for you to just keep your dog penned up in her crate, kennel, or the yard but that’s boring and horrible for your dog, and hardly much fun for you either (if you wanted a pet that you don’t have to interact with, you’d have got a goldfish, right?) Your dog can’t learn what you expect of her if she’s spending all her time contained in the dog-proof zone: she needs the chance to explore the boundaries of your expectations, so your dog can comprehend what’s appropriate and what’s not.

6. Whenever you catch your dog chewing anything inappropriate, interrupt her by making a loud noise: clap your hands or make an Ah-ah-aaaah! sound. Then, immediately hand her a yummy and dog-appropriate alternative (a rawhide bone or other chew toy); as soon as your dog's jaws close around it, praise your dog lavishly. There is no better way to get your dog to realize that chewing your dog's toys promotes praise from you, but everything else equals trouble.

- Maintain a positive attitude -

Above all, remember to keep your expectations sensible. You’re not ideal, and neither is your dog: there’s likely to be at least one incident where a cherished possession is damaged by her curiosity.

Especially in the early stages of your relationship, your dog's still learning the ropes: it’ll take some time before your dog's completely reliable (and even then, if she’s left by herself for too long or feels neglected, she may choose your stuff over hers to occupy her time and jaws with.) Remember to give her time to learn the rules, and plenty of you-time’ to help her learn faster and don’t forget to take precautions and keep things out of reach until she’s got the hang of the chewing rules!

Article Source: http://www.articles2use.com - a Rentaccomspain.com company.

For more information on dog training techniques and how to handle problem dog behavior (like chewing), check out SitStayFetch . It's the ideal manual for dog ownership and is designed to speed-up your dog’s training. New! Click here to get your Free Dog Training Course

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated