Stop Your Puppy From Chewing

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Does your puppy chew a little too much? It is important to train your puppy to stop chewing on everything in the house. With these tips, you can successfully get your dog to stop chewing on everything he sees. I will also share some of the crazy things our shepherd puppy chewed that you’ll probably never believe.

Let’s get started…

Crate training your puppy is a fantastic way to house train your dog and an added bonus to the house training is the fact that if the pup is in the crate it can’t chew on the dining room table legs.

If you can do the necessary things to get your dog thru those chewing months then maybe you will never suffer the agony of the shredded couch.

Another very simple but effective method of keeping your dog from chewing is to always keep your dog with you. What I’m talking about is when your dog isn’t in the crate keep it him/her attached to you.  Simply attach a leash to the collar and then attach the leash to your belt or wrist so wherever you go the puppy comes with you and won’t have a chance to chew on anything that’s inappropriate.

Another thing you can do to divert your puppy’s attention away from the things he/she isn’t supposed to chew on is to make sure he/she has plenty of doggy toys.   My favorite toys are puzzle toys that you can hide treats in.  They actually can act as a babysitter for your puppy and provide a long stretch of entertainment.  

And an added bonus of puzzle toys is that while your puppy is trying to figure out how to get the treats out they are actually burning energy.  We all know how much energy puppies have so these puzzle toys are a great way to entertain them, distract them and help them burn off some energy. 

I’ve included a link at the bottom of the page for a great puzzle treat ball I highly recommend and use discount code PUZZLETOY20 during checkout to save 20% for a limited time. 

And you can also use a spray that your puppy doesn’t like the taste of on items you do not want him/her to chew on.  Yes, this really works.  Using a good bitter apple product can help with the chewing problem by making things taste badly.  The product that I One product you could try si Grannicks Bitter Apple.

Consistency is important.  You can’t let your new dog chew on some old tennis shoes and then be upset when it destroys a new pair of Nike’s.  No chewing means no chewing on anything unless it belongs to the pup and it is made to be chewed.

Chewing is normal for a puppy, but getting him to chew on the correct items is important.  And one final tip…if you have small children who leave stuffed animals lying around the house I would suggest not giving your puppy furry fluffy doggy toys.  They don’t know the difference between their toy and your child’s toy and will quickly mistake your child’s toy for their own.

I have a german shepherd, pit bull mix dog we rescued when he was just 6 months old.  I have never experienced a dog chewing on so many different things.  The good news is it just suddenly stopped when he turned about 2 years old but the stuff he chewed on in the meantime was truly unbelievable.  It got to a point where we had to remove everything in any are of the house he had access to. 

Some of his worse offense were chewing an entire underarm deodorant, container, contents and all which could not have been good for his stomach.  Another time we had a bar-b-que and had darts on the bar stool outside.  Suddenly I started finding the darts all chewed up but couldn’t find the tips.  I frantically searched around the yard and house and eventually found all 6 tips about 5 minutes away from heading to the vet for x-rays.  Another somewhat funny incident was Christmas.  Not only did I have to put a baby gate around our entire tree because he chewed the whole lower level or ornaments to pieces but I also put red velvet bows up our entire staircase around the iron spindles.  One day I got home and every single one of them had been chewed and the only thing left was the golden tie and shred of velvet.  I actually left it this way through Christmas because it made me laugh.

Needless to say, cleaning up his poop was always an adventure and many times it was quite colorful.

While this isn’t really a laughing matter and can be not only costly for you, but also dangerous for your dog, looking back, now I can chuckle.  At the time, it wasn’t funny at all.

What’s the craziest thing your dog has chewed up or eaten?  Let me know in the comments below.