We are on day 6 with our chocolate girl, Von. She is a great puppy and she is adjusting well to our busy lifestyle. We have 3 small kids, ages 2, 5, and 7. She gets to go to soccer practices, school drop offs, pickups, walks to the park, and more. We are just loving her! Since the kids have toys I want Von to have plenty of things to chew on so that we can avoid her chewing on things around the house. So far she has a kong and a nylabone. What are your pup's favorite things to chew on? Von is 13 weeks now, so I'm getting ready for her crazy teething to start!! Also she has been picking up wood chips in our backyard and trying to eat them. Any suggestions to get her to stop this?
Our pup love to chew his Benebones (got them on Amazon) and he loves bully sticks as a treat. He will chew on one for 1/2 hour or so.
I didn’t leave my pups with anything to chew on. They only had/have toys when they are interacting with me, with the exception of Kongs. If you don’t want pup chewing on things around the house you need to ‘puppy proof’ a zone and remove anything pup could get. I would certainly have separate areas for the kids & pup, as both need their own space on occasions. A gated community, crates, playpen… concept. Mine were terrible for picking up stones, so I would distract with a game or find it (scatter treats in the grass) and totally ignore what they had in their mouths (unless dangerous) they soon lost interest in the stones. You can do an exchange too but careful it doesn’t turn into the dog working you for this
Von has her crate and we've moved the kids' toys upstairs to their loft. The kids are pretty good at giving her space, so far! It's enevitable that toys will be left out here and there, so hopefully she will learn "leave it" and "drop it" quickly! I really like the find it game! I'll give that a try. Thank you!
We've had good luck with Kong-branded stuff and bad luck with cheaper stuff. Have a mix of soft and hard. Consider buying 20 toys now, and keep 2-3 available for Von at any one time. Swap out 1 or 2 toys every day and replace with new ones (putting the others in a plastic box). Keep going with this cycle. Sometimes you can "feel" that puppy wants something harder to chew on (>give rubber toys) or something softer when teething (>give softer toy). The result for us was: - puppy doesn't get bored with his toys. - "new" toys appear every day and it's a week or two before he sees removed ones again. - puppy always likes getting something "new", which gives a "rewarding opportunity". - puppy has only "stolen" a shoe once in his whole life. - we've had no problems with chewing furniture (maybe puppy prefers chewing on something small, manageable and "new" rather than something like a chair leg). Isn't that rather a lot of money? Yes, 150-200€ was a lot to shell out on toys, but: - it was massively cheaper than replacing a damaged sofa - toys wear out as they get chewed, and need replacing anyway, so over the long term you're not actually having to buy any more toys. PS We wash toys periodically at 60°C in the washing machine (using maybe 10ml of laundry liquid).
Thank you for the advice! I really like the idea of rotating toys! I do that with my little ones, so it should work for Von too! She really likes soft toys right now, so it will be fun picking out some new ones to put into the rotation.
