I have a 9 month yellow lab, who chews his bed while in his crate. We have gone through many!! He always has plenty of toys and bones. Did get him a Kong this weekend, which he seems to love. Petco suggested buying Bitter Apple spray to use, has anyone tried. He also chews his toys that have stuffing, as he likes to pull out the stuffing. Any ideas on how to help with this behavior?
Get rid if the bed use a piece of fleece, mine never get beds until they are a least 2. Bitter apple can work but it just depends how determined they are.
Hi and welcome! Yes, I have to agree with the other two on just getting rid of the temptation. Neither of my boys were destructive chewers, but they also didn't get nice proper beds until over a year old and 100% trustworthy. Up until then I just used old beach towels and fleece pads ("vet bed" in the UK) to make soft and easily cleanable bedding.
Vet bed is great, I give chewers vet bed and a rolled up blanket as a pillow Some of my pieces of vet bed are ten years old - it washes and dries really easily too. Here is a link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Paws-Vetbe...e=UTF8&qid=1489306526&sr=1-6&keywords=Vet+bed .... ...
Only give stuffed toys under close supervision if he is a de-stuffer, just to make sure he's not eating bits of them. Or don't give them at all - we don't. Coco has rope-tugs, balls, rubber kong toys - but ALL are used interactively, never alone. We had loads of stuffed toys left by Scooby, our previous Lab, they have been put away or given away. Coco is a destroyer of toys.
Great advice!! I just bought another bed Friday from Petco, which was suppose to be durable for chewers, but not for my Gus. I have 60 days they will take back, even if chewed. Will exchange for Vetbed, hopefully they carry.
Cookie ate away a gel pen today evening. Half of the pen has gone missing and his tongue is all blue. Vet not be reachable till tomorrow morning! It's night here, does anyone know what to do ?
Bitter spray made no difference to Snowie - he seemed to like it!! He never chewed his bed but he loved the skirting board so we sprayed it there. In the end he ripped out the skirting board and we had to replace it. The bitter spray was horrible for us - once on your hands it won't come off and it made our food taste terrible if we touched it. I remember a lovely big bunch of grapes was ruined!
I'm always surprised when people recommend a fleece blanket/towel and vet bed for chewers. I don't know if Indie was a special case of 'super chewer', but towels, blankets and especially vet bed got immediately ripped apart and ingested! The vet bed was the worst - lovely fluffy stuff to rip off?! It didn't last 5 minutes in our house, and induced some mad humping sessions to make matters worse! I remember a few times where I would take everything out of her crate in tears and let her lie on the bare crate floor because there was literally nothing that I could put in it that would be safe for her, and I felt dreadful. Thankfully those days are gone and she sleeps in a 'big girl bed' now with no crate but, if your dog is a 'super chewer' like indie was, vet bed and blankets are not going to work - the only thing that survived was a tough plastic and canvas raised bed (kurunda bed) which saved us! Hopefully your pup isn't that bad and a comfy blanket would do, but there are chewers and then there are CHEWERS
We went through several beds (including an Orvis chew resistant bed - HAH - and a vet bed fleece)(and I actually posted for advice). The only bed that is now working is the K9 Ballistic bed. I think it works because it fastens to the crate via plastic ties and Brady can't lift it to start chewing on it. It's also a great fabric that somehow doesn't smell like wet dog after a morning in the local pond. We have the Kuranda bed and use that as well for non-crate time. That bed has survived two previous labs and is pretty indestructible. I think they make one for a crate but I don't have that version.
