Dexter is now 5 months and we decided to decrate him over night. He's really good with peeing outside, I work from home in a seperate room and he's free to roam though the house and keep himself busy and he sleeps well only moaning if we accidentally sleep in and he needs to go toilet. So we thought we would give it a go, Dexter has never been a chewer and the first 2 weeks went really well he either slept in his crate with door open or on his bed but two or three times we have come down in the morning and he is chewing a book or a memory stick he has grabbed from the coffee table. I'm not sure how to tackle this (except to remove everything) as he never chews when we are around? So I don't know how to train him not to chew if I never see him chew?
They will chew best thing to do is remove anything chewable but this is the age when they tend to chew the most. I still crate Rory at night and when I'm at work because I don't trust him yet. Usually around 12 to 18 months they get less chewy but Rory is still a bit well chewy. i leave him for short periods now and am building up to a crate less night. Last time i did this he was fine for a few weeks then one night he tried to eat a washing machine. I just assume they will chew at this age and don't take any chances. I've also learned to have a eagle eye at what they might find interesting to chew, like as seam on a kitchen door. They seem to have sharp eyes for imperfections in surfaces or doors and like to work on them. Doug my oldest dog tried to eat a radiator when he was teething. I also use some of the bitter sprays they can help. Also if they start to chew on one particular area they will retun to it again and again if they can so I protect this area so that it does not become a habit.
Hi there,at 5 months you can definitely see signs that they are going to be ok....I could, but it's far too young to trust them! We put everything away and gradually replaced as he could be trusted for longer and longer unsupervised periods of time......
Okay great thanks guys, I am going to recrate him at night, he loves his crate anyway so it's no problem That definitely made me laugh at Rory randomly trying to eat the washing machine. We have been lucky so far in that Dexter only chews little replaceable things (coasters books etc) and not big furnishings! *touch wood* I will move everything out of the way too, just to be in the safe side!
How many chew toys does your dog have? Daisy is three years old and a constant chewer...of her chew toys. The last time she chewed anything she was not supposed two was when she was three months. We had, and still do have, a TON of chew toys for her. We keep them in a basket and she can pick and choose which ones she wants. Yeah they end up all over the house but every night we have the toy round up. Just like you would a kid I guess. The idea was to always have something handy when she started to chew the wrong thing, including you. We offered her an appropriate chewing toy and that usually worked.
We have quite a few toys and we try to rotate them so he doesn't get bored, when he is in our company he is perfectly happy playing with them either alone or with us, but when he is alone he decides he wants to chew things he is not supposed to! In all fairness to him it has only happened 4 times in over 5 months and the only bad one was the memory stick everything else was either a half hearted effort or we caught him in time
