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Permalink Reply by Sam Tsang on July 21, 2009 at 9:43pm

Chevy is a young pup who's going thru teething, for a herding dog, you'll need to find him a job, if not he'll pick up some "remodeling" around the house, back in the day, my Vienna remodel our kitchen, she ate through some dry wall, a corner of our baseboard, repeatedly licking caulking...etc. Your solution is replacing those things with something that Chevy find interesting to chew and some good old fashion walking, a tired corgi is a well behave corgi :) Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Beth on July 21, 2009 at 10:27pm

I am sorry to hear about your sheetrock. If it's any consolation, our home was newly built for us and we had been in it less than a year when we got Jack. He ate part of a windowsill. :-(

Sam is correct about exercise and fun games. The other part of that equation is confinement; any dog under at least one year old should not have access to anything that it can chew, unless the dog is closely supervised. We used a round pen to confine Jack. The windowsill incident happened when he was gated in the kitchen and I thought to myself "I'm just running upstairs for 5 minutes. What can he do in five minutes?" The answer to that question, of course, was eat my windowsill. It is surprising how quickly they get into trouble. I swear that sometimes puppies plot and plan: "I am waiting for my chance to eat that cupboard! One day, one day!" and the second you turn your back they head right for it.

Nothing is unusual for a dog. A friend of a friend has a blue tick hound, and they need to bungee cord their fridge shut because he has learned to open the fridge. I have heard of dogs eating sofas. My work friend's young Collie kindly removed her linoleum floor for her, while she was upstairs paying some bills. The list is endless.

We used a round pen, in the middle of our (empty) breakfast nook. The pen was attached to the crate, so it was too heavy for the dog to move it and I was very careful that nothing was within reach. We bought a cheap piece of vinyl flooring from Lowe's for $40 or so and put that in the pen area, over our real floor (a tip we picked up from a breeder). It worked very well.

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Permalink Reply by Natalie, Lance &Tucker on July 22, 2009 at 3:19am

My cousins dauschound also ate through sheetrock as a pup.

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Permalink Reply by Maddy & Keke on July 22, 2009 at 4:15am

Keke chewed off the corner of my landlord's cabinet :( and my handphone charger wire. From then now, no more freedom when I am not looking.

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Permalink Reply by Beth on July 22, 2009 at 7:04am

I just wanted to clarify that of course you don't go from confinement every minute to instant freedom magically when they turn one.

What we would do with Jack, for example, is pen him when we couldn't watch him (and we made sure that since we worked in the day, in the evenings we made time so he could mostly be loose). But then we would leave him gated in the kitchen if we were eating in the dining room and could literally keep an eye on him. If he disappeared from sight, we would get up and see what he was doing, but leave him alone if he was being good. Then we would progress to giving him, say, peanut butter on a kong and leave him gated in the kitchen while we went in the living room for 10 minutes.

Most of them outgrow the destructive stage somewhere between a year and 18 months. At that point, when you no longer find them going after anything that is not theirs when you are there to watch, you can gradually start leaving them loose unattended. We started with leaving him loose if we went out to do a few minutes of yard work. The first time we actually drove away from the house and left him loose, we gave him a treat we knew would last about 25 minutes, left the house for 15 and came back while he was still working on the treat. Then we worked up to an hour or so at a time, then we would pen him in the morning and I would come home from work and leave him loose in the afternoon, when he usually napped. After he proved himself reliable, we then started leaving him loose all day.

I realize not everyone has space for a pen in their kitchen, and some need to rely on closed doors and baby gates. That makes it much harder because it's not always possible to puppy-proof a room completely; many dogs find woodwork or (as you found) sheetrock attractive. Crates are ideal, but you can't leave a puppy crated all day if you are gone for more than 4 or 5 hours, as they will need a place to eliminate.

Jack so loved chewing wood, and no store toys matched that texture, that we started giving him cardboard boxes to play with. Only when we could supervise him, and they were the plain brown ones, nothing with high-gloss coating or colored parts. That helped quite a bit.

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Permalink Reply by Bev Levy on July 22, 2009 at 8:06am

Sparty loved chewing on his kennel and that progressed to chewing on my laundry basket! It became pretty wild trying to fold the laundry with a corgi racing in and grabbing it! With a corgi even very boring tasks become interesting. He loved his Nylabones so much, I think that helped but now he is ten and has worn the enamel off his back teeth and even cracked a tooth. No more Nylabones for us. However my other two ate drywall and wood trim. Bitter apple helps and a better job with confinement. It would be interesting to get into those little minds to determine what was so irresistible! This stage will pass so you just have to adapt. Kongs with cheese, peanut butter, and or kibble help but nothing is as good a a long walk! Tired puppy rarely eats the house.

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Permalink Reply by Derek on July 22, 2009 at 12:05pm

I have a 4 month old Corgi mix from a rescue and he is acting similarly. His preference is cardboard boxes, leashes, and carpeting. It is just the age and unfortunately there is little you can do about it except supervise, confine, and offer better options. I have to keep him in a crate or the laundry room when I cannot watch him and he had plenty of toys ... he just like my carpeting better ... *sigh*. My other dog grew out of this by 1 year. She had an affinity for old wood fiurniture. It is just something they do.
Try Nylabones, they have kept my little devil at bay fairly well.

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Permalink Reply by Becky S on July 24, 2009 at 9:08pm

Yep, with Lilly it was landscapint (tearrin up the tarp under the rocks) and "redecorating" -- chewing up the pillows she didn't think belonged in the living room.

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Permalink Reply by Teresa Gilpin on August 30, 2009 at 9:16am

Yes, my princess, Winky, did this when she was a puppy. We had them confined in a hallway with a baby gate when we didn't want them running the through the whole house, (this was before they were completely house broken), and I guess I ignored them too long because when I went back to see them she had eaten a hole the size of herself on the sheetrock. She did it again to a lesser degree, just small holes, but has since grown out of it. I think its just part of being a puppy. Good luck, Teresa

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Permalink Reply by Sam on August 30, 2009 at 11:38am

The answer is boredom and access. I have one that has done the same in her younger years. Perhaps you can find a more suitable room to contain him in while you are gone. May I also suggest you increase his energy outlets, include some energy expending games, offer a variety of chew items and consider a different source of containment. Good luck

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Permalink Reply by Ein Danger on August 30, 2009 at 12:15pm

sounds like teething to me. i remember when my sister's dalmation puppy ate a hole in the sheetrock in my parent's office. lol. we were puppysitting and left harley in the office since it was the safest place for him (virtually empty room) while we went out to dinner. when we came home we found harley still gnawing on the wall when entering the room. he made a hole about 8 inches in diameter. it was recently that harley passed away and we found ourselves reflecting on that day (he lived a very long, great life). i'd try and repair my wall and remember that one day you'll look back at that and laugh :)

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