Obsession with rubbish bins?

Kobe's been obsessed with rubbish bins the past week, whenever he gets bored he will bite/chew the rubbish bin.. I don't know if he wants to eat the trash inside or bite the bin but it seems like whatever I do it won't work. If I shout "NO" at him he will start to jump up and bite me really hard and I've already bled more than 3 times because of his bites. I tried to claim it myself by placing the rubbish bin in the corner and stand there to block him until he surrenders but he will bark a few times and then he will start to bite me real hard if he gets too frustrated.

The only thing I can do now is to put the rubbish bins on the table if he tries to bite it but obviously that's just avoiding the problem, do you guys have any idea to stop this problem? by the way if it helps hes 4 months now.

Thanks in advance,

Valerie

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Permalink Reply by Beth on February 25, 2012 at 12:10pm

He'll outgrow it. Just keep it out of his reach til he passes this stage, or it will become a habit he WON'T outgrow.

Jack's obsession was with wood, so he could not be trusted loose for a second out of our sight or he'd eat the window sills. I also had to keep my half-bath door closed til he was around a year old, or he'd unwind the toilet roll and drag things out of the trash. He does neither of those things now.

Maddie will go trash-can diving for edibles (food wrappers and the like). We fixed this by hiding a Scat Cat compressed-air can near the bin; motion sets off a blast of air and scares the pants off of her. It only took one try for her to learn to avoid the can. However, I would NEVER (never never never never!!) do this with a puppy; at his age small things like that can turn into lifelong phobias and over-generalize to things you would not expect. It can take months of training to fix that sort of incidental damage, as I learned when Jack developed an unexplained fear of brooms that quickly turned into a fear of anything with a handle. So for now, keep it out of reach. When he's an adult (two or over) you can use something like I mentioned if he continues to be fascinated with garbage cans.