help with furniture chewing!
Okay, so Penelope is chewing up a storm. In fact, I had to put her in a kennel to write this. She has already ruined a rug with me watching her, telling her no, and giving her an actual chew toy to try to teach her what is appropriate chewing. It doesn't work. She goes right back to it, material and threads get caught in her teeth and I have to sit there and pick it all out. She just barks back at me. I'm doing what everyone says to do and it just gets worse. If the bitter apple I'm going to pick up tonight doesn't work, I have no idea what I'll do to help correct this behavior. What am I doing wrong?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Charlie on
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Conventional wisdom does suggest offering a suitable toy and playing a bit of tug to keep her interested as the best method for redirecting a pup away from chewing on your rugs, clothes, furniture, etc. If you've tried that many times and she insists on chewing on the wrong things, she may not be toy motivated. Moving on to Plan B: you'll have to figure out how to be more interesting than the furniture. Grab some treats. If she isn't toy motivated, hopefully she is food motivated. When she starts to chew (right before she chews if you catch her in time) say "Hey! Look at me!". Hopefully she'll look up. You get really excited, hold out a treat and happy voice "Good Girl! Come get a treat!" If she's food motivated, she should forget all about the furniture and come rushing to you...you just became imminently more interesting than the furniture. That's a good time to work her a few minutes on "Sit" or other easy basics where she gets more treats.
If that fails, you can tether her to your belt loop with a leash. That will keep her in close proximity and keep her out of trouble. You do want to walk around the house from time to time to get her a treat or go find a toy so that being close to you is fun and she doesn't start to resent the leash and collar.
When you cannot be watching every move, you do want to put her in her kennel. This will give you a time out so you don't get frustrated and angry with her. (I don't believe in time-outs for dogs...I believe in time-outs for us humans.) Until she figures out that chewing on furniture and rugs is not rewarding, she has to be otherwise entertained, restricted from getting to the furniture, or crated.
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Permalink Reply by Megan and Penelope on
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Thanks. I know not to give a dog a time out, but it was just nothing I could think of in that moment. I don't even care about the rug, b/c it was only meant to be temporary, but I was upset that I couldn't do anything to make her stop. She is very food motivated and I hadn't thought of that before. She likes her toys, but is quickly uninterested in them. That's when she chews. The bitter apple is helping so far though. I'll try the treat thing.
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Permalink Reply by Carlie on
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I completely agree with everything that Charlie said, but you could also try Grannick's Bitter Apple Spray. When Kiwi was a little younger she started chewing on our tables and chairs, I sprayed the bitter apple all over them and she wanted nothing to do with it. I also had a problem with her chewing up the carpet in our apartment, I sprayed some bitter apple on it and she walked away. I also sprayed a little bit (just a tiny bit) on her mouth, so then she associated that bad taste with chewing on things she shouldn't. Hope this helps. You can get the spray at any pet store. Good luck!
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And I just realized that you had written about the bitter apple spray...sorry :)! I just got so excited that I might be able to give some advice! Hope the spray works.
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well the bitter apple is at least having some effect to deter he from the furniture chewing, thanks!
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Permalink Reply by Sam Tsang on
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The bitter apple do wear off, so you'll need to re-apply from time to time. I think the best method is to divert that attention to other toys, rotate them and you'll keep the interest going. The chewing stage will eventually pass, hang in there :)
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Yeah, I'm still doing the toy thing. The spray at least gets her attention away from sofa and carpet, then I give her a toy and she tends to play with it for a while. The stuffed kong works for now, I figure toy and food works well for that. So last night and this morning was much better that night two and part of day three!
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Permalink Reply by Danielle_RN on
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I used to have a lab and the bitter apple worked great, it works somewhat with Kara, but not as well. She is after my rug in the family room. In fact in one of the pictres on my page you can see the sad corner of the rug behind her, and that was only day 2. naughty naughty!
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Permalink Reply by Geri & Sidney on
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We had to use Bitter Apple to save our sofa! Don't go for cheaper copycat brands, though. We tried one and Sid actually licked it off our fingers. Oy...well, at least Petco took it back and returned our money to us. Grannick's Bitter Apple Spray is the one that ended up working for us.
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Permalink Reply by James on
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I also use Granicks Bitter apple. One thing I did notice is that it's effects wear off after about 3 days, or if you use it on the carpet, it wears off right after vaccuuming. I re-apply it every 3 days or so to the known Cheez-it spots.
My x-girlfriend and I raised a Labradoodle puppy and she seemed to like bad-taste sprays (though we did not use Granicks and it works great for me now), we finally used Chili-powder and that worked perfectly. Never had any issues with it, though I thought it might stain but after 3 months of putting it on rug-edges and stairs it never caused any problems. Im not sure if it is good for the dog though, but that is what a friend of hers suggested and it helpes us.
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Thanks, the Grannick's is diverting her attention away from the furniture so I can give her a toy to play with. The Kong works well since a treat is in there! So, Cheez-it likes that cube now, does it keep him pretty busy?
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