Poor Alistair.  About a week ago I left him alone in his play pen and he managed to get a pack of bobby pins in there, push the pins around and shred the paper.  Since then, almost every time I leave the house, go to sleep, etc. and he's not in his dog crate, he finds paper and goes wild.  He knows he's not supposed to do it.  He understands well enough not to do it in front of me, but when I'm not looking, he goes for it.  He just took a massive corner off my 3-subject notebook and ate my stats homework.  (Not kidding.  I'm too old for that excuse.)

So far, I've been rewarding him when he comes home and hasn't eaten anything and ignoring him when I come home and find shredded paper.  That doesn't seem to be enough, so I just sprayed the paper basket and my notebook with bitter apple, hoping that it drops a hint.  Has anyone else had this problem with paper chewing or anything other clandestine bad behavior?  What did you do to stop it?

Thanks!

Mary