Chewing on things is a natural canine behavior, but it can be a nuisance for owners. It’s easy, however, to train your dog to stop chewing on everything and chew only owner-preferred objects.
It’s important to understand why your dog is chewing. In addition to being an instinctual behavior, there may be other causes for it:
Chewing relieves stress and boredom for dogs needing more mental or physical stimulation.
Chewing can be attention seeking behavior or some other learned behavior.
Chewing can be caused by loneliness, separation anxiety or fear. He may chew on your shoes when he misses you because they have your comforting odor. He may chew through doors or sheet rock walls to get to you if he is fearful of being alone. (Read more ideas for alleviating Separation Anxiety)
Here’s what to do to train your dog to stop chewing:
Relieve your dog’s stress and boredom. Provide more mental and physical stimulation with play, structured interactions such as walks, games like fetch and training. Provide fun toys for the dog when he’s alone, such as time-release treat toys, chew toys and toy dispensers.
Alleviate your dog’s loneliness. Provide your dog with additional playtime, grooming and affection. Consider hiring a dog walker, companion or companion animal.
Change the dog’s environment:
Remove objects from the environment.
Prevent access to objects by using doors and gates.
Make the objects less attractive by using nasty smelling sprays or sound alarms.
Substitute a more attractive and acceptable object such as chewy balls, toys with hidden treats, or an old shoe.
Retrain your dog. Promptly interrupt chewing undesirable objects by taking the object away and saying a firm “No” but don’t over-react or provide too much negative attention. Quickly substitute an acceptable toy or object.
Follow these steps consistently for the best results. If problem chewing persists, consult a qualified dog trainer, who will come to your home and work with you and your dog.
Home - Dogs
You can create a happy stress-free home for your dog by remembering that he is a pack animal who longs to be with you every minute of the day and wants to guard you at night. Dogs love company, so you will need to make an effort to let your dog keep you company where ever you are in your home. You may want a place for your dog to sleep in the kitchen, the TV room, office, and bedroom. Some dog owners put their dog in the garage or basement at night but as a pack animal your dog wants to protect you, and needs to feel protected by you. Being isolated in the garage can cause your dog to feel like he has been put out of the pack which will be stressful for him, so consider finding a location in your home that is closer to you or other family members.
If you are out a lot, or you know you are going to be gone all day, consider hiring a dog walker. Every day your dog walker will exercise, feed and let your dog out. Good dog walkers (who usually walk more than one dog at a time) will socialize your dog to other animals, which can be very beneficial. Another thing you can do, if you are going to be away for a long stretch of time, is to provide specially designed toys in which you can hide food. There are devices with timers that eject rolling balls with food inside them at a certain times of the day determined by you. Your dog has to play with the ball to get the food out. This can keep your dog busy for hours.
Visitors, noise and commotion are usually not
a problem for a dog. If your dog doesn’t like your noisy friends, or loud music, usually he will take himself off to some far corner of your home, and sleep until the noise and commotion dies down.
Some dogs like listening to music and watching TV. Try turning on animal shows and see if your dog enjoys watching.
Dogs are nest builders and some dogs like to build elaborate nests. You can tell by how much time your dog spends fussing over his bed when he goes to sleep at night. Does he turn three times and then lay down? Or does he try to position things like pillows or stuffed toys near his bed before going to sleep? If he is a more elaborate nest builder, you can give him supplemental bedding materials to help him make a cozier “nest.”
Just remember, be consistent with your dog. Dogs get to know when you will be home, walking and meal times. They come to depend on a regular schedule, and will feel stressed by too many schedule changes. Your ability to maintain a predictable schedule for your dog is one of the most important things you can do for your dog’s mental health.
