Wanted: Opinions on Correcting a Puppy with a Chewing Problem

In My Humble Opinion
1

This falls right in between IMHO and GQ, but I think I’ll be getting opinions more than fact, so here we are…

We’ve got two dogs - a 7 year old Chocalate Lab/Border Collie cross named Jaco and a 1 year old Black Lab/Border Collie named Marley. (Pic is Marley at about 9 weeks(

Jaco is a dream dog - perfectly behaved, mellow and his only real drawback is the occasional barking fit at other dogs that walk past our house and people that ring the doorbell.

Marley, on the other hand, is consistently bad. He’s very needy for attention, and when he’s tuckered out he’s just the sweetest little guy in the world. He cuddles and lays around looking cute. Any other time, however, he’s a little hellion - tons of energy, running around constantly, and I’m pretty sure he has the doggie equivalent of ADHD.

Marley knows and obeys the following commands, perfectly: sit, lie down, stand, roll over. However, the second you turn your back he’s back to whatever he was doing, without a second thought for the command. It’s not that he’s not smart, it’s that he really doesn’t give a rat’s ass.

The biggest issue, however, is chewing. He used to eat anything - slippers, shoes, socks, pillows, blankets, sticks, rocks, logs. We have pretty much broken him of the shoe habit, but it’s become more insidious. Now he disembowels things - puppy toys, comforters, pillows, you name it. If there is stuffing in it, he rips it open and strews the stuffing everywhere. He has also thoroughly emptied his dog bed, which sits in his crate.

This past week he has also discovered the world above eye level - things on the dresser, the kitchen counters, the dining room table. He has begun to pull things down to chew on them - handbills, cigarette packs, chewing gum, and oh yeah, a brand new bottle of Astro-Glide. Our turkish rug has been nicely lubricated recently, when Marley decided that the best way to pass the time was to take the bottle from the bedroom dresser into the living room and chew it apart while lying on a throw pillow on a handmade Turkish rug.

Marley knows he is bad, and that this behavior is wrong. When we catch him in the act, he immediately slinks to his home (the crate) and won’t come out. We’re reluctant to pull him from the crate to punish him, as we want the crate to be his refuge and personal space.

So I ask the Teeming Millions for advice. How would you discipline him? How to make him see the error of his ways?

If you feel you need more information to offer an opinion, please ask.

We thought what we knew what we were getting into with another Border Collie crossbreed - Jaco was a little hyper as a pup, but it seems he much more takes after the Lab side. Not so with the Little Beast.

Help!

2

Many Border Collies (and I assume crosses too) get bored easily. And a bored Border Collie is a destructive Border Collie. Borders need a job for physical and mental stimulation more than many other breeds. Walks don’t do it for us; I run mine every day, and he’s still a digger. I would suggest wearing him out consistently, and giving him some nice chewable toys for his very own, and banishing him from places he’s not supposed to be when you’re not right there watching him. Zap him with a squirt gun when you do catch him getting into something.

You say you have a crate. Does he stay in it when you’re not home? Then he’s probably got even more energy to burn, but at least he’s not getting into stuff when you’re not there. Does he stay outside during the day? Can he, if he doesn’t now? It’s not a huge improvement on being in a house all day, but he can be a little more active (and get in less trouble) if he’s outside to entertain himself part of the day.

And a one-year old BC is still a pup. Mine is five and just starting to settle down, although I’ve had others be much more mellow. It depends on your dog - I would say your younger dog is probably closer to the norm than your older dog, who sounds like he might lean more to the Lab side of his personality.

My advice sums up to: keep him busy, busy, busy, I guess. Oh, and here’s a link to the US Border Collie Club. They’ve got lots of helpful members on their boards, many of whom have crosses and rescue dogs with all sorts of issues.

3

Puppy needs to chew because he’s teething. What the puppy training books we used suggest doing is, when you catch him in the act, take away the inappropriate object and give him an appropriate one with the command “this is for you.” In addition, the appropriate objects shouldn’t resemble inappropriate ones. For example, don’t give him an old shoe if you don’t want him to learn shoes are chewable, or a stuffed animals if you want to keep him out of your kids’ (or your) toys. Furthermore, things you don’t want chewed on, like slippers, should be kept in closets or rooms inaccessible to puppy. To further discourage chewing, if for instance he’s chewing on cords, furniture, and other things you can’t move, the vet or pet store sells stuff called sour apple spray you can use to treat these things. It’s odorless (to humans) and shouldn’t stain, but it will make non-chewables taste bad.

Chewing is frustrating, but at this point it’s normal and he needs healthy outlets and lots of love and praise when he uses them.

4

Shoot, sorry, I missed that he was a year and thought he was 9 weeks. Still, I’d use the “this is for you” and positive reinforcement, etc. Sorry.

5

Yes, the crate is where he spends his time when neither of us is home. However, I work out of the house, so I tend to be home most of the day. Our backyard is fenced in too, so whenever possible i try to let him outside, where he runs around and digs to his heart’s content.

BTW, he’s not neutered, although that will be happening soon. Will that help with the destructive tendencies?

6

a) I ask the girlfriend, owner of many canines over the years. “Bitter Apple”, she replies. (It’s a spray-on stuff that makes things taste awful. Of course I don’t know how you feel about spraying that stuff on everything conceivably chewable…

b) I ask the puppy (who, despite a strong Peter Pan streak, is actually going on 6 now but she’ll always be the puppy). “Dingo Bones”, she says. (They are rawhide chewies with embedded chicken jerky and will distract your puppy from interest in chewing on less satisfying things).

c) I ask the girlfriend’s Old Dog, she who once ate an entire wicker chair in response to being left alone for a little while. “Time”, she says. (She hasn’t eaten anything not intended for doggie consumption in many years now. Of course, she’s seventeen years old now. Patience may be a necessity for a while to come.)

7

We have an indoor Border Collie. One method we’ve tried is limiting “his” toys to only one type of object. BC’s are smart, but I’m not sure they can intuitively tell the difference between their stuffed chewtoy, and my daughter’s stuffed animal. We chose white rawhide bones for him. Period. Anything else in his mouth is “bad dog”. In my experience, it confuses a dog to have a variety of objects that are “OK” to chew, while a variety of similar objects (to him, anyway) in the house are “NOT OK” to chew. The rawhide bones are large, distinctive, and dissimilar to anything else in our house. So far, so good. He stays in the house all day while we’re at work/school (about 9 hours) and hasn’t damaged anything in a couple of years.

You didn’t say how you react when you catch him gnawing, but (imo) mild admonishment seems to work better than making a scene. I’m no expert, but loud disapproval seems to cause so much “doggie-apology” that the causal event is driven from his mind. Something along the lines of a frown, and: “C’mon… you KNOW that’s bad… No No” usually works better.

jmo, of course.

8

I think this is right on the money, sounds like the dog is bored and needs a job. Instead of a game of catch, how about a ball or frisbee round up? Instead of a kong with treats (still a good idea), how about an indoor scavenger hunt? A certain amount of time per day set aside for learning a new trick, maybe catching a frisbee, then move on to catching more than one at once, etc.

One that worked for me (though the dog wasn’t a BC) is having a toybox for the dog. I would consistently call a toy by its name as in, “Here’s your ball, catch your ball, give ball,” etc. He learned the difference between a ball, a bone, a kong, ball with a bell (bell), etc. and would fetch that certain toy on command. The reward was a good game together with the toy. At the end of the game, he would then need to return the toy to his toybox.

Another thing I would do was try to think of a way to take a conventional toy, and maybe use it in an unconventional way so that he could occupy himself. I took a water kong (kong with a rope for throwing which floats) and hung it outside like a tetherball. The rope part was far enough above him, that he couldn’t get hung up in it, and so that he had to really give a good jump to move the thing around. This ended up being one of his favorite games. Also partially filled a large, hard plastic ball with water, so that it rolled in an unpredictable way with the slightest nudge.

Taught him games that required concentration. Balancing a bone on his nose until given the command to eat it. Works with a favorite toy, even if they can’t learn to balance it, a favorite ball placed at the feet can work, too. You can add to the game by moving the toy further and further away, but still in the dog’s vision, while he remains in a commanded stance (sit or lay down, etc.) until released.

A more involved game, started with me taking an object and placing it at his feet, with the command “look.” When he looked at the object, lot’s of orgasmic praise. Object placed farther away and so on. Eventually I could point to an object (and give the look command) at some distance and immediately have his attention involved in searching out the object. Once I could see he’d spotted the object, he was told to fetch.

I know this sounds like a lot of work, but if you break it down into small sessions, you’d be surprised what a dog can accomplish with as little as 15 to 20 minutes a day of practicing a new trick. If you take into account the commands the dog already knows and sessions spent going over those commands, too, you can really build up a list of jobs for a dog.

9

I think it would, but you’ve still got some behavior issues to work on and time. A year is still a puppy for a Border - they mature pretty slowly.

If he’s in the crate when you’re not home, and sometimes outside when you are, then maybe you have the time to work with him when you’re home and he’s inside. The specific toys for him is a good idea, although I’m hearing lately that rawhide’s not so good for dogs. Maybe one of our more veterinarily-inclined posters can verify that? But things like kongs or nylabones are pretty distinct, and can be his without too much confusion.

An energetic BC is really just getting started with a game of catch. I’ve trained mine to run with the truck, because there’s no way I could keep up with him on foot. I’m lucky enough to have a nice seven-acre public parcel to run him on most days; maybe you could find something like that? Go slow at first, so he learns to stay out of the truck’s way if you choose to go that route. But it thrills my dog to death and really gets his heart moving. He’s probably going to take more exercise than your older dog - what kept Jaco happy might not be even close to enough for Marley. That’ll get better as he gets older, but older might not be for another five years.