Doodle is rummaging through everything!

[TrevorDoodle]

My doodle has been driving me crazy lately. Over the past month he has started grabbing things off counter tops and tables. He steals socks(and other things) out of the laundry basket. He is really bad about stealing my makeup and chewing it up. He has a thing for mascara tubes. He loves to rummage though the trash.(fixing this problem with a covered trashcan). I have to be so careful what I leave laying around. It seems like everything that is small must be put in a drawer or he will take it and chew it up and sometimes eat it.

He has plenty of bones and toys. He has Kongs but I cant keep them filled up 24/7. He gets exercise and he is tired out for about 30 minutes, then its back to the "retrieving".

What can I do? Please tell me this is a phase - he is 9 months old.

[1qrgkdwnfqccb]

i am not sure i can help, i am just here to let you know you are not alone! Izzy is a master thief!!! And Tucker is learning the same behavior!

Every morning starts off with a trip outside to the potty and the minute she is back in the house she sneaks off to our bedroom or the bathroom to swipe a sock, and thank goodness that is all she goes after...(we used to have a lab that ate all the crotches out of everyone's undies!!) but the thing with Izzy is that she does not chew them..just carries them around with her....EXCEPT my daughter's socks (she is 3) and Izzy will swallow those whole and puke them up later...I see an expensive vet visit in my future. Where i run into a problem is that tucker now thinks it is a pull toy and the play tug-o-sock and that is when they get ruined. so i am forever buying new socks!

and as far a counter surfing...Izzy does that as well, and not just for food...it is anything she can get her teeth on! and again she is a master at that too!! she will pace the floor glancing up on the counter/table/nightstand/ect. once she spies something she wants she will lay on the floor and stare it down (it is funny to watch her do this) and the minute i turn my back up she goes and swipes it!! she is soo quick!! then she will lay back down with the item in her mouth pretending she has done nothing! the best is paper towels...you can see them hanging out of her mouth! she thinks she is smart...but i am on to her...ha ha!!

i think it is just a game for her, an attention thing, but my question is, if you don't give the negative attention to stop it...then they are not being corrected??? so i am sorry i can be of no help....it seems that a lot of doodles do this, and i have learned that i have to be careful and put things away immediately because i am going to have 2 master thieves soon...and it makes for a clean house!!! or a lot of closed doors!!!

good luck!!

[Doris]

Be thankful that your doodles are just eating socks. Bodi likes to open packages . . . including my son's retainer case. Bodi was nice and only chewed up one of the retainers, so it only cost $110 to get a new one! I don't blame Bodi, my son should have the retainers IN his mouth.

Do any of your doodles "kiss" your glasses? I'm forever cleaning my glasses!

[GBK]

We just laugh and trade them for the objects they taunt us with :) Sorry, can't be of much help, Buddy is the master stealer and counter surfer, Kona goes along for the ride. Although she has just recently started retreiving my tennis shoes and enjoying a good knaw on the laces and insert AGH. I have thought about spraying my shoes with Bitter Apple, I think it might be worth a try :)

Socks, bras, nightgowns, are a personal fave of Buddys, he likes to prance around with them until he gets our attention. He has done this since a pup, and I think our trade game went way wrong somewhere along the line, because that is exactly what he wants from us now. He will "drop" the contraband when we ask, but only if we have a treat to trade with him!!!!

[Lucy's Mom~ Liz]

Funny- my 9 month old Lucy has started more of this too! Trades work, but I wish I could leave her alone for a minute without the game starting up. She's discovered the tree too and love to take candy canes!
Anyone ever try a horn to stop counter surfing?

[Marianne *OZZY & ZOEY]

OK this one is funny, maybe not....I have a 16 year old daughter that was having friends (mixed boys and girls) over for pizza, we noticed the dog with something in his mouth. When I went to take it from him I noticed it was a used sanitary napkin that one of the girls left in the bathroom garbage. I told the kids sorry but I was not pulling that out of his mouth...Were their faces red...Now we laugh then it was just not as funny.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Don't tell me you had a non-trash digging doodle until 9 months!!! Ned is 9 months and although he mostly limits his stealing to trash, magazines and other paper goods, he tries to counter-surf for food or interesting items. Don't tell me it will get WORSE now that he is 9 months. Aw shucks, I was hoping it would begin to get better.

[marcia hill]

my doodle steals everything especially anything papper books news pappers. Itook a nap one afternoon had alley in my room when i woke up there was toilet papper everywhere my straw hat chewed to threads and books tore up. I was so trusting of her. she is only 4 months old.

[Adrianne Matzkin]

I am sorry everyone that I have been sitting here laughing at your stories and so darned grateful that so far, my fingers are crossed, that at 10 months old Samantha has never done any of those things! I don't know how my husband got so lucky since he is the one with the socks and shoes left on the floor.
I would appreciate you keeping your fingers crossed for us that Samantha continues to choose not to like make-up, socks and bras.

[1qrgkdwnfqccb]

ok i do have 1 more funny story...my hubby has these socks that he wears to work...he calls all others "quitters" (ones that fall down in his boots) so these particular ones we call the sacred socks...the un-touchable's, and god forbid if one should get lost!!

well a while back, when we first go tucker i hear this noise coming from the bedroom...a lot of growling and grunting...i go running back to see what the ruckus was....well there they were....playing TUG-O-SOCK with THE SACRED SOCK...pulling and yanking it across the bedroom! i about died...i yell NO!! so after some
finagling i retrieve the sock....i laughed sooo hard!! i held the sock up, it came to my waist!! they had stretched it our sooo much....so now what to do? throw them both out....he will notice a pair is missing...so i had to tell him....when he go home....all i could do is show him the sock...he laughed...then when i told the story he laughed even harder!!

may your holiday be doodle disaster free!!!!

[TrevorDoodle]

I forgot to mention above my doodle's obsession over paper towels! It can even be a new and clean paper towel-he loves to tear them to shreds all around the house.

Adrianne - Consider yourself very lucky and be sure to never let her get her first taste of a greasy paper towel. If she does...its on!

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

And a Merry Christmas to you! Actually except for the paper stealing, trash digging, and counter surfing, Ned is doing well. He does have to explore anything new - like xmas decorations, but now that they are "old" and we haven't put any down that are made of his favorites, he is ok with them. Well, except for the fireplace. Someone left the screen closed but the glass doors open on the "dead" fire and Ned just decided to "play" with the wood chips and ash. Lovely, lovely, bathtime for a doodle. The fireplace was New

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

What is it with doodles and paper! My daughter is getting a gift from Ned because he chewed the corner off the book I just bought her. This was a hardback!