Venting/ A Cry for Help!

[Jessica, Loki and Moose]

Ok so let me start off by saying I love my doodle so so much but he's killing me lately! He has always been a chewer and today when I got home from work he chewed a hole in a down comforter!!!!! Now if this was TV it would have been hilarious when the actor walks in the front door and there is a snow storm of feathers EVERYWHERE. In reality it sucks! Oh and his whole face had feathers suck in his fur- should have taken a picture but I was too upset to at the time! I fixed the comforter and it's not that big of a deal, spending to hours "de-feathering" the apartment was annoying, but what sucks is I thought we were over this chewing phase! He was a horrible chewer up until two months ago and I thought we fixed it and we are back to square one it seems like it, he chewed a corner of a rug two days ago. I'm not sure how to discipline him because it happened when I wasn't here. I took him over to the mess and stuck his nose in it and sad No loudly and he backed away from it but idk if that got the message across. I've tried bitter apple spray on rugs or a watered down hot pepper juice mix but I can't put any of that near things that I will be sleeping on.

Would love to hear your guys advice/thoughts, also if anyone has any similar stories to share and make us all laugh :)

Thanks all,

Jess and Loki (comforter destroyer)

[Amy and Annabelle]

Annabelle loves the puzzles. It took her about 5 minutes to figure it out the first time. Even though she now knows how to get at them, she still loves doing it. She also learned that if she flips the whole thing over all the treats come out at once. She is pretty proud of herself over that one. She is a chewer for sure, but for some reason she leaves this alone. She is only interested in the treats.

[Jessica, Loki and Moose]

Buying one today! Haha thanks!

[Jessica, Loki and Moose]

Loki turned 1 mid March. Loki did the same thing with the chairs when he was a puppy too!! He also goes through s bully stick in under 5 mins or right around there too! I've had luck with the antlers although he's working his way through one of those slowly but surely lol.

[Kathryn Clark]

Reminds me of two weeks ago when I was getting lots done working when I realized how quiet the house was. I found Dewey sitting on top of our bed chewing away at my new beautiful Pendleton wool blanket that I had just put on the bed three days before, argh. I guess I can do a nice patch job on it but I hear you! I would definitely crate him when you're not home or keep in within eyesight when you are. How old is your doodle?

[Jessica, Loki and Moose]

Oh man! I feel your pain! I had just bought this comforter the day before. He is 13months old.

[Amy and Annabelle]

I still keep Annabelle crated, she can't be trusted. I keep hoping she will grow out of it. You should see the blanket she lays on when we watch tv. It is all full of her handy work. I finally started giving her a bully stick or pigs ear for tv time. It has worked wonders. They are expensive but it sure keeps her occupied. There is just no way we could leave her uncrated during the night or when we are away from home, it would be tragic.

[Mary ann & Lincoln]

Lincoln is 7 months old and not too bad of a chewer anymore. BUT He loves any kind of paper and sticks are his fav!   We used ot have gates and keep him the the family room when we were in there. We took them down 2 months ago and gave him the run of the house only when we are home!   We crate him if we go out & at night,  just don't trust him yet.  He will magically appear as soon as a  door is open to grab whatever he can get, so then we have to "trade:" for a cookie to get the slipper, tissue, towel, rag etc. 

Sound l ike oyu will have to crate at least for a while.  give him lots of toys, bones etc.

[Laura and Angus]

This sounds just like our puppy. Our trainer told us to never give treats for bad behavior -- she made us stop giving Angus treats when he would drop something because, as she mentioned, he started to do it on purpose to get treats. Now we just say, "drop it" and he drops whatever he had and we say "thank you" and walk away haha 

[Jessica, Loki and Moose]

Oh that's funny! I've never traded with Loki but it is cute to picture

[Jessica, Loki and Moose]

The trading makes me smile :)

[Laura and Angus]

Angus is a big chewer. I agree with what others have said: if we left him alone we'd find torn papers everywhere and half-eaten garbage, for sure. We don't ever leave him out of the crate when we're gone.. I'm hoping that when he's older we'll know his patterns better to give him more free reign of the house. The other thing that saved our lives (and sanity) is elk antlers and beef rib bones. We never let him chew the beef rib bones unsupervised, though because you need to make sure they aren't cracking - they don't usually, but every now and then we'll get one that cracks and we take it away from him. The antler (while like a $30+ investment) has lasted him months and he really enjoys it. We also got the Pet Stages sticks - these we feel comfortable leaving in the crate with him as they are not made of bone and will not chip or crack. You can get them at target, below is a link, so you can see what they look like. 

http://www.amazon.com/Petstages-219-Dogwood-Stick-Large/dp/B007R1BN56

I would caution you against bully sticks -- Angus used to try to swallow the thing whole - i have no idea why, but that was when he was younger and we haven't tried since.

[Jessica, Loki and Moose]

Oh Loki goes through bully sticks way too quickly to be cost effective! The antler is lasting him a fairly long time- much long than anything else!