New Chewing Behavior

[Sooner Mom]

Don't hate us but in the over 10 months we have had our golden doodle she has chewed on to the point of damaging exactly one thing inside the house that was not hers, a sock.  Well today we were sitting right with her and heard her chewing on something.  The sound just seemed not to match any of the toys or treat chew sounds I was used to hearing from her so we leaned down to check.  She had totally ruined several magazines and a coffee table book by chewing on them.  We were so shocked.  I know doodles eat all types of bizarre things and we call her a goat because of what she eats/chews on outside but despite a million opportunities she has just not done this inside the house.  She seemed completely unaware we would not be happy about this and she was baffled by our reaction.  We do not leave her with free range in the house because I am afraid I will return and she will have done something unexpected like eat my leather chair or a wall like I see other owners posting pictures of and today reinforced my feeling of fear about that happening.  Do you ever get to a point when you feel safe letting them have freedom to be unsupervised in your house?  This is my first dog that I do not put outside every time I leave the house.  She either goes to doggie daycare or she is crated or she is confined to our laundry room or if the weather is nice she loves to be outside in a special area of the yard we have fenced off for her.  I was hoping at some point we would feel like we could just let her stay in the house but I am beginning to wonder.  The way our house is designed, the laundry room is really the only area where we can restrict her.  

[Diane Bentley]

Our doodle is 4 yrs old now, but she did they same thing for the 1st 2 yrs. I think it was the terrible 2s. She still will chew on a sock or wash clothe if she finds a stray one, but other than that, nothing. We let her have the whole house, but she usually just stays in the bedroom. It seems when we confined her to just one room she did more damage, but now she's the best dog ever.

[Susan and Bentley]

Bentley did not have free reign of the house for a long time.  He was crated if we went out until he was about 14-15 months old.  When we stopped crating him, we closed all the doors to the bedrooms and bathrooms so he really only had access to the kitchen and living room.  Once we knew he could be trusted, we gave him free reign.  He has never chewed anything while we are out, but he does like to steal things when we are home!

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

I have a seven year old Doodle (Guinness) who every now and then will revert back.  My son has a cold and the wastebasket in his room has been full of tissues.  Just this week, my seven year old got into his trash and scattered the tissues all over the room....I found him right away or I'm sure he would have chewed them.  I always gate my two Doodles in our bedroom and I remove anything that might be tempting when I leave the house.  My other Doodle (Murphy) only seems interested in chewing what I give him (like his nylabones) but I'm sure I'll have to "supervise" Guinness forever. 

[Sooner Mom]

Thanks for the responses.  It sounds like this isn't that unusual.  She's such a Velcro dog when we are home.  If we move 5 feet, she moves too.  We were just so shocked she chewed it while sitting right at our feet, clearly oblivious to it being a totally unacceptable behavior.  She did not hide or do it while we were out of the room.  Oh my, I really thought she was just not going to do these things :).  When we go to visit someone else she seems to chew on their things on the floor but not at home.  It is hard to be mad a them but if she chews my leather chair I will not be okay with that so I know I have to be in charge and not give her opportunities to do things I am not going to be happy about if she decides to get an attack of the munchies and takes a bite to of one day.  This was a good reminder of that since it was just a book,,,,

[ginny]

Unfortunately I was under the impression that once their adult teeth were in the chewing would subside, but at 6 months it's just as bad as before.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Ginny, this discussion is more than 3 years old, and some of those who participated, including the original poster, may not even be active here any longer. If you are having a chewing problem, you may get more help/advice by starting a new discussion, either in the Puppy madness group or the main forum. This is not really a training issue.

[ginny]

Thanks