Haki is punishing me for going back to work this week and doesn't understand when I tell him that I must to keep him in the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed....
In all seriousness, I think Haki is bored and has started to chew holes in the drywall at various points in the kitchen. I have tried putting a little tabasco on the affected areas to deter him, but he simply moves over to another area. Has anyone experienced this and have a bright idea how to deter the behaviour?
I have tried to leave him chew toys, but he insists on plucking the stuffingout of stuffed toys, destroying rubber toys by chewing them into little bits, including every "virtually indestructable" toy I have tried from various pet stores. Tomorrow he will be confined to a smaller part of the kitchen to prevent more damage in the breakfast nook
Crating him would probably be your best bet as this will prevent him from chewing on anything he isn't allowed to. By doing so you prevent a serious mishap from happening while you are not home.
He is 8 months old and was well behaved until this week. He does stay in the crate at night, but has the run of the kitchen while I am at work. Unfortunately I am away from the house for 11 hours during the day M-F.....
Crate him, though that is a long time alone in or out of a crate. You could get a big crate, or an exercise pen. But yes, he's bored. And honestly, if he's alone 11 hours during the week and then crated at night...um...when does he get any interaction? What kind? He needs exercise, both physical and mental, esp. for a puppy, and he is still a puppy. It's no surprise he is destroying things--he's bored and lonely, no doubt. He would probably be less likely to destroy things if he was tired, too, so I'd up the exercise.
Could you have him in a doggie daycare a couple of days a week? That would give him much needed exercise and interaction. It seems kind of hard on such a young dog to be alone for such a long period of time each day, and if he sleeps in a crate too....well, it's not much of a life for a puppy.
I am sorry if I gave the wrong impression. He hasn't been crated during the day before, he has been allowed the run of the house whenever I am home and weekends are devoted to him. He gets two 45 min walks a day minimum and trips to the mountains or dog parks on weekends. He gets all my attention from the moment I wake up and the moment I walk in the front door. I'm down on the floor with him, playing tug of war and fetch. I do like to think we get very good quality time.
I will look into doggy day care a couple of days a week, that is an excellent suggestion.
This behaviour didn't start until after the holidays when I was with him 24/7 for 10+ days.....
Okay I feel your pain. Marshall was crated during the day until we moved into our new apartment. We never got around to setting up his crate again, and he was doing pretty well having free reign...until he started chewing the baseboards, walls, furniture, door frame, etc... This behavior also started when he was about the same age as your pup. I tried bitter spray and all of that, but like yours he just moved on to the next spot. We were fed up, so out came the crate again. It only took him a day to get back into the swing of things and now he jumps right in when we leave. Crating is saving my home from destruction and me from losing my noggin. Either that or day care would be your best bet. Agreed.
Had the same problems with Rocky, ripping out the plush from toys, breaking indestructible toys, chewing the dry wall off the window ledges and corners of the doors, eating hidden cables, ripping out chunks of the carpet. You name it he's done it. Unfortunately I didn't have the means to crate him anymore and a play pen would be just an easy escape for him but fortunately he grew out of it eventually, started at 3 months and a long 8 months later he's only messing with minor things. You could always try and set up a playpen area if you have the space and Haki isn't the climbing type at least that way he has free space and can keep himself out of trouble.
Yup. My pup wasn't much of a chewer until I left him in my apartment alone. He chewed up all the corners of our walls and anything wooden like our chairs. HE also chewed up our couch...and dvds. So now I just leave him in the crate. No amount of toys will deter the pup from chewing. I think they get bored when you aren't home. I've read somewhere else a lot of the chewing happens a couple hours before you come home because they are excited or anticipating you coming home soon. Not sure if its true though.
Thank you all for the feedback and convincing me that I am not the only one....
Yesterday I took the exercise pen and 'fenced' off the part of the kitchen he was destroying, left his toys scattered instead of bunched, gave him a frozen kong with peanut butter and came home to a happy pup and nothing new destroyed. I will keep an eye on him and continue to make sure we both get our long morning and evening walks every day. He did sit with me last night watching Top Gear - first time I'd seen him watch tv - must take after me liking cars ;-)
It sounds like Marshall, Rocky, and Severus went through a similar phase and I can expect him to grow out of it. I am convinced my going back to work after 10 days off is what set him off.
When I read your post title I laughed out loud! I thouht our Shiba was the only one who did that! Yep, drywall, baseboard moulding, carpet, wooden furniture. No amount of chew toys deters her. Crate does though! :) Also if she starts to chew while we are home we shake a can filled with pennies & redirect her. Your shiba is adorable, BTW.
Not always. Some dogs when they become stressed or bored will chew wood or whatever from time to time even as adults. Age is no guarantee. Always be proactive and plan for what if in this regard.
Good question. I recently went one month to California and on our last 10 days we stayed in hotels. On the last 5 days we stayed in an area in LA that was not dog friendly. If I look back Hachi did try and eat the walls and corners... I had to cover that space with the desk :) before I left ooops. Now we are at home sweet home and she doesn't eat the walls, but she likes chewing on the coffee table and dinning table legs (all wood so good thing we can sand it) when we are home!! Even though we walk her a lot and give attention. She no longer uses her crate since the winter, because she found a new warm spot close to the heater. I like not crating her during the day so she will atleast move around. I do have a babyproof door so she can't go all over the house just the livingroom.
She does have a game I hate though... She likes to play infront of the sofa with her tennisball... Let's the ball roll under the sofa and starts barking back at the sofa that she wants her ball back.. So I get annoyed and I have to go fetch the ball. It's her game.. If she doesn't get her ball she starts barking and bitting my sofa. Grrrr
You will also want to make sure that your chewer doesn't have access to electric cords, plugged in or otherwise. Sukoshi went thru a period where she chewed cords. Fortunately, none of them were plugged in. Cords are always unplugged, hidden, or blocked off at my place.
Last night my husband and I were out for 2 and a half hours. Came home to a hole in the dry wall! Our shiba was in her crate, but she must have been able to push her mouth close enough to the wall to nibble out a pretty big hole. I have no idea how she was able to make such a big hole in the wall while in her crate. We have moved the crate now 6 inches away from the wall. (crate was 2 inches about from wall) The thing is, is that before we left we had taken her on a long walk and she had chew toys in her crate and we gave her a dental treat. I can not think of anything I did wrong that would cause this bad behavior, I just hope that she is not this much of a chewer after she is done teething. She is 4 months old and has not yet lost any baby teeth.
Does it stop? YES! Or at least with mine it did. I can leave any of my three uncrated now, including my 9 month old Akita, and they don't destroy anything, except for the two boys (Oskar, the Akita pup and Toby the 7 year old Shiba) do occasionally destroy magazines or newspapers.
Oskar is WAY young to be uncrated in the house, or at least I think he is, but because we're using his big crate as the recovery crate for my female Shiba who had knee surgery, he's out on his own and hasn't gotten into anything. Oh, not true...he's an invetarate slipper chewer and once I forgot to put my slippers in the closet when I left, and when I came home, they were in several interesting pieces. But that was my fault.
I couldn't leave my Shibas uncrated at that age, though! But by the time they were 2 years old, there were very very few chewing problems. (Though now that I think of it, for no apparent reason Toby did the drywall chewing thing upstairs, last summer....we were home too....he did it rather stealthily at night when we were sleeping!)
I wanted to bump this thread because like Camodude, I just found two spots on the wall where Foxy has chewed a pretty decent size hole. This had to have been done today but like you she was in her crate and a few chew toys in with her including her kong. I take her on two long walks a day plus my boyfriend takes her out for a couple walks around the complex in between. I must say, I was pretty surprised to see this. I've now moved her crate farther away from the wall also.
I have the same problem. I would leave for a few hours, Blaine would get bored, and he would just try to destroy everything possible. He started eating the drywall. I used some bitterspray, but then he licked it more!! It was ridiculous. We got an exercise pen but then he just started to scratch the floor under the pen from bordem. Now we just put him in his crate. He has started to scratch up the bottom of his crate though..so we put a plastic cover under it. Recently he started to eat the plastic cover and tear it apart. Its just one thing after another. I think my next purchase will be a plexiglass cover. Ive heard of other owners using this on their walls as well. By the way, in all of these instances he had toys and bulls sticks while the destruction happened.
Yes, I've always put toys in her crate with her especially ones geared for chewing since she's been teething but not bully sticks or anything like that since I wouldn't be able to watch out for any choking hazard while gone from her.
Yes, I've always put toys in her crate with her especially ones geared for chewing since she's been teething but not bully sticks or anything like that since I wouldn't be able to watch out for any choking hazard while gone from her.
Our Shibas haven't eaten any drywall- but the younger boy- Yoshiro, 6 months old has started a terrible habit of pulling out our carpet under our bed. It just started a few weeks ago- before we could trust him and Miyumi, 11 months under the bed. They just sorta laid under there hiding. But now Yoshiro will dart under the bed as soon as we open the bedroom door and you will hear *RIP*RIP*RIP* and BOOM!- there is another small hole in the carpet. We keep bitter spray on hand but it's not stopping him. I mean- he is pulling out carpet as we are pulling him out from under there. He doesn't do this anywhere else but under our bed. As of right now- we just pick him up and carry him around our bedroom if we need to open the door to grab something or keep him out of the room. Miyumi doesn't tear anything up- not even her toys. There is toy basket on the floor of our bedroom. But this just seems like a mission to the little guy. He does fine in his crate. Is is fine everywhere else in the house EXCEPT under our bed.
Heather, Logan, and two Shibas named Miyumi & Yoshiro
My shibas safehaven and run-a-way spot is under the bed. He also like to dig in the carpet around the corners and creases. I usually distract him by throwing a toy the other direction. He wont get back to the carpet scraping for at least 3 or 4 days.
Thankfully Hammond hasn't really had a destructive phase (yet). He used to pull loose tiles off my fireplace and chew them, but bitter apple spray solved that.
He'd also lick and occasionally try to chew table legs as a young puppy, or would chew at rough patches on the hard wood floor (ruined by previous tenants), but again, just giving him something better (a toy, a hoof, a bully stick) and then bitter apple if need be was enough. Sometimes he'd try to bite the huge ceramic tiles off the kitchen floor, but I just let him go nuts with that, because it was hilarious and he'd never succeed. I think most of his chewing was just testing boundaries more than anything.
But walls, trim, that sort of thing, never. My house, though, is quite literally littered with toys, chew toys, bully sticks, cow hooves, stuffed bones, etc. He seems pretty good at hunting down one of those items when he's in a really chewy mood.
He also gets crated during the day (and for bed) and I guess it's far enough from the walls that he can't reach it, but normally he just sleeps.
