CHEWING
Chewing is a normal and natural thing for young puppies to do and it’s needed to maintain the health of your dog’s teeth. To dogs all objects are possible chew toys. Dogs also chew to relieve anxiety and boredom. After all there are only so many things pup can do to keep him or herself entertained, while you are not around.
When a pup lives with a human, it is the human’s job to teach him what’s OK to chew and what’s not OK to chew.
Chew training a puppy usually takes 1-3 months, and there may be times you can’t actively supervise his activities.
Always set up pup for success, when you are not around and mistakes can happen,
Confine your pup to a comfortable safe area; such as a single room this must contain a comfortable bed, a bowl of water, a doggy toilet (if not yet housetrained), and 6-7 freshly stuffed chew toys. These chew toys must be the only things available to chew.
In this environment your pup is training himself to chew toys and these chew toys will become much more desirable for your dog to chew as opposed to carpets, shoes etc.
We confine pup to prevent your dog from chewing inappropriate items around the house and to maximize the chance of a chew toy habit developing.
Praise, praise, praise each time your pup chews something right. REWARD good behaviour IGNORE bad behaviour.
Your dog will learn to settle down and entertain himself with his chew toys as soon as you leave in the morning, and he will probably search for chew toys when he wakes.
Chew toys should be indestructible and no consumable.
Examples of chew toys: Kongs, sterilized long bones, hooves that can be stuffed with treats.
Squeeze a piece of liver in the small hole of the Kong, fill the rest of the hole with part of his daily meal (if kibble moisten it first) and then put the Kongs in the freezer.
As the food thaws, it starts to fall out and this reinforces your pup to play with the chew toy, which in return will release more food. What fun.
Until your pup is fully chew toy-trained, feed all his meals from chew toys, or hand feed meals as rewards when you notice your dog is chewing a chew toy.
If a mistake ever happens, it’s your fault. Don’t shout at the dog especially if he is no longer chewing your new Jimmy Choo he will not relate your ranting to the new chew toy he found on the floor.
All he’ll learn is “when you come home, I get punished.” Making him more anxious and more likely to chew even more worrying about your arrival home.
If you catch pup in the act of chewing your new shoes, offer him a yummy chew toy in exchange for the shoe. This will also teach pup to release stuff you ask him for. If you just snatch the shoe off pup he will learn that when he sees you approaching while he is chewing down on his new found toy, you are going to take away his toy and fun and he will learn to run away or even worse develop a chewing habit in private.
Happy Training.