Tired of Your Dog Devouring Your Expensive Furniture?
5 Essential Steps to Stop Dog Chewing
Wondering how to get your dog from chewing on the furniture? Well, keep reading if you…
— find that you get home only to find your dog has been busy…while you were away, much to your horror, it was busy chewing on everything in the house…again!
Your once beautiful wooden chairs have been gnawed on so much it looks like you have a pet beaver in your home, not a dog!
Not only that, but the soft, comfy couch you love to just sit back on and relax after a hard day’s work is on its way to becoming stuffing free!
Wow, now your couch is kinda like those dog toys with no stuffing inside!
This can be not only frustrating, but expensive!
Are you left wondering if there’s any possible way to stop this destructive behavior your dog has chosen as its favorite pastime while you’re gone?
It would be soooo much nicer to come home and not have to clean up the mess your mischievous canine friend has caused! I know, I’ve been in your chewed up shoes before…so, I thought I’d take the time to share what worked for my dogs.
(btw, the dog over there in the picture is one of our dogs…Jade.
She loves to chew, but she no longer chews on our furniture…or our shoes.) ⇓⇓⇓⇓
Okay, here they are:
Five Things You Can Do
- Give your dog something it CAN chew on!
- Exercise your dog
- Remove or put away things you don’t want your dog chewing on
- Make chewing on furniture an unpleasant experience
- Keep your dog in a crate
Here’s Something To Chew On!
Yes, even if you have an older dog it is important to have something that it can chew on! Not only puppies like to chew!
If you’re the proud owner of a puppy that’s still growing and possibly teething, it’s much more likely to happen, but some older dogs still love to chew on anything and everything they can get their paws on.
Usually an older dog doesn’t chew on things as much, but most of them do still like to chew on things, so give your dog something to chew on!
Otherwise, if it is home alone and bored, it just might start thinking that your furniture looks pretty darn good to gnaw on!
Tire ‘Em Out!
Exercising your dog or puppy is a great way to prevent a lot of behavior problems since it gets rid of some of that excess energy. Plus, it gets pretty boring if it’s just laying around the house all day or just left out in a small area in the back yard.
If the only time your dog gets out of the house is to go potty, don’t you think it’s getting sick and tired of seeing the same old scenery day in and day out? Why not take it out for a walk and a change of scenery for a bit? It’s a good way to keep both of you a little healthier!
Pick It Up!
Well, I have to say it… if you don’t want your dog chewing on things in your house, THEN PICK IT UP and PUT IT AWAY!
If it’s not laying around where the dog can get to it, then it won’t get chewed up, RIGHT?
That way you won’t get this look when you get home…(Click image to enlarge)
What About The Furniture?
Well, the furniture is another story….you can’t possibly pick up all your furniture and put that away now, can you?
A Few Things You Can Try To Save Your Furniture
- Products that make it unpleasant to chew on – there are many products out there that are made especially for this problem that are safe to use for your dog and your furniture. You can click the following link to check out my review of anti-chew sprays for dogs.
- Keep your dog away from its favorite furniture to chew on – for example, if your dog is chewing only on one specific piece of furniture such as the kitchen chairs try keeping it out of the kitchen while you’re away. Although it may then start chewing on something else! There really is no guarantee, but it MAY work with some dogs. It all depends on how much your dog likes to chew and what its temperament is like.
- Again, chew toys may work! Give it something it REALLY loves to chew on instead of your furniture!
- Teach your dog it is wrong to chew on the furniture
When you’re home and you see your dog starting to nibble on the furniture, let it know it is doing something wrong.
Tell your dog a firm NO! and, then give it a chew toy that it CAN chew on. This is positive reinforcement, it does work!
It may take awhile, but your dog will eventually learn that you do NOT want it chewing on the furniture.
How do I know it works? Well, because I have tried it…and if you have already read my home page, you should be able to tell I am not new to owning a dog…in fact, we’ve owned and trained quite a few and still do.
Get a Crate!
If you can’t completely trust your dog while you’re away from home,
the NUMBER ONE, BIGGEST PIECE OF ADVICE I CAN GIVE YOU is
CRATE TRAINING!!!
Sure, it’s nothing new and I’m sure you’ve heard it all before, but it’s the
Safest and Most Effective Way
to keep your dog or pup from chewing on the furniture and whatever else it can get a hold of. So, if you do NOT trust your dog 100% at home alone, I would recommend getting a properly sized crate.
There are many crates available, some even look like and serve as furniture! Although I have never owned or used one of these, they do look really nice! Plus, these crates have a lot of good reviews by people like you who do own and use them for their dogs!
>>Click the following link to check one out at Amazon! Merry Products Pet Cage with Crate Cover, Large
Let me tell you from experience, it will save you money in the long run! Until your dog is completely trustworthy not to chew on things it shouldn’t, a crate is the best way to keep your furniture safe!
…and no, your dog will not be sentenced to be behind bars forever! There does come a time when your dog learns between what is right to chew and wrong to chew.
Do you have any tips on how you can keep your dog from chewing furniture? Do you have a dog that is chewing up all your furniture and don’t know what to do? Let me know, maybe I can help.
Please feel free to share them in the comment box below. I’d love to hear ’em and I WILL get back to you!
Oh, and one more thing…
Please share this if you liked it, found it helpful, or know someone with a furniture destroyin’ dog… Thanks for reading! 🙂 -Sherry
Looking for Chew Toys for your Dog? Not sure what toys are the best?
You may also want to check out my page Dog Toys for Aggressive Chewers. There, you’ll find the toys I recommend. I’m sure they’ll make both you and your dog happy!
I have 2 one year old puppies. I have had dogs all my life and have never had a chewer. If I go even into the bathroom for 5 minutes there have been times when I find some piece of furniture or even the corner of a wall chewed. They are crated if I go out, not more than 3 hours tops to run reads and not every day. I am retired and getting frustrated. Any advice would be much appreciated. I tried bitter apple and stop that, so open for suggestions. Thank you, Lee
Hi Lee,
Thank you for stopping by! It sounds like a very frustrating situation you’re in with your two puppies.
If you’ve already tried the bitter apple spray and it didn’t work, here is a review of bitter apple spray along with a couple of other products out there that are similar, but may work better for your pups. Before you go and spend money on any more anti-chew sprays though, I’d suggest trying to keep them occupied with something while you’re away for that little while…here’s a link to a past review of mine, durable toys that they can’t chew up or other types of tough chews that they can’t swallow or break apart.
As long as they find these interesting enough to them this might work. First, I’d supervise these two puppies to make sure they like them and can’t break them apart either. This happened with our puppies in the past, they’d take any opportunity they could to chew on stuff…so, we started picking up anything we could that they shouldn’t chew on and then started leaving dog toys and bones laying around. We’ve used natural beef bones similar to these. It seems to have worked, at least usually they’re pretty good about not chewing on things they shouldn’t now.
I hope this helps you out with your pups, but don’t give up…they’re young yet, and it’ll get better as they grow up more. What breed of dog are they? If I knew what breed, maybe I could help a bit more too…
Best wishes to you and your puppies!
Thank you for visiting The Dog Bunker and leaving a comment! I hope to hear from you again soon:)
-Sherry
What do u do when ur 7 month old pup breaks her new kong 170$ kennel and is an escape artist that gets out n eats the couch
Hi Lisad,
This sounds like an expensive problem! Please let me know if she acts up while she is in the crate when you are still at home or if it is after you leave for a certain time period? She sounds like she may need more crate training.
If it is only after you leave her alone for a long time period like three or four hours maybe have someone you trust let her out for a short time to have a potty break and a chance to get to move around a bit. It is also a great idea to exercise your puppy before leaving…this way it may tire it out a bit so it won’t have so much energy.
Or, it could be boredom…have you tried giving her something to play with or chew on while in the crate? I know this isn’t always recommended due to choking hazards, but if you can get a tough toy such as the Kong dog toys, they are usually pretty durable. Try it out while supervising her first to see if she can chew any pieces off or not. Also always replace any that are starting to have pieces break off since depending on what breed your dog is and how much it chews they may eventually wear out. Another thing you may try are real (beef) bones that you can often get from the local grocery store…get one that is too big for your dog to accidentally swallow though! So, again please use caution if leaving your puppy alone with anything since all dogs have different levels of chewing strength. See how well it works or not while you are at home first.
As for the cage breaking, I have never tried the Kong crates…do you mean actually broke or chewed through the cage bars? Or, did it bend the cage frame enough to get it to come apart where it connects together? If it is the latter, that it is coming apart where each panel connects together, you may find that heavy duty zip ties to hold it together will work…just put them on and snip off the ends so they aren’t poking out.
I really hope this helps you out with your puppy! Please let me know how you are doing and if you have any more questions! 🙂
-Sherry
What do u do when ur 7month old puppy breaks her brand new 170$ kennel and is an escape artist and cannot b contained? My girl is bein so desructive
Hi Lisad,
I just have a few questions so I can answer your question better…has your puppy been crate trained yet? How long is she in the crate? Does she go in the crate easily or is it hard to get her in there?
If you are having problems such as she doesn’t like being in the crate at all for any length of time, even a few minutes, it may be she is afraid to be in there, so make it a place she will like to be.
Put some of her favorite treats in there so she will go in there on her own to get them…just keep the door open for now and praise her too when she goes in the crate. Keep working at it until she is comfortable in the crate…then try a few minutes with the door shut and give her a favorite treat again once she is calm while inside the crate. Once she is doing fine with this try leaving the room for a few minutes…give her something to keep her busy first like a chew toy (make sure she cannot chew off pieces of it first though) and then if she is calm give her praise and a treat..if she starts acting up when you leave the room then come back tell her firmly “stop” and when she calms down give her a treat. Don’t yell at her since you only want good experiences associated with the crate.
Each time you work on this add more time to it and once she remains calm then praise and treat! Once she realizes that this is a safe place and she gets things she likes (praise & treats) while she is in there she will not have a problem with it…it may take a lot of time and patience!
I hope this helps if this is what the issue is….like I said, if you could let me know a bit more about your puppy that would help me answer your question a bit better…
-Sherry
Thank you for visiting and commenting! I am very happy to hear my posts may be helpful to you! Good luck with your presentation! 🙂