Saturday and Sunday were fairly uneventful and while he did have an accident each day, on Saturday it was at night and on Sunday it was our fault for not taking him out right before we left to run some errands. The only difference was that we left him loose in the house with our bedroom door shut at night - This way the cats still have a safe haven.
Monday and Tuesday were uneventful with no accidents, no change in his home-alone behavior, and no issues.
Wednesday was different.
Wednesday I came home for lunch and found a tissue torn apart on the couch and my pink fuzzy slippers chewed up on the floor.
This photo was taken the night before the massacre on the poor defenseless slippers.
In his defense, I did leave the slippers out. AND he didn't really chew up the whole slipper - he just completely chewed up the elastic around the top - I found it in pieces all over the 1st floor.
I threw out the slippers, shrugged my shoulders and swore to be more careful. I cleaned up all my crafts, put cords away, hid everything and moved all food even further out of his reach.
There were no problems and still no accidents when I got home Wednesday night, so I took it as a one time lark and moved on.
Wrong.
In the above photo, do you see the cute little sneakers in the upper left hand corner? Those are my only sneakers. Oh, hold on. Wait. Those were my only sneakers.
When I got home for lunch on Thursday, this is what I found:
Crime Scene Angle 2:
So... Again... in his defense, he really only chewed the laces and just loved up the sides of them a little harder than necessary. The shoes are probably still wearable. At least that's what I keep telling myself. Yesterday I was not so reasonable. I got home and viewed the destruction and dragged the little man off the couch (where he was illegally sleeping), and took him out to find 3 inches of water in the backyard. Fortunately, by the end of the day, that water was gone and the neighbor is looking into it with his plumber which is great because we're pretty darn sure the water is coming from their house.
I put the shoes down and claimed them in front of the dog, and now he won't even look at the poor sneakers. meh. Too Little too late?
I got a little more stringent about what was accessible to him before I left for work again, but the devil in me specifically over-looked putting away Greg's sneakers, which - I might add - he didn't even touch. I prefer to think my sneakers were that much more delicious smelling.
This morning, when Greg got up at 5:15 to take the dog for a long walk/run, we ran into the leash outside our bedroom door. In pieces. Luckily, the shelter we got him from had sent us home with a slip collar leash, so Greg used that for the walk and we'll be using that today till we can get out to petco and pick up another (couple of) leash(es).
Also, the little guy has a clean bill of health from the Vet this past weekend, except for his ears. Apparently the floppy ears in a shelter stay has leant him towards having Yeast infections. We have ear drops that we need to keep giving him twice a day for another week and we should be wiping his ears out with cotton balls. The issue here is that cotton balls freak me out the way nails on a chalkboard freak other people out. Even the thought of touching a cotton ball is enough to give me a full body convulsion. Despite that, we'll pick some up today, and I'll vacate the room while Greg swabs the dog's ears. I can't even begin to describe the twitching I'm experiencing just typing about cotton balls.
Hey you. Dog lovers. Yea. You.
How do you prevent this from happening aside from getting rid of all of your shoes?Is there a canvas toy that works for dogs who like to chew leashes and sneakers in their free time? The doofus has a rope bone and a nylabone and a kong and a rubber ball and a tennis ball already. Out of frustration this morning I dunked the bone in a jar of peanut butter - which I belatedly realized is probably now not fit for human consumption - but that can't be the only thing. I can't keep violating the peanut butter jar just to eek out some hope that the dog won't whittle away my collection of footwear. There's no more footwear accessible to him at the moment, but I'm bound to be zany-brained one day and leave some shoes lying around...
Any suggestions?
6 comments:
One of the reasons we crate the newest dog (our older two we've had for 4 years and 7 years) is that it is very difficult to correct a behavior AFTER the fact. He just won't remember what he did and punishing him doesn't reinforce the idea that "x" is naughty.
My best defense with Harley has been keeping an eye on him and catching him in the act. Same with Gabby (with us 4 yrs now) she chewed one pair of shoes...I caught her in act. She never chewed a pair again. Harley is fine (he's a year old now) unless left unsupervised then many things he shouldn't chew are fair game even though he's got plenty of toys. The boys have learned the hard way about watching the dog and picking up small action figures. Poor Boba Fett will never be the same!
Just my 2cents!
Good luck!
Get that dog a KONG. We have two of them, one the regular Kong, where you put a treat in and they have to work hard to get it, and this one: http://www.dogtoys.com/kongwubba.html, which is a Kong Wubba. The Wubba is canvas, has a great squeaky noise, and is still hard to destroy. The farthest my dog has gotten is a few tears in the canvas tails, but they are still attached which is amazing.
Both are great toys but they are a bit expensive. Like, $8 for the regular Kong, and $13 for the Wubba at Petsmart. And as for the shoes, you'll both learn to put them away from now on, which is never a bad thing.
One thing that you can do is pick up some Bitter Apple spray (it's all natural - no chemicals or anything) from the pet store. You spray it on anything that you don't want the dog to chew on. Our puppy chewed on EVERYTHING, but once we sprayed it on our shoes and he got a taste of it, he left them alone! Now he leaves stuff alone if we just get the spray bottle out! Only problem is it works best while it's still wet. You will need to keep reapplying it until he gets it, but it is worth it!! It works on anything...even your skin if he likes to chews on you like ours did :)
I 2nd the motion about the Kongs! Another good idea I heard is to put peanut butter in it and put it in the freezer, then give it to him before you leave. That should tire him out some!
How about the name Bogart?
Until our dogs are out of puppyhood all chewable items are hidden or put away. Our Weimaraner finally got out of the shoe chewing phase at the same time we got our Dane puppy. So we went back to the old set up. All shoes are put away in a closet at all times when they aren't on our feet. If we leave the house we leave 2 Kongs stuffed with frozen peanut butter as well as a Hurley (http://www.westpawdesign.com/product_categories/44/products/321-hurley). If we are going to be gone for more than 4 hours the dogs are crated (was less than that when the Dane was younger). With the pup (who is 10 months now) we took her out hourly for the first 2 weeks in the house, we also take all food and water out of the dog's reach at least 2 hours before bedtime to try to prevent any late night accidents. I could go on but I don't want to ramble. :p
Some dogs don't know to chew the bones. We had to get our bones a little wet and let her start chewing on it before she got hooked. Now that she knows how tasty they are she ignores the trim throughout our house
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