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I have a sweet little King Charles Cavalier. He is 1 year old...
But he has a problem! He loves to chew on everything! The wall. The floor. The lamp. The glass table. EVERYTHING! I just caught him chewing a huge gash into our hardwood floor in the study. I'll probably have to replace the floor in there now... Also, it is dangerous because he swallows everything he finds. Or tries to, so I have to watch him like a hawk at all times. We don't have anything on the floor, but that doesn't stop him from trying to rip up the carpet, or eat the couch cushions. And yes, he likes to try to eat the drywall in our house (literally, he sinks his teeth into the walls...)
I crate train my dogs. I have Tzu's that range in age from 3 to 6 years and they are all crate trained.
I had a lab at one point in time that destroyed much of my home. She ate two stuffed chairs (ok huge parts of the chairs) and would set out to rip the house to shreds each and every time we'd leave her. Couldn't leave her in the house, couldn't leave her outside. It was horrible.
My Tzu's all are told to go to bed at night or if we leave and they head right in and one in particular will go lay by his kennel at night ready to go in before we ever say a word. They are kept in if we are gone or at night and they tend to feel safe there now and if it storms or whatever might scare them, they head for the crate.
I watched that it me or the dog show one time and they had a dog on there that ate everything like your dog did even had to have multi surgeries. Anyways what they did on there was take him for two, thirty min walks everyday. I might be wrong and i know you say you give him lots of attention, but if i had to guess i would say he is eatting everything because he is getting bored.
OH.........he is so cute! What I wouldn't give to have that kind of energy!
I picked up a stray dog once, he looked like a small yellow lab mostly. About 55 lbs. The vet said he was about a year old.
He tore up the ottoman, curtains, ripped the carpet off of the cat pole, tore up the cushions of two kitchen chairs........ya know........the kind on wheels, saddleback.......OMG........I would give anything if I could have THAT on video! I can just picture him rolling those chairs all over the kitchen as he was trying to destroy them! He chewed the corners on my kitchen cupboards too, they are still like that. Now, when I look at them, they make me smile remembering.
Anyway, I started to leave empty boxes all over the house for him to chew up. I know.......... the professionals say to never do this, but I did and it worked. Empty cereal boxes, kleenex boxes and huge boxes that I brought home from work {they were almost as big as he was}.
Every night, when I came home from work, I cleaned up ripped up cardboard instead of ripped up furnitue.
A few months later, he just stopped..............something clicked and he grew up.
He was one of my best dogs ever.
He passed away on Jan. 2, 2009 at the age of 16.
I would give anything if I had him back to rip up some more furniture.
OH.........he is so cute! What I wouldn't give to have that kind of energy!
I picked up a stray dog once, he looked like a small yellow lab mostly. About 55 lbs. The vet said he was about a year old.
He tore up the ottoman, curtains, ripped the carpet off of the cat pole, tore up the cushions of two kitchen chairs........ya know........the kind on wheels, saddleback.......OMG........I would give anything if I could have THAT on video! I can just picture him rolling those chairs all over the kitchen as he was trying to destroy them! He chewed the corners on my kitchen cupboards too, they are still like that. Now, when I look at them, they make me smile remembering.
Anyway, I started to leave empty boxes all over the house for him to chew up. I know.......... the professionals say to never do this, but I did and it worked. Empty cereal boxes, kleenex boxes and huge boxes that I brought home from work {they were almost as big as he was}.
Every night, when I came home from work, I cleaned up ripped up cardboard instead of ripped up furnitue.
A few months later, he just stopped..............something clicked and he grew up.
He was one of my best dogs ever.
He passed away on Jan. 2, 2009 at the age of 16.
I would give anything if I had him back to rip up some more furniture.
His name was Max.
Annie, that sounds just like our sweetheart GSD mix. She chewed her way through a couch, and would probably have gone through the drywall if she hadn't started focusing on cardboard boxes, so we just left boxes out for her. She'd dismantle a huge appliance box in no time! But after the first 1 1/2 year she stopped chewing, and her cardboard fixation got channeled into chewing tubes from paper towels which we saved up for her. We put milkbones inside them, closed off the ends, and she'd be happily occupied munching on cardboard and milkbones. And I suspect that the cardboard/paper fetish also enabled her to recognize and open gift boxes, so we had a ball on birthdays and Christmas where she would get her own wrapped gift, and unwrap it. She never "unwrapped" anyone else's gift, but she always knew there'd be one for her! And she knew the words, "Find your present!" She was the beating heart of our little family for 12 years, and we still miss her, after almost 4 years...
Crate and training. We adopted a small beagle mix that destroys hardcore chews designed for huge dogs in seconds...very aggressive chewer...he destroyed laptop cords, would topple the hamper and rip clothing to shreds, gnawed through two down comforters, a set of bamboo rayon sheets, chewed the legs up on our dining room table, and countless other issues.
Because he's high energy, we've always done the "tire him out" thing. A 45-min long walk at 6 a.m., one again at 4:30-5 p.m., and usually one before bed if he still has energy to spare. But other than give him lots of time to poop, I can honestly say that this really never did cut down on any of the behavioral issues or destructiveness...for us, "a tired dog is a good dog" is pretty much a useless adage. A tired dog can still be a bored dog, and that's what ours turned into if he didn't have the undivided attention of his people, and a bored dog, even a tired one, will find ways to entertain himself. Obedience training helped us get him more settled when we aren't actively engaged with him or home.
Crating when supervision isn't possible and small-group obedience training helped to calm him down (although he'll still go after the clothes hamper if he can get at it).
Our big male Mastiff has separation problems and when he was a year old my husband and I stepped out to the front yard to pluck some weeds and kept hearing a scratching noise. Went back in 30 min later and my dog had chewed a head sized hole clear to the backing of the stucco. He wanted out with us. He is over it now.
Crated while not supervised, that dog needs way more exercise than you are providing - so lots of walks, enroll in an obedience class - the dog needs direction and you need some training.
ALL puppies are little wild woman and men, they need good training to direct their ADD and they need lots of exercise not just a romp in the back yard.
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