Chewing up crate bedding

    • Gold Top Dog

    Chewing up crate bedding

    We figured out pretty soon after getting Houston at 10 months old that he liked to chew. He is 1- 1/2 years old now. He is my 6th cocker spaniel and I never really had this bad of a chewer before. He initially slept with the crate pad that our dog who passed away in March had, but he tore holes in it. He currently has a couple of old towels but takes to chewing and I am concerned about him trying to eat them. We are looking through chew proof pet beds and it seems like K-9 Ballistics Tuff crate pad might be our best choice. But it's made of that denier nylon which is going to be noisy when he moves around on it. So my questions are... 1. Is there something I can do to help him get over this crazy chewing? The couch, towels, plastic anything, napkins, you name it..... 2. What can we do about the crate bedding issue?

    • Gold Top Dog

    Does he have appropriate chew items for crate time?  Nylabones, antlers, bully sticks, stuffed kongs and raw meaty bones are all good options.  Personally, I don't provide bedding for a dog that chews up anything in their crate until they get over the habit of chewing it up.  

    • Gold Top Dog

    He does have a classic black Kong and the black Kong Tire to chew on. He likes Nylabones too but we don't put those in the crate because he can chew through those quickly so he is monitored when he is given a Nylabone, So will taking all bedding away help teach him anything or it's just a safety precaution?

    • Gold Top Dog

    It doesn't actually teach him anything to take the bedding away but not having a chance to practice the behavior can extinguish it.  That's what happened with my determined bedding chewer. She doesn't chew on her beds anymore. I felt bad for her not having any bedding but that was a better option than surgery due to a blockage.  She swallowed everything she chewed until she was about a year old.  

    Some of the nylabones are soft and some are hard.  I don't give any of mine the softer type as they chew and eat them right up.  

    • Gold Top Dog

    I would take any bedding away and give chew toys to him instead, out pup chews her bed but we found that putting several toys in her crate stopped the habit as she chewed on them instead.

    Our other dog is an occasional bed chewer , only if he gets bored, he suffers the same treatment of bed gets removed, he is 5 1/2 years old and we have had him since he was around 9-10 months old and he still does it on the odd occasion.

    • Bronze

    Just another take on the chewing... We had a Labrador that was an aggressive chewer. After thousands of dollars (not an exaggeration), he was finally diagnosed with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. The only thing that made his tummy feel better was a prescription food that I couldn't afford to buy so I had to put him down.

    • Puppy

    She's 95% better now, but we've had her for 3 years and it took a lot of walks in a lot of different places to help improve things.  Her nature will always be to easily startle.  Just this past weekend, we walked by a yard that had a life-sized statue of a dog sitting in the garden.  We were several yards away when she spotted that thing, and her hackles went up, she hunkered her head down and started slowing her approach.  We walked closer and closer until she finally went up to it and sniffed it, then she was like, "Oh!  It's fake.  Whatever, let's go."  So at least she manages her response better now.

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