Chewing Problems!!!!

Just curious, is he a Lab?  The reason I ask is that they are a "late-maturing" breed when it comes to chewing.  Some of them still chew at age 1.5 - 2. [sm=eek.gif]

Also, some dogs chew if they are anxious, to calm themselves - they find it soothing.  Do you leave a Kong or something in the crate to occupy him?  There's a new gizmo on the market that dispenses Kongs throughout the day....maybe he would like that.

He's a puggle, part beagle part pug.  He has a kong which I usually give to him at night.  I usually keep his bear and a nyla bone in his tent to occupy him.   I really don't want him in the crate because I would like him to have open space and not be confined all day.  We have new furniture and do not want that ruined.  

Well, beagles are fairly notorious for their destructive abilities (getting into the garbage and creating performance art from what they find in there is a popular one). My solution to that problem with my dogs was crate-training, so I'm afraid I have no other ideas.

if he's being destructive he's too young to be let loose unsupervised-- more supervision for a few months more before trying again. One year old is still a pup. You could try a dog-proofed room if you want him to have more space while you're gone.
What does he have available to chew on, and how have you taught him to distinguish between "Acceptable" chew items and "everything else"? we've had great success with a "chew mat": while we're home we put dog toys and dog chews on the mat, and reward the dog for playing with/chewing those items and gently re-direct when dog tries to play with or chew anything else. Very clear rule that dogs quickly grasp, that readily carries over to "unsupervised" time when the dog gets older. Many dogs are highly confused about what is theirs and what isn't: are those things on the floor toys or shoes? how is the dog to ever figure that out?

I've been having a similar problem with my 7 month old pitbull.  What I've started doing is leaving her in a sectioned-off part of the kitchen so she has a little freedom, but not TOO much freedom.  We remove all tempting (and dangerous!) objects from her reach, and leave her a stuffed kong and lots of toys.  So far, she has chewed on the doorframe a little, and also her baby-gate a few times.  When I come home and find that she's chewed on something, she gets a squirt of bitter apple right in her mouth as well as on the object she chewed, then gets put on her time-out leash, and will be crated again for the next few days.  When I come home and she's been good (no chewing!), she immediately gets praised and gets a special treat.  Some people say that dogs can't associate behavior that was committed more than a few minutes past with reward or punishment, but I swear that the systems been working... I've gone from finding destruction everytime she's left out of her crate and unobserved for even a few minutes to finding some minor chewing once a week or less.  Also, she loves bones, rawhides, bullysticks, and other edible chews.  Although I can't leave her unsupervised with those, I've increased the amount of supervised chewing time she gets each night, and that seems to be helping, as well.  Hope this gives you some ideas on what might help.

When I come home and find that she's chewed on something, she gets a squirt of bitter apple right in her mouth as well as on the object she chewed, then gets put on her time-out leash,

 
this is just cruel. Your dog has no idea why you are punishing him. If you don't catch the dog "in the act" he makes no connection between your behavior and his behavior.

I have to say that I disagree.  I used this punishment when she chewed on the door frame 3 weeks ago, and she hasn't touched it since.  I've heard mixed opinions on whether or not dogs can associate acts with punishments if they're not actually caught doing something wrong... some people have said what you said, other people swear that their dogs know exactly what they did wrong, even if it happened several hours earlier.  My experience so far seems to indicate that she knows what she did wrong, and what's more she's not repeating the behavior.  Previously, I had been following the advice not to punish the dog for something I didn't catch her doing, and the only result was that she stopped chewing on things when I was around, but it did nothing to curb her behavior when she was alone.  It seems better to try to break the bad habits rather than assume that the dog simply can't be trusted and keep her crated until she's 2! 

Whoa, I so disagree with you.

1. The dog has no idea what you are punishing for.
2. Bitter apple in the mouth? What?
3. Dogs are actually learning what to do and chew in your absence when they are confined so that they can only chew on what is theirs.

Instead of teaching the dog what to do, you are mostly just painting a picture of yourself as scary and unpredictable in your dog's eyes. In the short term, this could seem like it's working, because your dog will definitely become more wary in general. But this is not because the dog is learning anything about what to chew on.

Alisia - I've never owned a bottle of bitter apple and certainly would never squirt a chemical in my pups mouth!!!!!!!!!!
 
Since my pup age 6 months chewed my newly painted wall in the bathroom,  "no she did not get "punished"  " I now crate her for 4 hours until I get home from lunch...problem solved w/o "punishment" as you call it!
 
Face it, it just a fact of life,,,,puppies chew until they don't need to chew anymore.  Think I finally gave my dog freedom of the whole house when she was 2.  Never ever chewed an off-limit thing for 8 years.
 
 

I actually think the reason she is not repeating the behavior is "because" your squirting her in the mouth and where she chewed.  The taste is probably so servre to her highly sensitve tounge and the smell in her nasel cavity of that strong scent probably burns her snout.  When she smells that scent now on items she stays clear of it.  
 
OK, your getting the result you want but at what price.  Your dog now see's you as unstable leader.  It is proven dogs can't assoicate punishment with something they did a minute ago never mind what they did hours ago.  I bet at this point, spraying the object with bitter apple and not the dogs mouth will give you the same result.  The whole timeout thing and punishment after the fact is very confusing to the dog - and not fair to him either.  I bet he greets you all happy tail waggin and "bang" he gets sprayed in the mouth with bitter apple and tied to a chair for timeout.  I really don't think he is thinking I shouldn't have done that? It more like, I am scared I should run.
PS:  When a human comes home and see's something chewed or the garbage knocked over and they look at their dog and the dog cowards or act guilty its not becasue the dog thinks he is in trouble.  They react like that becasue they sense the humans immediate change of mood and the dog immediatly gets nervous.

Dogs only appear to know what they did wrong hours later. They don't really, but the body language they use to try to appease you when they can tell that you're angry gets interperated by humans as "guilt". Dogs don't feel guilt, but they do have a pretty high self-preservation drive and if someone is coming towards them in a hostile angry posture, they will immediately send signals that say "Please don't hurt me, I'm small and harmless!" The hanging of the head, the big watery eyes, the rolling over and exposing the belly, those are all dogspeak for "You are scary! I am tiny! Don't hurt me!" If a dog enough times gets that treatment when their person comes home from being out, they will very quickly learn that they need to adopt that appeasement posture as soon as that unpredictable human who squirts yucky things in my mouth sometimes walks in the door. Your subtle cues upon seeing what they have or have not done determine whether they go really way overboard in this behavior or stop doing it and go on as per usual. You may not even notice that they're taking their cue for whether or not to look "guilty" from you, but they are.
 
Remember, correlation doesn't necissarily equal causation.

Previously, I had been following the advice not to punish the dog for something I didn't catch her doing, and the only result was that she stopped chewing on things when I was around, but it did nothing to curb her behavior when she was alone.

 
 
precisely why punishment is so ineffective for training dogs. The most effective way to raise a well-behaved puppy is to be very pro-active and to manage the environment. A puppy should be under constant direct supervision or confined in a puppy-proofed area for at least the first year of life, possibly longer for some dogs.  Everything good the puppy does should be rewarded-- notice when the puppy is lying quietly, or chewing on an appropriate item, and reward. The puppy's environment should be manipulated so the puppy really can't do anything bad. If you, the owner, make a mistake (whoops, left the shoes out of the closet and the pup got it while I was talking on the phone), you don't punish the puppy for your mistake, you say "uh oh" or "whoops" to the puppy to gently inform him that's not a good thing to do, and since you cleverly taught the puppy to drop things on command you ask him to drop the shoe and reward him profusely. Wow! you turned your mistake into a training session. No one gets punished. Everyone learned something.
Bottom line, your approach of punishing the puppy hours after his mis-deeds is only teaching the puppy that you are a dangerous unpredictable bully. Some dogs react by "shutting down" and they stop doing much of anything-- sounds like what your dog is doing. Other dogs decide to defend themselves from this insane human who keeps attacking them for no reason.
If you must "punish" the puppy for something, it's best to set up a "booby trap" so the punishment seems to have nothing to do with the owner. Example would be a dog who's gotten into the nasty habit of raiding the garbage, a self-rewarding activity. If you punish the dog for raiding the garbage, he'll just learn to raid it when you're not there. But if you set up a trap such that a scary noise occurs when he tries to raid it, he'll quickly associate the punishment with the act itself, not you. Of course if you had been a more pro-active puppy owner you'd have arranged the environment so he never got rewarded for raiding the garbage in the first place, and instead got lots of rewards for not-raiding the garbage.

Ok, so I'll keep him in his crate a little longer.  I'd like to confine him to the kitchen, but he jumps the puppy gates.  Any ideas on that?  Also, one of the rooms off the kitchen, is the living room.  The area is wider than normal.  I can't put chairs in front, because he can climb under them.  When we first started letting him out of his crate, we used to rig up this barrier using wood and the chairs.  That quickly became a pain, trying to set it up every morning and put it away in the evening.  I'm really trying to simplify things.  So, any help anyone can give me, I would really appreciate!! 

Wow!  Thanks for all the advice, guys.  First, let me say, generally I DO try to create an environment where she just simply can't get into trouble.  I've moved the trash onto the back porch so she can't get at it, and anything that must be left on the counters is pushed all the way to the back so she can't reach anything.  There's child locks on all the cabinets so she can't get into them, the curtains in the kitchen have been removed, and any cord that's within her reach is left unplugged.  But, aside from keeping her in her crate all day, there's no way of keeping her away from walls, cabinets, furniture, etc.  She doesn't have free reign of the house, only a small part of the kitchen.  I really don't want to keep her couped up in a crate everyday... she's a puppy, she's energetic and she's growing, and it just doesn't seem right to keep her caged all the time. 
 
So if she's going to be given freedom, but she still does something wrong, is there some way of letting her know the behavior was unacceptable without traumatizing her?  It seems like to ignore the behavior as if it didn't happen is counterproductive, because then how does the dog learn that the behavior was wrong?
 
If I'm not going to crate her all day, and she can't be punished for bad behavior, then I need to come up with a way to keep her busy enough when she's alone that she doesn't get into trouble.  I leave the TV on and give her a kong stuffed with frozen peanut butter, yogurt, and treats, and she has a ton of toys.  Any other suggestions?