Dog Training Tip

Dog Training Tip

Do you often get home after a hard days work to find your beautiful cushions ripped to shreds, corners of your new carpet torn up and bite marks in that expensive table you saved for years to be able to afford?I'm going to let my Shih Tzu dog, Ozzy, help you find a solution to stop dogs chewing. He'll explain why dogs chew and tell you what dogs enjoy chewing and how to stop your dog chewing furniture!

WHY DO DOGS CHEW?

Hello, my name is Ozzy and I've just had my first birthday. I used to chew my mum's carpet and there's still a big hole in the corner of our dining room, oops! We chew because when we're puppies aged between 14-28 weeks old, we're teething and by chewing things, it helps to soothe our gums and loosen them around our teeth. This allows our 'baby teeth' to fall out so that our 'big teeth' came come through. It also strengthens our teeth and gums.

Once we're around six months old, and possibly for the next 18 months, we want to explore! Babies use their hands to explore, dogs and puppies use their mouths! We want to know what everything tastes like. Dogs have been doing this since the beginning of time, it's in our nature to chew! Destructive chewing can be a problem though so you need to figure out how to stop it fast!

Here's the clever bit: When we chew, it causes a chemical release of endorphins which calms us down. Chewing helps relieve stress and anxiety. It makes us feel better, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're stressed or anxious if we chew.

SO WHAT CAN I DO TO STOP DOGS CHEWING?

When it comes to chewing, it makes no difference to us if it's an expensive sofa or a stick that we've picked up from the garden. We have no sense of value, we're dogs for goodness sake! We need you to teach us what's ours and what's yours. We need you to give us things that we're allowed to chew. If we've nothing to chew that's ours, we'll just go for the first thing we can lay our teeth on (your sofa, table leg etc). To stop your dog chewing furniture, let us know what we can chew! If you give us an old shoe to chew, we're going to think that we have permission to chew all shoes!

The best thing that you can do is give us 3 or 4 toys (all different shapes and textures) to play with. Kongs are great, every dog should have one! They're rubber toys that you can fill with treats (marmite, cheese, biscuits, meat etc) and they give us hours of fun trying to chew all the tasty treats! Make sure you get one suitable for puppies first though. Nicer than a leather sofa any day! Other great things to chew are rawhide bones and rope tugs.

To stop your dog chewing furniture, spray a deterrent on it, like bitter apple spray, yuck!! If something has that on it, you can guarantee that us dogs will be stopping chewing that!

REWARD US FOR BEING GOOD!

If you see us chewing one of our toys, and not your dining room chair, then praise us. It helps us to learn! Don't do it too much though, if we're having a good chewing session we don't really want to be interrupted. If you do catch us chewing something that we shouldn't, a firm 'NO' will do the trick. Make sure that you then give us something that we can chew which will help to stop your dog chewing furniture!

It's important to praise us when we're being good and correct us when we're being bad.

So there's a few tips on how you can stop dogs chewing!

I hope that you have found this article useful. There is alot you can learn about dog training and why they do the things that they do.

Check out stop dogs chewing for more great tips!

For the best professional advice on all aspects of dog training visit http://www.best-dog-training-online.info

Good luck! I hope you enjoy your four legged friend as much as I enjoy mine!