Mischevious little puppy

[charliezangel]

oh, my little puppy is so cute and precious...and most of the time she is pretty good, but she is soooo mischevious. I need to know if what she did today is going to affect her.

So, puppy is not allowed in the bathroom. She gets into the trash and the cupboard under the sink does close all the way, so we can't hide it in there. So the bathroom door stays closed. So this morning, i must not have pulled it closed hard enough. I was making breakfast and looked over to find her ripping appart a bloody pad!!!! I know, TMI, i'm sorry. It was mine from this morning when i first woke up and she was tearing into it. I got it away from her, but there was blood all over her paws and snout. I cleaned her off and out fresh water in her bowl and a couple treats. She seemed to eat them fine and hasn't shown any signs of being sick yet. Do you think this will affect her?? TIA.

[LittleFredPunkinHead]

Puppies are wonderful but crazy creatures, arent' they? I wouldn't worry too much about it. Our youngster was getting into the bathroom trash for a while too. (We ended up getting a small trash can with a lid and foot pedal to keep her out). She ate several dirty tissues and apparently came to no harm. I'd keep an eye on her for the next day or two just to make certain, but more than likely she'll be fine.

[chrisinluv]

Someone in my office found the most adorable puppy on the street awhile back, so we adopted her and she just lives in our building. She gets in to all sorts of things that she shouldn't. The vet told us that she chews on things because her teeth are coming in and it makes her feel more comfortable. He advised that we keep a supply of small dish towels or rags that have been saturated with water and then placed in the freezer. It worked like a charm. Now, every time she gets into something she shouldn't, one of us will giver her a frozen towel to chew on. It keeps her little teeth occupied for a long time.

[jajacobsen]

My pups are notorious for chewing on anything that is a paper product. Especially the male one to this day. Yep, wastebaskets have to be pedal bins and toilet paper has to be kept in the cupboard or they will tear it up.

This is not quite as unmanageable as it sounds as they never come up to our bedroom or the second floor. I highly recommend a pedal bin. We got a stainless steel one at WalMart for our downstairs powder room and a large 13 gal one for the kitchen.

I am sure yur pup will be fine; you probably feel more queasy form it than she does!

[j*east]

My dog has done this too, and ate part of a diaper once. Ewwwww! But she was fine. I wouldn't feed them to her, of course, and I'd watch for any unusual signs, but your dog should be OK. :)

[jnettie]

Generally speaking, there's nothing that your dog can catch from you, so even if you have some sort of illness (not saying you do ;) ), your puppy should be fine.

[charliezangel]

Someone in my office found the most adorable puppy on the street awhile back, so we adopted her and she just lives in our building. She gets in to all sorts of things that she shouldn't. The vet told us that she chews on things because her teeth are coming in and it makes her feel more comfortable. He advised that we keep a supply of small dish towels or rags that have been saturated with water and then placed in the freezer. It worked like a charm. Now, every time she gets into something she shouldn't, one of us will giver her a frozen towel to chew on. It keeps her little teeth occupied for a long time.

Oh i am so going to use this. I'm off to the freezer right now. This is a fantastic idea. I don't know why i didn't think of the teething thing before. Just like a baby!!!

Thank ladies. She has been fine for the most part. She did vomit a couple of hours ago, but i think that was because she was chewing on something outside (i can't make her stop chewing...). It looked mostly like food. I think she also tends to do this because she will not stop eating the cat food and it isn't digesting right. We tried putting the catfood on the counter but the cats get up there and knock it down. oh well, we'll figure something out.

[NotDesperate]

I think every dog will do that if they have the chance! Its gross but so fun for a dog. *Gag*. It won't hurt them unless they eat like the whole pad.

[BMJ]

My puppy Ginger is now 9 months old, she does not listen when we tell her to stop. This morning I gave her food and then she came into our bedroom while we were sleeping and she chewed through my cell phone charger. I can't believe she did not considering that charger has been in the same spot for the past few months.
Among other things, Ginger is just not the listening type no matter how many times we tell her to do something.
How do you punish a puppy so they learn not to do it again?

Thanks in advance.
BMJ

[jajacobsen]

BMJ - thsi is what we do:

Fist, we scold IN A REALLY LOUD SCARY VOICE, then we take whatever they were chewing on and smack their snout with it (not too harshly), and yes, even paddle their rumps and put them in time out (up in their kennel). When we get them out of time out (15 minutes) we take the dog back to the scene of the crime and point to the chewed item and say NO loudly. Then we give them one of their chew toys and say YES loudly in a fun manner. We repeat 2 or three times.

Merely scolding them did not work for us. This approach has. Other than the male (Samson) having a toilet paper (clean thank goodness) fetish, chewing has all but stopped.

At six months old, our female Delilah chewed a hole through drywall. The fiberglass fibers irritated and inflamed her entire gastro-intestinal tract and for a week it (and everything else) was coming out both ends. Then as part of her cure I had to cook plain chicken and rice as her food, for two weeks. My vet told me I had to get chewing under control because next time I might not be so lucky.

I hate to use corporal punishment with the dogs, but for a few absolutes (dashing out of the car as soon as the door is opened, jumping up at us and strangers, and chewing) I have had to resort to stronger measures. Fortunately, after about three months, they seem to have worked, and so we rarely have to employ them now.

We buy pig ears by the case (Walmart is cheapest) and they get one or two a day and that seems t reduce their need to chew innappropriate items.

Have you considered obedience training? The thing that's great about that is it helps train you to train your dog, not just on the commands you learn but teh skills can be applied to other things as well. I know my dogs listen better to me because of it. Either they learned to listen more or I have learned to command them better or some of both.

[BMJ]

thanks for the advice :) i will try that, since saying no each time she does something does not work!

about the pig ears....we got ours from petco, and she loved them, then we tried packaged pigs ear from petsmart...she woke us up every 2 hours with diarreha :( she's a small dog so we don't give her the whole pigs ear, so the packaged lasted us a long time. I don't know if it was because it was sitting there for a long period of time or if it was the brand...i am thinking the brand, since the ones we buy separately from petco did nothing to her.
just a little info...but i know dogs react differently to different things :)

[jajacobsen]

BMJ - further on the Pig ears thing. Believe it or not, ours love the Walmart ones, more so than the others. That is where we first found the, so maybe that is what they are used to. We got them some from PetsMart, and they just even refused to eat them. The would smell them and then just leave them alone. I think they treat them with some flavoring agent that my dogs just don't like. And the Petsmart ones were the most expensive - we thought we were buying them something the really liked!


We have also bought the Petco ones, as for convenince I bought a bag there because I didn't want to make a separate trip to WalMart and I needed to buy their kibble (Nutro) which you can't get at WalMart, just pet stores. They were okay on them and ate them, but not with their usual delight of the Walmart ones. Go figure.

My point is that you just have to keep looking for acceptable chews, because youg dogs have an instinctive need to chew. Ours show disinterest in rawhide, which you would normally think of for big dogs, but we have found they love some brands of pigears. I feel certain using these has saved my woodwork untold times!

[katmg]

When our dog needs to chew on something we have several stuffed toys that he plays with. He jaws are so strong that they were breaking all of the bones that we could get from Pet-Deli. :o We still try one occassionally to clean up his teeth, but the idea of him chewing on bone shards is too scary and dangerous to let him do on a regular basis. The stuffed toys last a whole lot longer for us and give him something to chew/squeak on. Once he opens up a seam, we pull out all the stuffing and squeakers - sew up the hole and give it back to him.

We like the stuffed toys as an alternative to washclothes or rags b/c otherwise he might get confused over which washcloth/rag he could get chew on and which he couldn't. Given his propensity for eating socks and washclothes anyway, we didn't want to make the problem worse.

HTH!

[jajacobsen]

I agree that you should be careful to not send mixed signals. We would never let ours chew on rags because they wouldn't know the difference betwen them and say, a silk blouse. This is why they get punished for shredding toilet paper and paper napkins. Otehr than the mess, it isn't financially a big deal. But I don't want them to thin they can chew up any paper they feel like. want them to know they can only chew on the items we give them for that purpose.

One wau we do this is by using a wicker basket where we put their chew toys. They know they can pull anything out of there and chew on it whenever they want. I pick them al up at night and put them back in the basket. Te enext morning, they run back to their basket! While not foolproof, this send clear signals about where tey can find acceptable items to chew has really helped.

[charliezangel]

OK, i don't know what to do. I can't seem to puppy proof the house enough. I had a tube of scar cream on my side table next to the bed (i use it nightly). The cats had free reign of the house and can basicly walk, jump and play wherever they want. Well, on of then must have knocked the cream on the floor. Puppy came out of the bedroom earlier with a cap in her mouth. I got it from her, but couldn't figure out what it could have come from. I threw it out and went about my day. Well all day she has been very lethargic. She slept for a couple hours on my lap, then curled up on the couch and slept for another hour. I put her on the floor to play, she played with her toy for about 5 minutes, and then curled up at my feet. I took her out about 15 minutes ago and she just layed down in the grass. she didn't want to move. I picked her up and she nuzzled under my neck and started to whine. I brought her inside and went into the bedroom....and there I find my scar cream, on the floor, completely chewed up and half gone.

She seems fine right now, she is running around playing with the kitties and barking her head off. But i am worried it might have affected her. I googled an animal poison controll, but they won't talk to you unless you pay them $55. It's ridiculous. I'm going to call the vet tomorrow if she shows anymore symptoms. I guess i'm just a nervous new mommy

[katmg]

Can you call your vet today just to check and see if the active ingredient in the scar cream is a problem? That should be something they'd be able to answer over the phone.

I'm sorry you're dealing with this. :( It is definitely tough learning what can and can't stay out. Our dog will eat cough drops if we leave them out - he thinks that they are special "treats" that only people get and wants to try them. :rolleyes:

[lawphil]

puppies! Mine is 6 months old and helped himself to some water with Murphy's oil in it yesterday...just lapping away at it.

What we found really helpful was baby gates. They are ugly and annoying but they really protect your puppy and your house. Dogs explore with their mouths and will chew/eat almost anything. Until recently the puppy was always in the kitchen and if not he was with us on his leash.

We started to get a little more lenient recently...and well we are rethinking that again!

Good luck!

[jajacobsen]

I second for baby gates. We actually just used our screens (since they weren't on ur windows) and expanded them to wedge in our doorways. It worked pretty well for no cost. And saved us from going insane at times!

[foxyboo751]

charliezangel ~ Baby gates, baby gates, baby gates!! You can get them at walmart for like $13. (Plus, when you have a baby, you already have the gates :)) Butch got so big we ended up having to buy 2 to put on top of each other so he couldn't get the cat litter and food. Definitely stop that habit right now. It's very unhealthy for her!! It will upset her digestive system for weeks sometimes. For some reason, they like the kitty food when it is coming from the kitties more than they like it from the bowl!! :)

Just wait til she starts chewing your computer cords. Oh yeah, I suggest not using her kennel as punishment, as you want that to be a "comfortable" place for her to go. "Her Home". If you use it as punishment, she will never want to go in there and will always fight you on it.

[pride&prejudice]

BMJ - thsi is what we do:

Fist, we scold IN A REALLY LOUD SCARY VOICE, then we take whatever they were chewing on and smack their snout with it (not too harshly), and yes, even paddle their rumps and put them in time out (up in their kennel). When we get them out of time out (15 minutes) we take the dog back to the scene of the crime and point to the chewed item and say NO loudly. Then we give them one of their chew toys and say YES loudly in a fun manner. We repeat 2 or three times.


I just wanted to point something out here, NOT criticizing your method, just an observation. Our vet told us that if we were crate training, then using the crate as a time out is not a good idea. You want them to associate the crate with good things, not being punished. We use time out, but we just remove them from the situation into another room or walk them outside. Although it would be nice to use the kennel, we don't want to ruin the fact that she loves it. Just a thought for anyone who has crate trained dogs.

[sparrow]

Nine months is too young to let a dog roam the house--if you are not watching him, he should be in his crate or outdoors. He will be chewing for the next 6 months or so.

My younger dog is 18 months old now, and I still don't trust him not to chew things up. I don't think he has damaged anything except his own toys (he is the fastest de-squeaker in the history of the world) because he has not been allowed to roam the house without supervision.

I recently began to crate my older dog again. He had a bout of diarrhea and pooped on the rug. Not a problem, accidents happen, but then he decided that he could go there any time, even after I washed and deodorized the rug.

He is happy in the crate, goes in voluntarily when I shut the TV off at night, and stays quietly. The only problem I have with the crates is that they do take up a lot of room--maybe I should get some pretty table cloths and make them into end tables?