How to Train a Puppy to not Chew Furniture

Puppy training often focuses solely on housebreaking, but there is much more involved in making your new puppy a friendly, compatible member of the household. Puppies love to chew. It's a development stage that strengthens the jaw and teeth. You can't stop a pup from chewing, but you can make sure it's chewing on toys and other proper things, not destoying items such as shoes and furniture. Train a puppy not to chew your furniture.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Watch your pup to see how his playing and exploring draws him to the furniture. Does he seem to do it when there are no toys around? When he's bored, or maybe feeling neglected or ignored? Observing these behaviors and discussing them with your veterinarian can lead to successful correction of such bad habits.

2. Distract your puppy whenever he starts to chew on furniture, or even better, before he or she even gets close to it. Throw a toy or make a noise to divert them from the furniture. Give them another option: something to do that is more interesting.

3. Give your pup lots of quality toys designed specifically for chewing. By nature, a pup chews to hone biting and chewing skills. They are not intending to be destructive, but to follow an instinctive behavior. If they have adequate items to chew on, they'll be less interested in the items they should be steering clear of.

4. Keep the puppy confined to a kennel, or other small space in the home, when no one is home or the pup cannot be supervised. If the pup is free to roam the house, it will find hundreds of new objects to chew, in addition to new spots to have accidents and make another type of mess.

5. Praise the dog excessively when it picks up a chew toy and plays rather than going for the furniture. This positive reinforcement will encourage this good behavior.

6. Try using a bitter spray, found at pet stores, if the dog simply cannot seem to leave the furniture alone. Spray the formula on furniture arms, legs and fabrics -- anywhere the pup is drawn to. If successful, the taste and scent of the spray will repel the animal, making it disinterested in chewing the object.

[Laveda]

on 12/15/2008 I recently got a 7 week old male black lab and I have been having alot of trouble training him to not chew on everthing in sight. I have tried to give him alot of toys and I have also tried to use a repelling spray but nothing has worked. How do I get a stuborn puppy to not chew everything he can get to.