My Labrador Molly once chewed my husband's expensive cordless drill to pieces. Well, he shouldn't have left it outside right? So he learned the hard way that dogs are opportunists.
Dogs need to chew. It's a natural behavior for them and one that helps to settle them and make them feel good inside due to the release of the hormone serotonin.
There are many things you can do to provide your dogs with more appropriate things to chew instead of outdoor furniture or expensive cordless drills.
My advice? Ditch the food bowl and teach your dog to work for their food. Give them a job to do! Here are a few things you could try:
- Prevent access to things you don't want chewed. Put your good shoes away and fence off areas you don't want dug up.
- Keep recyclables such as cardboard boxes, ice cream containers, end of glad wrap rolls and milk bottles to make toys, such as a foraging box -- stack a treat-filled box inside another treat-filled box. Freeze dry dog food and a chew in a container with water to make an ice block, or create a treat-dispensing toy using an empty milk bottle.
- Invest in some "tuff" toys. All dogs are different, so you'll need to find the right ones for your dog. Some dogs are content to work frozen food out of a Kong toy for hours; some prefer to push a toy around that dry food falls out of. Other dogs love to hunt through the grass for all the tiny bits of dry food that you can scatter before you leave for work.
- Provide extra chew items, such as rope toys soaked in beef stock solution, pigs ears, rawhides and raw meaty bones are all good examples.
