The Innate Chewing Habit of Dogs | Love My Pets GPS Pet Safety ...

August 27, 2012 ? Jerry Welsh

Destructive chewing is one of the unwanted habits of a dog. A puppy owner may tolerate the chewing behavior of the pet as it will be attributed to teething. Anything that can be reached will be chewed by the puppy because the action soothes the pup?s sore gums and strengthen the jaws. Additionally, puppies are very inquisitive creatures and in the absence of hands, the mouth and the teeth will be used to investigate things.

At the age of three months, the puppy start chewing excessively because the teeth would start to come out. The chewing habit will persist until the puppy is about six to ten months old. The puppy is expected to have finished teething at 10 months. As such, it will be noticed that the pup?s excessive chewing is lessened more so if the owner have trained the dog to have other habits. In some dogs though the habit to chew will worsen. As the dog is now endowed with strong teeth, it would be very easy for the pet to be destructive.

In older dogs, destructive chewing can be due to other reasons. Boredom is the most common reason for the dogs destructive chewing behavior. Being social animals, dogs would need interaction with other dogs or attention from the human family. Boredom that causes the dog to be destructive sets in when the dog is left alone for quite some time with no toys to play with. Bored dogs would try to gain the attention of the owners by barking excessively or by peeing and defecating inside the house. Another manifestation of the dog?s boredom is excessive chewing that results to the destruction of the belongings of the family.

Dogs are known to form strong attachments with the owner thus when separated from the family they normally suffer separation anxiety. Dogs would suffer from separation anxiety at the death of the owner or when the owners transferred to another home leaving the dog behind. The change in routine can result to the development of destructive chewing habit.

Making the puppy understand what can be safely chewed can prevent the development of destructive chewing habit when the pet matures. Dogs, no matter how intelligent cannot be expected to know which objects can be chewed and which objects are forbidden. It is the responsibility of the owner to teach the pet discriminative chewing. The pet must be given chew toys instead of things that are no longer used by the family.

Why do dogs chew? This innate habit can be a real problem. At Sarah?s Dogs however you can learn more about this and other dog behaviours.

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Source: http://lovemypetsgps.com/blog/2793/the-innate-chewing-habit-of-dogs/

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