New Puppies and Protecting Your Furniture
We recently got a goldendoodle puppy that was 10 weeks old. He is and will be a joy in our life for many years to come we hope. But one of the trying times with a puppy is from about that 10 week old time until nearly a year when they try to eat everything in site including your furniture.
When we thought we might be getting a dog and talked to our friends about it, most all of them told us about “The Dog Whisperer” on TV, so we started watching. Like most people we learned that it is us that needs most of the training not our dogs. And a lot of Ceaser Milans wisdom we have try to employ, so far very successfully.
First and foremost is to excersize your pet. A tired puppy is a sleepy puppy and a sleepy puppy is a puppy that’s not eating my furniture. Second is training. Don’t let your pet up on any furniture if you don’t want him on even just one piece of furniture. They understand much better that they can’t get on any furniture rather than not being able to get on a specific piece of furniture.
And lastly you can show them praise and love. When they are behaving well around your furniture show them that is action that get’s them love.
You have to give them every opportunity to succeed by sending them as clear as message you can. For example don’t go in your backyard that has 15 tennis balls in it and decide to teach your dog to fetch. He won’t know which one to retrive. Teach him to fetch with only one ball to fetch.
In this same light if you come into our house unanounced you will find about 15 chew toys scattered about our floor. This isn’t to confuse him, it is to give him many options of things to chew on that aren’t furniture, drapes, carpet, etc. He knows his toys and he knows he can chew on his toys.
While we don’t promote one product over another however I have to make an exception in this case “Granny’s Bitter Apple” is a spray avaliable at most pet store that will help train your dog not to eat whatever it is you want to protect. We’ve used it on plants, furniture, throws, extention cords and everything else we want our pet to not eat. It works rather well and won’t hurt your dog. You will have to reapply the spray routinely until the urge to eat that protected object passes.
I’m sure we will have some future articles about repairing furniture chewed on by a pet but so far we are feeling very lucky.