6 month old pup is suddenly eating all her bedding.
6 month old Bloodhound, she had a couple of blankies and a mat in her crate, and a larger bed for her to lay on in the living room.
Over the past couple of weeks, she has destroyed her blankets, destroyed the mat (and a second mat I bought to replace it), and has now destroyed her dog bed. These are all things she's had since we brought her home at 8 weeks, and she's never chewed them before. She's not chewing anything else, only her bedding.
The only change is that she's gotten responsible enough to sleep free in the house (and by free, I mean confined in my bedroom or my kids bedroom) which she does fine with... but for a couple of hours in the morning she gets crated (between me going to work and the kids getting up).
Is she possibly just being an ass because she no longer wants to be confined to the crate? And where does destroying her bed come in? Aside from this (and occasionally jumping on people) she's pretty well mannered.
Right now she has nothing to lay on, and I can't see spending money on another mat or bed if she's going to just chew it up. What's the next course of action? Anti-chew spray?
Posted Sep 9, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC
Could be your puppy is entering adolescence and discovering new things to get into when she is bored or frustrated. At this point I would not provide additional bedding because you don't want this pattern of behavior to get rehearsed and become an actual habit.
Disemboweling things is fun and natural for dogs. They like to chew, shred, and destroy. My suggestion would be to provide an appropriate alternate activity for her to do so she doesn't go for blankets - a chew toy, a stuffed kong, a cardboard box to shred, Leopold's crate, etc. , a sniffy walk, play time, a training session, etc.
Later you can slowly reintroduce bedding with supervision, and redirect to one of these appropriate activities if she starts destroying. I bought cheap towels and dollar store felt blankets before upgrading my dog to real bedding.
And yeah, it very well could be she's not happy with the crating in the morning. Dogs are most active in the mornings and evenings, so that is probably a frustrating time for her to be confined. In addition to proper exercise and enrichment, she would probably benefit from additional crate training to help her relax if you plan to continue using the crate.
She used to spend more time in the crate, until last week it was where she spent the night as well as that time in the morning (I would get up early to let her play a couple of hours and eat, then crate her for the hour or so after I leave and the kids get up), so she was crate trained, but now seems to get frustrated with it. I think she's just feeling like a "big girl" now and doesn't want anything to do with the crate - but for the bedding I think you are spot on. She doesn't mouth much anymore, but she does go to town on her toys and I've had to throw some away - that Leopold's Crate is an awesome idea, and she may just be really enjoying tearing the stuffing out of stuff in her adolescence. I'm definitely going to put one of those together for her, and follow your advice of slowly reintroducing bedding as she gets a little older.
Thanks for the awesome reply!