So, this morning my puppy has destroyed ...

[WhereBeThatBlackbirdTo]

98 plastic disposable gloves, 7 new nappies and 7 new nappy sacks. (All with me in the house in another room by the way)

I've had to wash the kitchen floor 3 times in an hour because each time its clean he goes out of his way to gather more mud.

He's licked my ancient persian cat so many times her head is drenched.

Jumped the stair gate in the kitchen - to attack the floor mop, cat etc....

He's definitely a teenager now!

Hmm, that's why I've got a crate! You sound very cheerful about it all though!

We've got a crate as well but I save that for when the little ones are eating lunch. We definitely couldn't manage without it.

As for being cheerful - its either laugh or cry!

How old is he? Our springer/labrador x is almost 7 months and is just starting to display signs of teenage boredom when left alone. DH went up for a shower on Friday morning only to find Naughty Doglet had pulled his bed to shreds and was happily chasing the foam all over the kitchen.

I remember those days. He's not a little puppy anymore :(

Still bloody cute though :)

We have discovered the joys of bones here. Keep him busy all day.

Belinda, what sort of bones and where should I get them?! He likes a rawhide chew but am I right in thinking they're too fattening?

Am marking my place re bones. I didn't know rawhide chews were fattening!

I have taken to throwing a handful of all bran in the air when I need to go upstairs. Hunting for it all keeps Jasper busy for approximately five minutes and stops him eating the sofa

Jasper, I might (probably!) be wrong, so don't quote me on that.

All Bran - Chickens, I'm going to get some just for this purpose (nothing could ever persuade me to eat it!)

Love the all bran idea! I've had some butchers bones but also some roast ones from a local farm store. I think you have to be careful about splintering, but these are knuckle bones and break into big rounded pieces. I wouldn't let him have them if I wasn't around, but they do occupy him for hours while we're all in the house. He trots off to find one when he feels like it. He absolutely loves rawhide but was getting through too many - expensive and I believe cause a risk of internal blockages. They also make him fart a lot. The worst problem with these bones is the mess and need for frequent hoovering.

my pup is a destroyer too if things are not out of reach she will rip it limb from limb

she is 6 months old now and is definitely a bored teenager now

i now buy her the big baked ham bones and she will sit and chew happily away on one of those or pigs ears though they dont last half as long. mostly its socks and tea towels now but she has started chewing the moulding on the bathroom door

from what age is it ok to put a dog in a cage? i am considering one but as she is a dalmatian-staff cross i dont know how big she will get and she is already taller than a staff and more of a dalmatian build! only time will tell...

So, er, does anyone know how long this teenage phase lasts for?

Bones - now there's a good idea. I haven't even thought of that. He has chews, a tug-a-jug, kongs, empty cardboard boxes, socks, cats but not bones.

Perhaps I'll take a quick trip to the pet shop to see what they've got. It seems I spend most of my life in there at the moment - we're all on first name terms now.

I've also realised that my plan to take him on holiday with us to a posh holiday let is possibly not such a good idea. Darn it - DH was right!

my mum hade a boxer who was 5yo when she had to rehome and she was still very much in a sort of teenager behaviour pattern and could not be left alone even in a cage for longer than 10 minutes! she pulled the steel cage apart and cut her legs one day when left for an hour...my mum learned very quickly after then and made the decision to rehome when she could not handle the responsibility and sheer cost of the damage the dog was causing. they have a very placid, old, rescued mongrel now and the boxer lives with a lovely couple who stay at home due to severe disability of the wife (MS, wheelchair bound) so all ends well

I got him a tug-a-jug (was it you who recommended that, Chickens?) but after two meals from it he'd chewed threw the rope, so it's gone in the bin already. Very disappointed!

Chickens, I gather it lasts until they are about 18 months old ...!

NoMore, that's very sad - but also happy somehow too!

FIVE YEARS???

Noooooo!!!!

Tbh, my SIL has a springer/lab x like mine and she said 3 years. But I didn't believe her..

We have the same dog, WhereBe! 3 years? Oh dear. On well, only another 2 years 5 months to go

As I type, my 10 month old pup is dashing back and forth with the chewed remains of a rope giraffe in her mouth. She occasionally stops to lick my elderly dog's mouth and make him bark (he's blind and deaf, he doesn't see or hear her til she's on him), but mostly she just dashes.

She has been out for a 3 mile walk this morning and was then in the garden playing with the other half of the giraffe. She will have another walk later.

The vet said she was just a teenager, whilst laughing at our exhaustion.

I do love her though... (the dog not the vet)

The rope giraffe was from Sainsburys!

We had a heavy chewer (rescued collie cross). I think the worst day of mess was probably the one where she managed to track down some liquid centred sweets which she unwrapped and dribbled stick around from all over the house. She then got a tube of savlon - most of that ended up on her front paws. She then broke into the bathroom and removed several bottles of shampoo and conditioner from the shower and took them onto the landing where she destroyed the bottles, leaving a big sticky puddle. Into which she depositied a thoroughly chewed bottle of talc.... At which point she clearly had a nasty taste in her mouth so demolished 3 toothbrushes and the tube of toothpaste - again on the landing. There were sticky, white and slightly chemist -scented paw prints all over the place - let alone the mess on the landing.

We found that you could stuff a kong toy with shapes biscuits so that it was very difficult to get the biscuits out - that would keep her going for about 10 mins on a good day.

Current dog is not such a heavy chewer - although she did like sticks, so had a largish, fairly manageable chunk in the house and several in the garden - although she would eat large quantities of the baked bones and then be profusely sick so we stopped giving her those (after I managed to walk barefoot into a pile of it in the doorway to the sitting room with a tray of teapot and mugs in my hands)

It does make me laugh when he just hurtles round and round for no reason other than because he can. I wish I had so much energy.

mistlethrush - sounds like my pup is just an amateur destroyer then. I think he seems bad because my last dog was a very placid, sensible 15 yo border collie. I must have blanked his dodgy teenage years