Electrical cables & puppy proofing

[puppyparent]

Can I ask what everyone did about the various electrical cables in their homes when there's a teething puppy running around?

Did you physically remove all the lamps, phone chargers etc. from the rooms the puppy occupies? Or did you cover/wrap the cables in some sort of chew-proof protective cover? Or did you just watch the puppy like a hawk and intervene if it went towards a cable?

Am interested to understand what's typical

We removed all the unnecessary ones and watched him like a hawk for the first few days. After 4 months Brodie has never show any interest in anything like that though. Hopefully you'll be lucky too.
My experience of having a puppy (I am no expert) is that you soon pick up on their traits and know what to watch out for. Our main problem was chewing gravel, but he's mostly grown out of that now thank goodness.
Enjoy your new pup 😊

I restricted the area that my puppy had access to and 100% puppy proofed it

Restricted to 1 room at the start and puppy proofed twice! I still needed to watch like a hawk though, I'm afraid there is no getting round puppy management. Gradually worked up to free run of the house - you'll know what's tempting to your pup soon enough and they will also work out what's a legal chew and what's not. I always had something on me at the start for redirection like a toy etc. I found that stage relentless but you do get into the swing of things! For cables specifically I used the d-line trunking you can get from Amazon and chargers were just kept high up.

We never had to do anything as ours was never interested.

Shoes, on other hand, had to be locked away for at least two years

Had one room that was cable (and shoe etc) free, and watched the puppy anywhere else.

I left everything down - better a dog learns early what they should or shouldn't chew and at 8/9/10 weeks they are far more biddable than they would be at 4-6 months when you want to try and give them more freedom.

That being said, my puppies have never been out of my sight when loose in a room. If I had to leave them or do something, they were popped into the play pen. But watching them is 100% a full time job - you cannot WFH and watch a free-range puppy properly, or clean and watch a free-range puppy properly etc

Removed anything non essential. TVs cables etc we hid behind the tv out of reach, as much as possible. Then watched like a hawk.

We never did anything but our dog was very good as a puppy , our son has got the cable protectors on everything in his house as one of his Siamese cats chews everything .

Moved what we could out of reach and put bitter apple spray on the ones we couldn’t. It worked!

My puppy never chewed cables, but a friend who's did used a puppy pen when she wasn't with him and that worked great. I'd use one for my next pup 😁😁

He did however once go behind the TV and cock his leg and peed straight into a live socket. He didn't get a shock but he did fuse all the downstairs power 😂😂😂

Yep, our kitten was way worse than our puppy ever was

Woah! I never had puppies running around! I am far too controlling for that lol. They were crate trained from day one (i never had 2 puppies at the same time but i have 2 dogs now)

During the day, when we were in (most of the time) i had a puppy pen set up in the living room with puppy toys and my DD used to sit in there with our younger dog.

Night time - or if we were out of the house - crate.

Car - crate.

They got fed in the crate, housetraining is super speedy and no damage is done.

Oh - housetraining of course was controlled!!! A penned area in my garden, pup out, watched, added cue word, carried back to house.

There was literally no room for error.

Of course now i have 2 perfect dogs lol!!! (Not)

But i never had chewed wires or toileting in my house. And my dogs will behave well in car, cafes, public transport. Anywhere.

@Anisty my dog behaves everywhere and is perfectly toilet trained , all achieved without the need to be locked in a pen or cage for hours at a time as a pup .

But i never had chewed wires or toileting in my house. And my dogs will behave well in car, cafes, public transport. Anywhere.

Yep - same here and I never once crated my dog.

Good, good👍

I’ve only ever had one that was interested tbh and you have to watch them like a hawk for everything anyway… so…

I’d make sure there weren’t any hanging/trailing out out but mostly just see how it goes and rethink if it did go for them.

Thank you all! Wish me luck!

The kitchen diner was the only place pup was left alone initially and then only very briefly, e.g. when popping to the toilet. Only one partly accessible wire and we protected that but neither of our pups showed any interest.