Puppy chewing EVERYTHING

[stillchasingdereksheppard]

I honestly thought I was prepared for this puppy having just had a puppy! My older dog is now 16 months.

The problem puppy is 7 months. He's a rescue (abandoned with mother and litter) but we've had him since 8 weeks (approx).

He's a mixed breed - Terrier. Mostly Jack Russle / Patterdale but with some others thrown in to (from DNA test)

He's been a handful forever but expected. He's a pup. However I am at the end of my tether with the destroying all soft things.
He's destroyed 3 beds this week.
He's destroyed probably in excess of 15 cushions
He's eaten my curtains
3 sofa covers
Lost count of the amount of blankets
Lost count of the wires he's got out of the wire box to destroy.
Honestly it's constant

If I go to the bathroom and come back something will be destroyed.

He will try even when I'm there. Honestly it's relentless.
Even crated he destroys whatever bedding he is in there with.

He has every chew toy you can think of. Benebones, goats horns, rope, wood chews.

I used to buy soft toys for him to destroy but have stopped now as I think it just encourages him

He's has 3 walks a day. 20 mins morning, 40 - 1 hour at lunch and a quick sniff around the block before bed.

He's crate trained, house trained, gets lots of exercise, we live rural. He isn't bored. We have another dog he gets on well with. They have a dog flap to the garden and they have access all the time.
We do enforce naps in the crate sometimes as otherwise he turns into a wild banshee.

Honestly what can I do to make him stop? I just want him to stop destroying everything I own. It's getting me down now, we can't have cushions unless we remove them every time I leave the room, sofa covers / throws are expensive to keep replacing. Curtains have a massive hole but not replacing until he stops.

Neither the puppy or the other dog can have a bed.

I put it down to teething but we should be out of the worst of it by now and he's getting worse if anything.
I know he's naughty terrier and a puppy but it's beyond anything ive ever known

Any suggestions on what I can do?

This sounds like a management issue - if he destroys everything, why is he left with the things he can destroy?

I would also look into doing some kind of dog sport with him to get him using his brain - terriers are super intelligent (especially the real workers like Patterdales) and they often need a way to use their brain as well as walks - hoopers, basic agility etc.

I’ve found with young rescues like that - you get a sort of extended little puppy phase in a bigger puppy body.

One of my current ones chewed literally everything, as in he worked his way round the house testing everything as chewable, we disagreed quite a lot with what he thought was abd I didn’t… skirting boards and the fireplace being memorable ones 😐😂

He only had vet bed for ages, didn’t rip as easily as other bedding and he just didn’t get left anywhere he could chew stuff till he’d grown out of it, so he came in the bathroom with me 😂

it’s honestly just, supervision, finding something he likes to chew that’s also ok for him to chew and all the normal exercise, training and time. My chewy one is 5 now, apart from the very very occasional blanket he’s fine.

Well things like sofa covers etc are on all the time. Sometimes it's not obvious he's doing it. He will have a chew and be chewing it and I'll look at him and he's on the blanket.
I do remove the cushions but it's miserable having no cushions or have to take them with me if I leave the room.
I only have an upstairs bathroom but don't have the dogs upstairs. I don't really want to change that boundary so I don't want to take him with me. I do crate him but then he just chews what's in the crate. Would feel mean if I just left him with a hard crate bottom. He chews vet bed, blankets etc. literally anything soft is destroyed. Even the chew proof beds take him a matter of mine to undo the stitching and pull the stuffing out.

He is doing puppy classes at the moment which is beginner. He can't do a pre agility class until he's completed puppy assessment.
I don't have the money to buy our own agility equipment or anything like that.

He is never left for more than a couple of hours.

I do all the usual enrichment stuff. Scatter feeding, food puzzles, kongs etc.

However I do also think that a dog that is well exercised and has mental stimulation and toys / chews etc should learn to settle and not be constantly managed.

Of course a puppy is always hard work and needs constant supervision but this just feels relentless and I am worried he's actually obsessed with the destruction of soft things which is something that needs to be stopped if so.

I honestly do not think he is bored. I do tons with him in comparison to any other pup I've ever known.

Mine did chew the vet bed, but he more managed to put holes in it than rip it right up - so he had holes in his bedding 🤷‍♀️

also lots of things that kept his mouth busy, yon yak cheese chew things, frozen kongs, antlers (I know some people don’t like them because they’re hard, but they’re softer than the cast iron fireplace he was adamant was chewable 😂)

it did last a few months, but it gradually tailed off

I mean perhaps I should just keep faith it will end.

We have;
Benebones
Olive wood sticks
Goat horns
Antlers
Yak milk chews (occasionally)
Kongs
Various other teething / chew toys.

He does like them all and does use them all regularly but it's just obsessed with chewing up soft things. It's definitely the soft texture and particularly stuffing he enjoys.

If I buy him soft toys he does enjoy destroying them but honestly I swear it spurs him on to go on a rampage.

Yes he currently has holey vet bed and blankets in his crate but still needs replacing regularly when there's more holes than blanket left.

Perhaps I just had a really easy puppy with the first. Also a rescue terrier but was 6 months old when we got him. Of course he occasionally chewed something he shouldn't but only the occasional thing and you expect some damages with a puppy around but it's more the constant of it that I'm finding hard.

You don't need to take cushions etc. with you when you leave the room, or bring him up into the bathroom - if you need to leave him unattended, he needs to go in his crate. If it has to be empty, then so be it, really.

It is hard but the only way to stop it is to prevent it from happening, which is mostly about managing his environment.

You can get agility kits on Amazon for about £30 btw. It's really not expensive. Or you can even do a DIY version yourself - poles on the floor to jump over, beanbags as cones for weaving, a cheap hula hoop for him to jump through etc.

Yes, pop him into the crate absolutely every time you leave him. We have a 4 yr old Lab, who we took on when she was almost 5 months, she still can't have a soft bed in her crate. She has a rubber stable matting base with Vetbed over and a throw which she can move around herself. She doesn't chew other beds, although she does like to move cushions around.
Ime JRTs are very frustrating and fabulous in equal measure.

I have a 5 month old collie. She will chew and eat her bed or blankets so her crate is now left bare. It doesn't look very comfortable but she is happy in there and I don't have to worry about her swallowing things she shouldn't. When I nip to the bathroom I put her in her crate (except today as a test I left her out and she found the hoover attachment and ate the end of it!)

I agree that vet bed is the best for chewers. My dog who likes toys has to have very robust items, such as antlers, Kong toys, strong balls and the yak chews. She would shred anything soft in moments so needed to be redirected and carefully supervised when she was new (she didn’t even have the excuse of being a puppy!).

My golden retriever is not a chewer so can't advise on that, but he has avoided all bedding in favour of the hard floor since being tiny. He has nothing in his crate except maybe a toy or two and his water bowl and he is just fine. We had a playpen around his crate when he was small so he could be crated for sleep and then have a bit more freedom whilst being left unsupervised for a little while. This worked really well when he was teething. Then we ditched the playpen but kept him in the kitchen most of the time, then gradually gave him more freedom as he became less chaotic. Also we enforced lots and lots of sleep - at least 2 hours after any exercise and lots of treats whenever he was relaxed amd calm. He now sleeps really well and is really good at relaxing when there's nothing going on. Obviously temperament and breed has a lot to do with it but I do think you moght benefit from enforcing more sleep and restricting his movements around the house a bit more. Amd he'll be fine without a bed.