In order to stop a dog from chewing wood furniture, it helps gaining an understanding about why the dog is chewing the wood furniture in the first place. Dogs can chew for various reasons and tackling the underlying cause can help in the resolution part of the problem. A key role in curbing this behavior is played by management. Preventing the dog from chewing wood furniture, especially when the owner is not actively supervising or is away, is important to help prevent rehearsal of the problem behavior, keep the dog safe, and protect expensive furniture from being gnawed on.
Chewing from a Puppy’s Perspective
If the dog in question is a puppy, chewing is likely due to the puppy simply exploring the world with his mouth and enjoying various textures.
Not to mention that puppies, just like human babies, go through a teething phase and have a strong need to chew and exercise their jaws. So many things going on!
Puppies are curious beings, and as they develop, they’ll want to explore the world through their mouths. Since they lack our manual dexterity and opposable thumbs, puppies will use their mouths to examine their surroundings.
The teething phase in puppies generally takes place between the ages of three to six months. During this time, the urge to chew is very strong due to the eruption of adult teeth. Chewing can also facilitate the shedding process of the pup’s milk teeth, and the legs of a coffee table may work perfectly for that!
However, past six months, don’t expect for all chewing to subside! There’s another chewing phase right around the corner. Dogs will still want to chew between the ages of six or seven months and 1 year old, and at this age, with the adult teeth in place, the damage can be pretty substantial. There’s belief that at this age, some jawbone growth takes place and affected adolescent dogs seek chewing as it feels good.
This time frame coincides with when in the wild, dogs would leave their maternity dens and start exploring their surroundings. In a domestic setting, this level of exploration is not possible, and therefore, the dog (now at the adolescent stage) redirects this innate desire to explore, to… (you got it!) chewing.
Protocol to Stop a Dog From Chewing Wood Furniture
There are several steps you can take to a stop a dog from chewing wood furniture. These steps can be divided into three tiers: steps you can take when you are around to supervise, steps to take when you are not, and general steps that take a “holistic” approach to tackle any potential underlying causes. This multi-faceted approach leads to a higher rate of success considering that you are tackling the issue from different fronts.
Tier 1: Steps to Take During Supervision
When you can actively supervise, you will need to take steps to make alternative, legitimate items to chew on more salient than the wood furniture. At the same time, you may want to make the wood furniture less appealing. There are several ways to do so.
Variety is the Spice of Life
Don’t keep the same toys around all the time. If you rotate them, your dog’s interest towards them will be kept alive and he will seek them often. For puppies, make sure you use puppy-approved chew toys. Use toys of different textures and flavors to keep your pup entertained.
Another great way, to keep interest alive is to add some goodies. Pick food puzzles, interactive toys and treat/food dispensing toys that can be stuffed with goodies. Examples include, Buster Cubes, Kongs, Kong Wobblers etc. Most dogs will choose these rewarding toys over any piece of wood furniture.
Making Wood Furniture no Longer Appealing
At the same time, it helps to make the wood furniture no longer appealing. Some dog owners elect to spray wood furniture with bad tasting products, such as Bitter Apple Spray, Bitter Yuck or Cayenne powder/Tabasco sauce. However, these don’t always work ( and some dogs even enjoy the taste!) and they require multiple applications.
A better way may be to make furniture no longer appealing is by making it difficult to reach. Place some large objects (that are already around your dog and that your dog doesn’t destroy) around the wood furniture to discourage your dog from accessing it.
Alternatively, depending on the size of the table legs, you can try sliding some PVC pipe over the legs which dogs do not typically enjoy chewing. This is for a good part a temporary measure until the dog learns that there are better and more rewarding things to chew.
Tip: if you own a young puppy, avoid giving your pup sticks or chunks of firewood since your pup may grow up having a hard time differentiating between them and your coffee table’s legs.
Teaching a Dog to”Leave it”
While actively supervising, if you ever notice that your dog ever starts losing interest in the toy, and you see him heading towards wood furniture, stop him in your tracks with the “leave it” command. Here is a guide on how to train a dog to leave it. Make sure to redirect your dog to a toy and praise him lavishly when he makes good choices.
Out of Sight not Out of Mind
Sometimes dogs associate our presence with the training and also think that by moving away we are relinquishing “our claim” over an item, so as part of the proofing process it may help to add some distance to the “leave it” command. Move away from the wood furniture and test your dog. You may find a need to remind him to “leave it” as you move away. You can then ask him to come to you and sit and redirect him to a toy stuffed with some goodies or a treat you have held in your pocket.
You can then further add more distance by leaving the room and watching your dog from behind a window or furniture or behind a wall. A well-placed mirror can turn handy too. This teaches your dog that “leave it” applies as well in your “apparent absence.”
If you have a remote monitoring system, you can further practice with that, by telling your dog “leave it” over the monitoring system. Don’t count though on this working 100 percent if you leave the home for sustained periods of time and your dog grows lonely and bored. It is always best to keep wood furniture out of reach when you can’t supervise or keep your dog crated, which brings to the next tier…
Tier 2: Steps to Take When There’s No Supervision
When you cannot actively supervise, because you are working in another room or need to head out of the home, you must take steps to prevent your dog from engaging in the troublesome behavior.
There are several goals for this: 1) prevent your dog from rehearsing the troublesome behavior (the more dogs engage in a behavior, the more it becomes habit-forming and chewing is often a self-reinforcing behavior )
2) to prevent your dog from learning that when you are away, there is no consequence for the behavior (you can’t say leave it while you are away) and, 3) to keep your dog safe (chewing inappropriate items like wood can lead to injuries and costly surgeries as described a few paragraphs below).
The Power of Enclosures
Crates, solid baby gates, kennels, exercise pens are all enclosures that help keep your dog safe and out of trouble. It’s important to ensure that these management tools are secure and solid enough to contain the dog. Getting used to enclosures can take some time, but there is a good return on the investment in the long term, such as when the dog needs to be confined due to an injury, travel, being boarded or simply kept safe during specific circumstances.
If you do not have access to enclosures, you can close your dog in a safe room in your home where you dog can’t chew inappropriate items and he is safe from ingesting items that are potentially toxic or may cause a blockage. It is difficult to find a household item that hasn’t been removed from a dog’s stomach! Make sure to leave around safe chew toys to keep your dog busy while you are away.
Warning: chewing doesn’t only damage your expensive furniture but also can prove harmful to your dog even potentially leading to expensive treatments and surgeries. Your dog may get splinters in his mouth, parts of wood may lodge in your dog’s esophagus, and if a large or sharp piece makes it down the digestive tract, it can cause puncturing of the stomach or intestines causing peritonitis or a blockage that requires expensive surgery to get out.
Tier 3: Taking a “Holistic” Approach
Many dog behaviors stem from unaddressed issues that need to be tackled. It sometimes helps to investigate and try to find out the exact underlying source of the problem so to address it accordingly.
For instance, many dogs who chew on items when left home alone do so because they are bored.
Many dogs were selectively bred to “work.” For example, Labrador retrievers and German shepherds are high-energy breeds that need exercise and mental stimulation so to wear them out and ensure their basic needs are met. While adding more exercise and mental stimulation may not resolve the chewing 100 percent, it can help keep the dog’s mind off the wood furniture.
Sometimes, dogs chew when they are anxious. It is always a good practice to record the behavior of dogs when they are left alone and see if there are any triggers.
Perhaps there are noises that make the dog anxious and trigger the chewing, or perhaps the dog is anxious when the owners leave. With separation anxiety, the wood chewing behavior is contingent upon being left alone. These dogs often show other signs (pacing, howling, barking, drooling, inappropriate elimination) and require an anxiety-reduction program to tackle the issue. Recording the behavior when left alone and showing it to a behavior professional, along with providing some history about the dog, can help pinpoint whether this may be the problem.
Chewing can also be a displacement activity for dogs who are frustrated because they cannot perform certain behaviors such as meeting other dogs or people they see out of windows. Barrier frustration, is the name for this, and it can happen also when dogs are on leash or behind a fence and can’t meet other people or dogs or chase animals.
Some attention-seeking dogs who feel lonely during the day and look forward to their owner’s return, will chew on wood furniture upon the owner coming home, if they learn that upon doing so, they get the attention they crave (even if might be of the negative type). These dogs should learn that they get oodles of attention when they chew on the right, legitimate chew items, and at the same time, they should be offered a variety of activities with their owners to help them feel less need for seeking out attention in negative ways.
Finally, worthy of mentioning is that sometimes medical causes can trigger dogs to lick or eat abnormal things. See your vet if your dog seems to seek out chewing or ingesting odd things out of the blue.