chewing up everything!

[kendal]

We have a 4 1/2 month old yorkie girl, and she just loves to chew on things! I get her all sorts of little toys and chew bones to play with (which she does) but she still gets into things whenever my fiance and I leave the house. We've taken to closing as many doors as possible, and are now going to look for a fence or two, but is there anything we can do to stop this chewing? She's chewed up his shoes (which he thought he put out of her reach, but I guess not), a stuffed animal of mine that I had on the cofffee table (I have no idea how she got it), every expensive wire imaginable (can you believe an Apple laptop cord costs $75??). there are some cords we just can't move, too. I keep spraying them with this nasty tasting stuff called "Fooey" (I think I've tasted it more than the dog has) to protect them, but she's always finding SOMEthing to destroy. What can we do? My fiance is losing his patience!

[chachi]

The only thing you can do is keep them confined when you are not around and give them plenty to chew on. You can put deodorant on things to keep them chewing on. The chewing phase is a passing thing with most. My dogs quit it about 7 months old.

[Rem&Silkmom]

Have you tried crate training? Crate training keeps your baby safe while you are away. It is the best way to keep them out of things while you are gone. Mostly they just sleep until you return. That way they cannot hurt themselves either by chewing on electrical cords and such.

[Bella Bear]

I suggest putting her in an x-pen type of a set up to confine her. And when you are around to watch her, if you see her start to chew on things, tell her "NO!" so she will learn it is "bad".

[kendal]

OK. We do have a small pen, about 2 feet by 2 feet, but she just tears the place up and poops all over it, so we stopped using it. We're hoping to find some affordable gates so we can enclose her in the kitchen area while we're gone.
Also, does anyone here also have cats? I have two cats, and used to leave the cat door open for them during the day. Well, now my yorkie knows how to get out off the cat door (usually to follow me outside). The only thing I can think of is get a cat door that gives the option of being a one-way door, so the cats can go in, but not out. Does anyone have any other solutions? Perhaps one that doesn't involve tearing apart the back door? lol.

[Bella Bear]

I think if you leave her in the crate long enough with her poop, she will learn not to do it again otherwise, she'll be sitting around with her poop by her side! When we started to crate Bella, she pooped in her crate the first time we crated her, and she learned from that and never pooped again while in there. I guess hanging out with her poop for a few hours isnt very fun!

[kendal]

lol? really? it looks like soooo much fun to me! :-D
Will definitely try these suggestions. We HAVE found out that less damage (not lack of damage, just less...) occurs when we leave her at home with the cat baby-sitting her, because she's too distracted playing with him to eat things. Poor kitty. It's tough being the big brother, always expected to baby-sit your sister. :-P

[Bella Bear]

aaww..she's lonely! I think she just gets bored and then gets destructive. Bella has been like that. I think she'll get the point and improve. Also, she's still in the very puppy stages of her life. I see that you are in Los Angeles too, you should join our meetup group! She can meet other dogs and play to burn off some of her energy!

[kendal]

cool, I didn't know there was a meet-up group. I met a woman in my neighborhood who has a one year old yorkie, and we're supposed to make a playdate sometime.
where do i find out about the meet-up?

[Bella Bear]

Here is the link to the meetup site: http://chihuahua.meetup.com/11/ We have over 200 members now. The group meets up a couple of times a month at many different locations, you just choose the ones you want to go to. We also have fun parties! There was a holiday party and a valentines day party. It's a great way to get your dog socialized.

[lksdolls]

Originally Posted by kendal

We have a 4 1/2 month old yorkie girl, and she just loves to chew on things! I get her all sorts of little toys and chew bones to play with (which she does) but she still gets into things whenever my fiance and I leave the house. We've taken to closing as many doors as possible, and are now going to look for a fence or two, but is there anything we can do to stop this chewing? She's chewed up his shoes (which he thought he put out of her reach, but I guess not), a stuffed animal of mine that I had on the cofffee table (I have no idea how she got it), every expensive wire imaginable (can you believe an Apple laptop cord costs $75??). there are some cords we just can't move, too. I keep spraying them with this nasty tasting stuff called "Fooey" (I think I've tasted it more than the dog has) to protect them, but she's always finding SOMEthing to destroy. What can we do? My fiance is losing his patience!

Think of them as virtual 2 year olds! You're worried about ONE 4 1/2 month old chewing up things. Try having 8 residents, plus another 2 of them at 7 months old and 4 pups 13 weeks old. Talk about getting into things ...............that I forgot I had. They even got into our son's DVD case and totally chewed up one and destroyed several others. Imagine if you had another one, double the trouble. What one doesn't think of, the other one does. Key words: BABY PROOF

[lksdolls]

DOESN'T WORK HERE!
We went on business/vacation to FL for almost 2 weeks the end of January. Too many YT's and too expensive to put them into a boarding home and they've always had freedom, only one cage for new puppies. I fenced off one section of our family room to keep them sort of in one area but gave them plenty of room, put down heavy plastic so if they had an accident........etc, etc. Our almost 13 year old granddaughter stopped in every day before and after school, and her dad before bed. Needless to say, I can't even start to describe what all they did to our room. We also had one in heat at the time, but couldn't postpone the trip because of business. So she was caged. On top of the cage, I had some things that they have never bothered, including a big pine cone I brought back from Palm Springs almost 20 years ago. I thought I'd be smart and cover everything with a sheet, very well tucked in. WRONG! That was like an invitation to explore. They chewed up the pine cone, they found some other things that probably should have been moved but the day before we left, I wasn't able to stand up without the room spinning and spent the day resting. Our granddaughter called me almost everyday while we were gone with something new they had done or gotten into! One day Reggie jumped over the fence, then jumped over the gate into the kitchen, got up on the counter top and knocked off some things I had used getting my dolls ready for the show. One day they got a whole roll of paper towels that Emilee had used to clean up. They proceeded to carpet the room with them. By then end of the second week, our granddaughter decided she no longer wanted to be a vet! We drove and didn't get home until 9pm. I was up until 2 cleaning up the room. Then I slept on the couch with all of them piled on top of me so they knew I was home to stay. They don't do these things when we're here. They are told no. But go away, even if for 10 minutes, and it's like their way of punishing us for leaving them alone. There's lots more, but it would take a book. So, good luck to you! Keep the dog, get rid of guy. Sounds like it's going to end up being one or the other.

[Erin]

A crate sounds like your best answer. It's never good to give a puppy unsupervised freedom.