We have a 20 month old lab who has all of a sudden taken to eating our desk knobs when we go out.

For many months he has been completely fine being left (with our other lab and lots of toys), but all of a sudden he decide to eat the desk!

Having looked on a few forums (including this one) we tried leaving a few kongs, with frozen chicken soup in them, and it appears to have worked, today only one knob was destroyed!

Now his kong was only half full of soup so we can try filling it completely which will I assume give us more time, afterall I am sure he will not leave the kong until empty. We can also move the desk but I guess once the kong is empty he will chew something else. He is left nylabones, ropes etc so it is not as if he does not have a choice - why does he go for the desk?

During the day when we are about he does not touch anything, he can be trusted to be alone anywhere in the house and he does not chew our stuff.

Knobs are easy to replace but we are worried about him, last time he cut his leg on a screw he exposed, it could have been his eye!

I know he is still a puppy in "lab world" so it make just be a phase but it would be nice to know if it could be something else.

Many Thanks

try smearing the furnature witheither peppermint oil or tee tree or any other essential oil he finds offensive , i trained my blind dog to avoid our furnature when we had to move it.he soon got used to the new arrangement

Thanks we will investigate this and see if it works for him.

I don't know what to say to this really because I have one lab who just chews and chews and chews. Labs mature quite slowly even though they look like a grown up dog at say 15-18 months, they are still babies. Is there a change of routine? are you leaving your dog alone for longer periods etc. I also find that my labs are very in tune with the mood of the house, if there is a lot of stress they pick up on it, and are even know to feed underwear out the cat flap!!!!!

Buy a kong and fill it with treats for your dog to work on whilst you are out, or a big bone that keeps the dog occupied.

Labs can have a teenage rebellion stage (the andrex add has a lot to answer for), but with good handling and stimulation it passes.

Good luck

Thanks we have been using kongs and have started fillling them with things which take a little longer to extract, but it tends to be after this that the problem starts.  We do have a new baby in the house so maybe this has affected him - though he seems to be fine with her otherwise.  It is good to know it might just be a passing phase.  Hopefully he will overcome this and redirect his chewing on his toys (our other lab loves to chew but has always stuck to his own things to destroy).

If you are not leaving him for a long period then buy a crate and confine him so that he cannot damage your home. One of my dogs was terrible when a youngster and would chew anything when left - we crated him even if we had to pop out for a loaf of bread and he grew out of the chewing phase at about 12 months old. He's now completely trustworthy when we leave him but still likes to go into his crate ( with door now left open) with a chew when we go out :D

Yvonne