Hi there, I wondered if anyone can offer me any advice please.  Betzy is a 14 month old Miniature Bull Terrier who has been spayed, she has never chewed or destroyed anything other than allocated toys before up until 2 weeks ago. The toy chewing stopped over 6 months ago, she never was a chewer.  However, she has now started shredding and chewing every single bed at night time.  She then attempts to eat it and the next day she is very poorly being sick and trying to pass what she has eaten (with me assisting pulling chunks out of her rear end.....nice). So far we have gone through six beds and even a tough chrew bed that was promised "even the toughest puppy will not get through this" (it took Betzy just one evening). She never attempts to chew anything else, just the bed.  She shares the bed in a spacious utility room with our two other dogs; a staffy who is about 13 (rescue dog) and our jack russell 10 years old.  They all get on, other than the usual scraps about doggy things, and she adores he staffy who she snuggles next to every night.  The bedtime routine consists of wees and a walk in the garden and then they know they are to go in the back door as this signals bedtime.  They all clamber on the bed, then lights out....no fuss and she never frets about going to bed (sometimes she asks if she is really tired). Normally bed at 11:30pm and up at 8am. It used to be as simple as that, but now we wake to a room full of fluff, the other dogs asleep on the floor and Betzy looking very guilty...there is normally regurgitated bedding on the floor.  We have been telling her NO when we have seen what she has done and she then goes out for her morning wee and then comes back in and is sick for most of the day.

I work from an office at home that all three dogs sit with me all day, which leads out to a large field.  They come and go and play in the field together happliy.  She gets 2 walks a day of 30 mins which includes playtime with her ball and they all share an equal amount of fuss.  She is well trained and a truly happy natured girl, full of fun and great company....a bit of a bully and a bit obsinate, but that is her breed and we have worked with her and she is obedient and loving.  When the evenings come she lays in the living room by the fire.  We feed her twice a day and she is the correct weight.

The vet did a health check and said she was healthy and strong. He suggested that maybe she wasn't tired enough and so we have tried keeping her up and playing with her...but that night the bed didn't stand a chance it was totally chewed more so.  I didn't agree about the tiredness as she is a very active dog and in the evenings loves to snooze, I felt bad keeping her awake as she looked shattered. We did consider seperation anxiety, but sometimes I have to go out for a few hours and we have left her for 4 hours plus or more and she has never touched her bed. She is an independant puppy and she loves to roam during the day.

We also considered giving her a chew or a toy, but that hasn't worked either.  To be honest she has never been a foodie like our other dogs and her main motivation training tool is her ball...but only when we play with it with her, otherwise she will ignore it.

We also tried spraying the bed with bitter apple to no avail.

Is it just a case of a puppy phrase she is going through or are we missing something?  Should we be saying NO to her when she does it?  Or is there anything else that I can tell you that would help us work out the cause and how we can stop her doing it. She knows she has done wrong as she looks at us in the mornings with such shame and head hung low.  I also worry that she is so sick all the time as well.

Any advice would be fantastic.

Michelle

I would be trying to pin point what could have happened in the last two Weeks, fireworks come to mind, which can cause distress and/or hyper reactions.

The obvious answer for now apart from discovering the cause is not to let her have a bed or bedding, other than a hard plastic bed.  A thick layer of Newspaper on the floor will give insulation.

Since this is a fairly recent thing I woud definately nip it in the bud NOW. It sounds like anxiety, the chewing will relieve the stress and is usually unfortunately its own reward. Because it is making her ill I would get her a crate, and line it with newspapers or something that she cannot dig up and chew until she gets back into the routine of just sleeping at night. Like the other poster the firework period came to mind.

I would stop telling her off when you come down to her... she has no idea that this is what you are telling her off for. She probably looks guilty because she see's you are not happy when you come down to lots of mess (understandably). Random suggestion but maybe give her some ice cubes to chew on before bed (if she is interested).. this will numb her mouth a little and may make her less inclined to chew. If she will not eat just ice... be inventive.. my pup is teething now, so she gets bits of frozen mince to nibble on - yumm!!

Hi - just  read about your girl and her sudden change. You mention that all your dogs sleep in the same bed? even though a big one? Just an idea is that maybe one of your older dogs might of grumbled at her for snuggling in one night and this has upset her so she is taking it out on the bed? I know my boy likes to have full on contact but now he is suffering from bad neck & back problems has growled at my young mutt to get off him? She used to actually climb right on top of him but does not do it anymore as he's complained to her about it? Maybe buying 3 plastic beds- I've got a labrador sized one that 2 can get in- very cheap from Robinson's horse catalogue. 

I would also recommend a crate. I see a huge similarity to her destroying and eating her bedding and looking guilty about it in the morning to a dog i once knew that would mess in the house and then eat it. The dog had learned that when the owner and the poo were in the same room there would be a row and obviously as it wasnt house trained and didnt understand where else to go, it did the only thing it could and ate the poo in an attempt to not be punished. The dog had no bad association with actually going to the toilet in the house or any good association with going outside it only had the bad association with its owner and poo being in the same room so this is what it learned.

"She knows she has done wrong as she looks at us in the mornings with such shame and head hung low."

The most important thing is that regardless of what you find in the room with the dog you do not tell her off at all. Take her out of the room and calmly and clean it up. Dogs only have a 5 second association time, that means that you should correct or praise a behaviour within 5 seconds of it happening any later and the dog will not understand. There is a good chance the dog has continued to chew its bed because it is anxious it will be told off and doesnt understand why, this anxiety leads it to chew its own bed in order to self sooth, the original time she chewed could have been caused by something like fireworks or something that knocked her confidence and made her feel the need to comfort herself but if she is looking as guilty as you say she is in the mornings im sure she is more worried about your not too happy greetings in the morning.

 

Hi, thanks for all the responses!

Re the fireworks these have never seemed to bothered her. She doesn't even wake or show any signs of them disturbing her.

The sleeping arrangements are because they all used to have their own beds and the other two used to try and squeeze themselves into Betzy's bed.  In the morning it was rather funny to see two older dogs squeezed in her tiny round bed and Betzy with a smug smile on her face nestled between them. When she was a tiny pup she has her own bed and own place to sleep in, but as she got older then she would latch herself to the other dogs on their bedtime bed and not want to move.  So finally we let them all sleep together. Never had any issues with the other dogs grumping at her...she is a rather dominant dog and will stand her ground if she is comfy, but will relinquish with that sly look of "ok ok I know that I need to move, I am doing it but in my own time".

For some reason it has stopped as quick as it started.  For the past 3 nights she has not attempted to chew the bed.  We haven't done anything different other then let them sleep on a slighty chewed bed that she chewed as a tiny puppy. Was thinking it might be a sense of smell issue?  With new beds she seemed to chew them one after the other...with this bed it has the doggy smells.

Michelle