Hi all,

I wonder if you could give me some advice. My dog, 15 months old has all of a sudden started shredding his bed at night time. He's chewed through 3 beds within about 10 days. He has got a thing for soft toys and things with stuffing in but he never shredded his beds that bad. He's exercised and has got boredom breakers and chewies in his crate but he keeps chewing through his bedding. Why has he all of a sudden started with this? Has anyone gone through the same? I am hoping it is just a phase...

Thanks for your advice.

U

I expect he is just being a teenage thug !! No doubt he will grow through this stage, Thats when Vetbed comes into it's own as it is pretty forgiving stuff and puts up with a lot of abuse. Is  it essensual he is still crated at his age? Maybe if he had a little more freedom he would not do it so much? My pups are usually out of their puppy pens by this age.
Aileen

I hope he'll grow out of it. I will give Vetbed a go see if it works better :-) we tried leaving him out of his crate but he just finds stuff he'll wreck or maybe this is his way of telling us he wants out of his crate. I'll try it tonight leaving him out and see how it goes...fingers crossed.

My girls are fine but my lad is a determined bed wrecker.
He also unstuffs toys and chews up squeaky toys.
The bed thing is a problem. He sleeps in a cage - his decision, the door is always open, and had a spell of sleeping in a bare metal cage because bedding of any sort only lasted a night. I started with padded dog beds - amazing amounts of stuffing come out of those ! Homemade duvet ones - ditto. I made some from material quilted with a firm thin foam, they lasted a couple of days. Blankets he shreds. A rug took a couple of weeks to finally disappear.
He now has some carpet tiles in the cage and seems to leave them alone for the moment.

I buy him cuddly toys from the car boot sale to play with and have learned the hard way to check for those little plastic beads inside them - you can be finding those for weeks after the toy has been emptied lol

My bitch is fine as well. She had a few mad moments with a nice sheepskin i bought for her when she was a puppy but other than that she hasn't shredded anything. Both my dogs love the cage, and they go in there on their own accord. I bought one of the crufts outdoor dog beds apparently long lasting and not easily chewable but he finds ways to wreck it. I've stopped buying rectangular beds and moved to oval beds as he seemed to start in the corners but with the oval ones he just tears the middle and then out comes the filling. I hope this doesn't last too long.

There are supposedly "indestructible" beds on the market, of the ones I've seen the one from Tuffies looks the most promising, but at £145 is a bit steep, it does come with a money back guarantee though.

be careful as a friends neighbours dog died aged 4 from a blockage of dog bedding in the gut, started shredding his bed eating some of it the owner didnt realise until he became ill ...sadly died.

Have you checked his mouth and teeth or is he stressed.....has he been left alone longer than normal?? strange to suddenly begin this behaviour ...I would rather leave him with no bedding or pay for the indestructable bed ...than risk him causing danger to himself.

i have heard of cases like that. he is behaving normally, he is eating and is his funny little self. I felt his stomach and it seems normal, not hardened or bloated and he regularly does a number two as well. we had him vet checked only a couple of weeks back and his teeth etc was all in perfect shape. since then i haven't noticed any differences at all.

he only does it at night time when everyone is in bed, nothing has changed in their routine at all. i am going to leave his evening walks a bit later from now on to see if it tires him out a bit more towards bed time.