Getting a dog is an exciting development in your life (as well as the lives of friends and family, who get to enjoy the pleasures without the responsibilities!) but it could also be a threatening development for your shoes or your sofa. Dogs can be destructive, especially during the puppy phase of their life, so today we’re looking at the sort of damage a dog can do to your home and what you can do to protect it.
Cleaning Up
One of your main duties as a dog owner is cleaning up after your dog. Whether it’s muddy pawprints in the kitchen the more unpleasant residue of house training challenges or the even worse side effects of dog sickness, vomiting and diarrhea.
If you let a mess go uncleaned for too long it could stain, the odour could linger, but worse, your dog will accept that part of your house as an appropriate place to go to the toilet! When you clean up you need to eliminate both stain and smell to make sure your dog doesn’t return to the scene of the crime. Many owners favour an enzyme cleaner to break down the molecule chains that make up these messes, and clean furniture and floors more thoroughly.
Chewing Problems
Lots of dogs like to chew – it relieves stress, it can be good for their teeth, and it’s a deeply founded instinct that simply feels good! Unfortunately it can spell disaster for shoes, furniture and even electronic devices if your dog doesn’t know when to stop.
The most dangerous things for a dog to chew are wires and cables: these can cause risky, even fatal, electric shocks, but they also risk pulling down heavy objects like televisions and stereos down on top of them. Try to hide your wires, mount along walls and around doors with brackets, or paint them with taste deterrents that’ll cut your dog’s interest off at the first sniff.
Training
For many chewing issues, a training issue is at fault: either they weren’t trained not to chew furniture as a puppy, or they’ve not been taught how to be left alone securely, so they feel separation anxiety that turns into property damage when they try to comfort themselves.
If your dog chews furniture in front of you, try to redirect their attention. Find chew-safe toys they’re interested in, and try to get them involved with those instead of your shoes or your rug.
If they chew things to destruction while you’re away, then it could be that your dog is suffering from anxiety, and doesn’t trust that you’ll come back! In this case, it’s worth starting from the basics, from using the stay command for increasing time and distance, to leaving your dog alone in the room briefly, to short trips outside the house. All of this builds up their trust and resilience, and lessens the risk that they’ll wreak havoc while you’re gone!
