chewing on wood

dirtyghettokid

hi guys,
i have a nearly 2 and a half year old lab. she all of a sudden has started chewing on wood.
we have a wood stove in the house, and always have a bag of kindling or logs in the sitting room. she never touched them last year, but all of a sudden, she has started chewing on kindling when we are out of the house.

• she gets lots of exercise every day, even in junky cold weather
• she gets fed only nuts, twice a day (the recommended amount for a 25kg lab -- she eats red mills food)
• she is only left alone between half an hour, and an hour and a half. i am home most of the time.

she has a crate in the sitting room. normally if we give something to her (like a cushion) in her crate, she will destroy it, but up until now, she has left everything outside of her crate alone.

so when i leave to go somewhere, she has fresh water, and toys. her crate is left open, and she has free reign in the sitting room.

every time i come home now, she has got into the kindling and chewed it up. it would be all over the sitting room floor.

now i know labs chew things... but if she hadn't done this before, why is she doing it now? i would expect that from pups, but as a new behaviour for a two and a half year old dog -- it baffles me.

i don't want to have to crate her while out of the house. any ideas on how to stop her chewing wood? or why she is all of a sudden doing something like that? thanks

tk123

Does she have any chew toys - nylabones etc? Both my retrievers like to chew wood when we're out - one is 4 and one is 6 months next week.

dirtyghettokid

she has a rubber bone .. you know the ones with rope wrapped around the middle? and she has a kong. and a ball. she only wants to use the toys with other people. i've never seen her use toys (apart from the kong) independently. she is the type of dog that won't entertain herself, unless it's scavenging for food, or.. chewing wood :P

Lemlin

dirtyghettokid wrote: »

she has a rubber bone .. you know the ones with rope wrapped around the middle? and she has a kong. and a ball. she only wants to use the toys with other people. i've never seen her use toys (apart from the kong) independently. she is the type of dog that won't entertain herself, unless it's scavenging for food, or.. chewing wood :P

My own Labrador went through a phase of chewing when she was around 18 months. I'm not sure why tbh. There had been no change in her circumstance. We did notice though that she would only do it at night when she was alone. Like your Labrador, she had never chewed anything as a pup except her toys and small bons I gave her.

Do you ever give her bones? They are good for allowing her to chew and clean her teeth. I give my Labrador a good few bones I get off the butcher every week. She particularly likes bones like pigs legs that she can chew straight through and continue eating. I'd suggest giving her a few bones to allow her to chew.

At the time, I upped the amount of bones I was giving my dog. That either worked or she just grew out of it.

dirtyghettokid

i tried giving her bones from the butcher before, but they made her sick. in fact a lot of stuff makes her sick, which is why we keep strictly to her nuts.

sometimes we get her a rawhide bone, but she eats it quick. (luckily rawhide doesn't make her ill). we can't afford to give her a rawhide bone every time we leave the house though.

hopefully she will just grow out of it. i am relieved to know other dogs have similar behaviour

andreac

Try giving her a kong filled with frozen food. It will keep her occupied for a while.

tk123

As long as she's chewing it up and not swallowing it I wouldn't be freaking out. If you don't want to restrict her maybe make a barrier around the logs? Chewing releases endorfins and relaxes them so it could be that she's a little upset that you've left her on her own and is chewing on the wood to cheer herself up!

EDIT - this is one of the nylabones we have and both dogs love it

dirtyghettokid

that looks cool! might pick her up something like that.

i think i'm gonna just move the wood out of the room for now. bit of a pain, but i don't wanna risk her eating the wood chunks.. because she does it when i am out of the house, i don't know if she's ingesting any of it or not.

have done the frozen kong thing. she's not too interested in kongs. have tried all sorts of food, but if she can't get it out within a minute or two, she just leaves it to the side. there's three of them with different sizes, and she can't be bothered with any of them. weird dog

tk123

If you get a nylabone you might need to skuff up the edge to get her interested. I usually rub some peanut butter/marmite to get them started.