My lab always chewing something.

AbsentPonderer

Hey guys,

I own a 2 1/2 year old black lab and he is always chewing some form of wood, and whimpers at times when he has nothing to chew then continues to chew. Is this normal, shouldn't he be well over the teething phase at this stage? When he is let out of his kennel at any time he runs straight for the box of fire wood to find himself one. Just wondering why he does this!!

Thanks!

andreac

How much exercise does he get?

VonVix

What sort of entertainment does he have aside from chewing on wood? How much mental and physical stimulation does he get?

AbsentPonderer

He's usually on the go, he spends all day out and we play ball with him, with about 4-5 walks on a lead weekly, we have fields so he is usually tipping around them too with our other dog!

andreac

But does he get a proper walk everyday? Labs are high energy so need a lot of exercise so 4/5 walks a week is not enough.
Your dog needs to be walked everyday and preferably more than once a day.

DBB

Hi OP,
Some dogs them chew a lot simply because they love it, and many gundog breeds tend to be more orally fixated than others.
But, many of them do it as a coping strategy if they're bored or lonely, or of there's another underlying issue going on. It makes them feel better, and is a symptom of a problem that might not be so obvious.
Often, a chewing "problem" stems from boredom, and becomes a repetitive behaviour that the dog loves to do for its own sake.
So, the first step is to really, clinically analyse whether your dog is getting enough in the way of mental and physical stimulation, to make sure that this chewing is not a symptom of something more deep-rooted. If he's only getting 4-5 walks a week, it's just not enough I'm afraid (although perhaps you meant that he's walked 4-5 times over and above getting to run around the fields?)
How many hours a day (24 hours) is he spending in his run or out in the garden without human company? Bear in mind that you need to take into account whether people spend as much time with him during the winter, or when the weather isn't as nice as it is now.
Has he any other things to chew on other than the timber he's raiding?
It might be worthwhile too getting your vet to check that there are no sore spots around his mouth, teeth or gums that he's trying to relieve by chewing.

It's not a great idea to be letting him chew on timber, the chances of injury are pretty big. I think you might want to look into getting him some hard-wearing dried meat chews (which need to be factored into his daily food allowance), as these are generally far more attractive to dogs than timber: I'd be thinking along the lines of bull's pizzles, beef scalps and cheeks, gullets, tendons, all of which are hard-wearing and available for good value on http://www.zooplus.ie/shop/dogs/dog_treats_chews/beef

You can also feed him his meals from an extra-large Kong Extreme Toy (for hard chewers) http://www.zooplus.ie/shop/dogs/dog_toys_dog_training/kongs/kong_extreme/139217
Filling it perhaps with some ideas from the Kong Company website:
http://www.kongcompany.com/en-uk/recipes/

The aim being to make safe things more attractive and palatable for him.