hey guys! So life with the pup has gotten much easier with time, but there are still lots of struggles. Finley has taken a liking to chewing on the blinds in the apartment and no matter what I put in front of them or how many toys/treats I use to divert her attention away from them nothing works! Also, do anyone else's dogs lick the door frames??? I cannot get her away from the bottom of our sliding glass door lol! Another note, does anyone have any tips about how to get her to actually play with her kong? I have put so many different things in there and shes so uninterested in all of them. I hear everyone saying how Kong's are one of the best toys to have and my pup apparently doesn't care for them! Thanks in advance

There is a spray called Bitter Apple that you can spray on the things she is chewing that is supposed to deter them from chewing those things. It puts a bitter taste in their mouth and they supposed to associate that taste with whatever they are chewing on.

Bitter spray has worked wonders for my Husky (and previous dogs). But keep in mind that if you have a hard core chewer, all it does it divert that chewing away from one item to another.

My husky would chew on all sorts of things. Fencing, siding on the house, trim around the doggie door, the doggie porch, the dog house....everything. Through liberal use of bitter spray, we broke all of those. But the indoor dog kennel area has a support board 2x4 that sticks right through the middle of the kennel vertically. It looks like we keep beavers for pets instead of dogs.

My guy was never a big kong fan either. Not a food motivated dog so it wasn't worth it to him to do the work to get the food out.

Try a few other things to chew on though. We like bully sticks, raw marrow bones, and elk antlers. They can be a little pricey, but worth it! Looks like your pup may be teething too, when my pup was teething we would wet a washcloth and keep it in the freezer and that felt nice on his teeth.

Good luck!

right now if Finn is chewing on something he should not, like ME, i tell him no and pull him off. if he has something in his mouth he has stole, the only way to get it back is to throw him something else.

Is she chewing the blinds while you are home or away? if the spray does not work you might just have to pull the blinds up to keep her from eating them. if you are there while she is snacking on them you need to pull her off and tell her no and just keep doing that. i find the scruff the best place to grab as it mimics the mothers mouth on the pup teaching them.

S&J hate anything rubber so red kongs have never been a hit in our home.

I'm new to this, but I have been successful mitigating chewing with a number of techniques:

1)  Replace whatever is being chewed with a toy while diverting her attention.  Sounds like this may not work with yours--and it didn't work with Azul at first, with one caveat:  an antler changed her life.  I limit how long she can play with it to make it high-worth.  

2)  A nice trick that I learned from a dog-training book:  Put some small treats in your hand (whichever one you normally use to give her treats).  Bend the same-sided leg toward the dog with the treat hand at your knee.  When she looks at it, say something along the lines of "Get it" or "Take it".  Do this 4 times.  On the fifth, when she goes for the treat, say "OFF!" in a firm, loud voice.  She should back off with confusion.  Do this a few times throughout the day.  As she starts to learn, increase the time between commands.  My dog loves the challenge, and I can say, "Off!" in many situations--including chewing--and she backs up.  

3) Also from the book, if she chews on you:  firmly say, "OUCH!" while allowing the body part to go limp.  I laughed when I first read it...but it worked with practice.  I'll even use it in situations with non-organic matter.  

4)  As stated above, antlers/rawhides.  This gives her a slow-destruct toy that diverts her attention from chewing on random stuff.  As a puppy, it's best to monitor her while chewing said toy.  


The listed tricks have helped immensely.  Is she perfect yet?  No...but we are on the right track.  I hope one of those helps.

Thank all of you guys so much for the suggestions! I havent been on here in a couple days so I'm just now reading them but I'll be sure to try all of these. She definitely loves bully sticks so I'll be buying more of those. Our apartment has those long floor length blinds that come across the sliding glass door to the balcony, so unfortunately I cant put them up she hasn't done it in a couple days though so hopefully she doesn't go back to them! Thanks again everyone