Death to Santa

My dog has this weird fascination with hard plastic. She will chew just about anything that has hard plastic in it. Whenever we leave her alone we are never quite sure what she will find next. She chews so much that we’ve had to take bones away from her because she makes her gums bleed.

She also has a habit of wanting to chew things like Vick Sticks (my husbands sinus nasal spray.) We’ve also caught her chewing markers, pencils (the pop point kind), bottle caps, and various other pieces of plastic. We can’t even call it a nervous reaction because she does it whenever she feels like.

To date we have lost 4 stuffed animals mostly because she just wants to chew the hard plastic eyes out of them. This was a sad day in our house because we realized our dog doesn’t even have the Christmas spirit.

The first picture shows the carnage that we found when she decided she didn’t like Santa. The second is her trying to steal the comfy chair and keep my stuffy tiger.

Goodbye Santa… We shall miss you!

Submitted by: Andrea

Kellie

Don’t feel bad. Sophie (my dog) has a thing for chewing the eyes out of stuffed animals and her toys. Reciently, she destroyed a toy Santa that when squeezed, it says “Merry Christmas, I love you”. Well, he doesn’t say that any more XD
Karen Kuecken

Mine too! Mine is a sheltie. Is yours part sheltie as well?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=689219148 Andrea Armstrong

We call her “not a monkey” because we just don’t know what she is. My husband thinks she might be part sheltie, part coyote of all things. She is just WEIRD!
http://twitter.com/Nerwen_Aldarion Nerwen Aldarion

Someone is definitely going on the naughty list this year…
Lisa Marshall

http://www.barkbusters.ca there is help available for destructive behaviour. Dog’s that are destroying things while you are gone are undergoing an immense amount of stress, usually separation anxiety. And probably more stress when you come home and find things destroyed!
- Celiahyde
  
  I apologise Lisa, I shouldn’t make light of a fur-child’s behaviour. We recently had a problem with our Taco Terrier when she really believed she had babies. She had a rubber chicken, a cavie which made the usual guinea pig sounds, plus a little Japanese kitten that mewed when pressed on the back. We thought it was cute and encouraged her behaviour for a couple of days. After 72 hours of her constant crying and adjusting them, and herself, so she could feed them, it dawned on us that we had awoken a sleeping giant. Louie the Fly drove us MAD to the point that we were thinking of expensive psychology, prozac etc. We, as a family spoke about this, and the costs and possible incoming costs of Louie the Fly for the term of her natural life. We are not quite hundredaires at this stage so we decided to have a cup of “Harden the Effff Up!!!” Wow! That was the best cure for The Fly. We refused to tolerate her whining and whinging and her insistence we take her babies everywhere, anymore. We stopped rewarding her with compliments such as … “Oh Louie! You are the BEST MOTHER in the WORLD”…..and generally pandering to a 5 kilo kid of the Canis family. All it took was about 2 days of being ignored ,and this kid of ours is now back to her carefree self of diving in the creek, chasing pigeons out of our garden and gadding about in cars. She’s our old (albeit the kid is only 11 months old) Louie the Fly back again.
Adlynch8

Chewing “Vick’s Sticks” is clearly her way at getting back at Michael.
Celiahyde

Stuff Santa….This little kid is too beautiful to be mad at. Besides, this is just her way of telling you and your husband that she already knows that Santa is not real! As for the sinus spray….did you think to ask her why she did it? I feel she was suffering with sinus that night and because her human pets couldn’t, or wouldn’t, understand what she was telling you, she took matters into her own hands. Probs saved you both a lot of money at the Vet for her deviated septum!
AJ

We had the same issues with our Shepherd mix. Make sure she has a hard bone, like Nylabone (the nubbier, the better) and a soft one, like Kong. That way she can get her anxious energy out in a non-house-destructive manner. Also, walks or trips to the dog park help immensely.
Rob

Andrea, you could try giving your dog empty soda bottles. Our dog likes to chew the caps off, and it keeps her out of trouble.
LindseyAlexander

what type of dog is this? my husband and i saw one just like this at Petsmart one day but they owner didnt know what type of dog it was…