Tips & Advice

What to do if your dog chews the bed in its crate

Your dog chews the bed in its crate?

Look no further, because we got the solution for you!

We’ve all have been through this, most of us at least! And it’s a normal thing to happen when you have a dog in your house, they need training, and you can train your dog not to do this once you know the reasons behind that behavior.

To understand why your dog is chewing the bed in its crate, let’s have a look at the roots of this behavior.

Ever since the dogs are just little puppies, chewing stuff is one of the most basic things they do, part of it as an exploration or just playing with the stuff or the objects they find all around the house.

And you might notice that this behavior becomes more recurrent during the teething stage, which is natural. But of course, if the dogs were to be left untrained not to do this behavior it could turn into chaos, and you’ll find yourself finding everything chewed up and left to shreds all around the house!

But why do dogs continue chewing stuff? Especially their beds and everything else they can find?

One thing that might encourage dogs to continue doing this behavior is when they receive attention for it. If you got up shouting or running behind them, you’re just giving them the attention for that behavior which will encourage it more.

And of course, it’s different if you have a dog, not a puppy; it’s believed that puppies do chew stuff a lot due to them working on their hunting instincts by simply chewing stuff. That’s normal and can go away after a while by training your puppy.

You might find yourself wondering why the dog chooses the bed to chew on, why not anything else. Well, it’s just because to the dog the bed is more squishy so it gives more of the feeling of a prey and the dog gets at it just like it would do if it caught a prey!

How can you prevent your pup from chewing its bed? The solutions are actually really easy!

First of all, identify the reasons behind that behavior and then you can easily find a solution for that. Some of the reasons are as follows:

Normal behavior

Your dog thinks that it is doing something natural and normal to them. Dogs love to chew on bones or anything else they can get their teeth on, this helps strengthen their jaw muscles and also works as stress relief when they’re anxious, but when they direct their behavior towards important stuff or objects then it becomes a problem. You can simply prevent that by dog-proofing your house, and providing your dog with multiple chewing toys which will help tremendously!

Teething

Just like human babies, while teething, the puppies go around and chew on everything they can get their teeth on. This is due to the pain from the replacement of the baby teeth with the permanent or adult teeth (this process ends at around six months of age), and that’s normal. You can help your puppy by giving it special frozen toys or even you can freeze a wet cloth and give it to your puppy to chew on, to help numb the pain from the teething process. And with a little bit of training your puppy will learn which stuff or objects to avoid chewing on.

Anxiety

Anxiety, but especially separation anxiety, is a common reason why dogs chew on their beds. Luckily it is easy to spot. If your dog starts chewing at his bed while you’re at your work. Or if you move into a new place your dog starts crewing everything, your pup might have anxiety.

In both cases, distractions will do wonders! When leaving your dog home alone, you can leave on the radio or the TV to ease his loneliness a bit. And there are even a few apps now that can provide you with a chance to talk to your dog while you’re not home and let it hear your voice to calm him until you get back home.

Of course, if all of your attempts fail and the dog is still at it, you can consult a professional dog trainer who will help you deal with this.

Boredom

Boredom is another simple yet frequent reason why dogs chew on their crate bed. Your dog might be just bored. Fortunately, the solution is simple – develop a daily routine for your dog, either a walk or any set of activities that take an hour or so. By doing this your dog will have a chance to play and release all of its excess energy while your pup will also get to spend some quality time with its owner.

Not enough chewing toys

Yes! Not enough toys might also be it. Your dog might not have enough chewing toys to play with which will result in your pup starting to chew on different objects including its bed! And the solution is simple, you can provide your dog with lots of different toys with a different texture to help stimulate your dog. Which will make your dog stop chewing things like its bed and start chewing only its toys.

Although your dog chewing its bed is an annoying thing, when you get to the reasons behind it and try to solve it calmly with love you’ll get great results! And always remember, your dog is always trying to communicate with you and it might not know any other way to show that something’s missing than to start chewing on its bed. So don’t get mad at your pup, act calmly and peacefully and avoid punishing your dog. Always show it lots of love and affection, and you’ll get its friendship that lasts for a lifetime.

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