Wolfie is Destroying the Bed in his Crate!

Wolfie is chewing up his bed in the crate at night or when I leave him to go out.   What can I do to stop this?  Those beds are expensive!

Notice how Wolfie is sitting in his crate all happy and nice?  Well get to that in a second, but first...

Over the years I have been asked by clients how to get their dog to stop destroying the bed in their crate.  This normally happens when the client is asleep or away from the house.  The answer is quite simple.  Take the bed out of the dogs crate.  

We humans think like humans and believe that our dog must live in a human world.  At night, we get into our soft, fluffy bed and go to sleep.  When we are watching TV, we lay down on the sofa.  When we are outside, we find the lawn furniture and stretch out for a nap in the sun.  Now, lets look at Wolfie.  Wolfie sleeps on the tile floor in front of the TV.  He sleeps on the grass or on the rocks under the flowers outside.  Wolfie has no problem sleeping on hard surfaces and sometimes even prefers them to soft surfaces.

So when I tell you to take the bed out of Wolfies crate if he is chewing it up, it is not punishment, simply removing an inappropriate distraction.  When we arent there, there is now way we can correct Wolfie in the act of destroying the bed so there is no way we can effectively communicate to him that it is wrong.  All we are doing is to continue to replace the bed.  All Wolfie sees is that we are giving him more stuff to destroy.  

This is not a good thing.  Eventually, Wolfie will turn to our furniture and start to chew that up.  And, why not?  We have continued to tell him it is OK to chew up his bed and have even rewarded him by giving him a new one.  Wolfie will see no difference in chewing up the bed and destroying our two thousand dollar sofa.

Bottom line:  If Wolfie is destroying the bed in his crate, take it away.  For more information, please contact The Best Dog Trainers in South Florida.

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