<p>Has anyone tried any of the raised dog beds? We have a 9 month old lab that is chewing up his bed. We have already gone through several. I am also getting tired of cleaning up all the different stuffings from the garage and yard. We have tried putting the beds down only at night and that helped some but once he gets a hole started there is no stopping him. We had another lab who had the same problem but she liked to sleep inside so we eventually went to just blankets on the floor. This puppy likes to sleep outside with our golden retriever. We have already banned all stuffed dog toys. They last about 5 minutes. He also has destroyed most of our drip lines.
He has almost 3 acres to run. He gets plenty of exercise.
A quick look online shows a Cooloroo bed or a Kuranda?</p>
<p>How about a chew bone and let him sleep on the concrete?</p>
<p>We always used crates with our Labs. Remember that they have nice fluffy fur coats…they’ll be pretty comfortable no matter where you put them, as long as they have somewhere covered to keep the more harsh weather off.</p>
<p>Also, for labs, Nylabones work wonders. They can chew and chew on them and they still last for months. Our black lab, who demolished everything and anything as a puppy, had the same nylabone for years.</p>
<p>I can sympathize since our Golden ate several beds-even the heavy duty ones. He is an indoor dog mainly. They DO outgrow this to some extent. He has done pretty well for over a year with a heavy duty L. L. Bean bed. He has one hole in it but usually stops chewing on it if we yell. He is now 6.</p>
<p>Owners of a golden here—the chewing is relentless until about 18months. We didn’t buy our dog an actual doggie bed until then. He was old enough to appreciate it by then and although most other cloth (or paper napkins!) can be fair game, he’s respected his bed. It was purchased at PetSmart and has a sheepskin-type liner on a foam shape that zips off to be washed. He’s 4 years old now, and it’s still in good shape–just a little (actually ALOT) hairy.</p>
<p>My husband laughed when I mentioned buying another bed. His feeling is that this puppy is going to destroy anything I buy. He thinks I should buy a Costco bed and toss it when it gets really bad.
We did crate train him. For the first several months we had him when he was small he slept inside in the crate. We forced the other dog to sleep inside. We would put the Golden’s dog bed outside the crate. That worked out for several months till the golden decided he did not want to sleep inside with the puppy. We now let them both sleep outside. We have the beds inside the garage and the people door to the garage open so they can go in and out. This morning the puppy had both beds out on the driveway with stuffing everywhere. A log that he had found in the woodpile and dragged up the driveway. A large rope that was once used to moor a boat.
In the house he will grab pillows and stuffed animals but will drop them if you catch him. He does love bread though and will not drop that.
I know he will outgrow this stage of life. Our 9 yr old golden is so well behaved. But I do remind myself he was once a puppy too!</p>
<p>Orvis makes a dog bed for chewers. A friend of mine got one for her dog, with great success. <a href=“http://www.orvis.com/store/productchoice.aspx?pf_id=10YT&dir_id=1633&group_id=1634&cat_id=5738&subcat_id=7199[/url]”>http://www.orvis.com/store/productchoice.aspx?pf_id=10YT&dir_id=1633&group_id=1634&cat_id=5738&subcat_id=7199</a></p>
<p>I also think it’s a good idea to give a dog that love to chew a good thick bone. My dogs just finished theirs, in fact.</p>
<p>One warning on bones: My 6-year-old Australian Shepherd has broken off both of her huge lower canine teeth – the really big woof-like teeth. The vet said that as they age, their teeth get somewhat brittle, so no more bones for her. Rawhides, fine; bones, bad.</p>
<p>I hope we don’t have to consider doggie dentures. :(</p>
<p>My labradoodle has chewed three beds. I’ve given up; however, I might take a look at the link in post #7. I give my dog bones and rubber chew toys, and he’ll still chew up the bed. He seems to like pulling the stuffing out of the pad under the cover–I purchased the LL Bean dog bed.</p>
<p>Kuranda makes raised cot-like beds that the animal shelters here swear by. They say they’re essentially indestructible. The dogs certainly seem to love them and all the ones at the shelter I visited today seemed to be in pretty good shape.</p>
<p>undecided-a visit to the animal shelter is what made me think about the raised bed.</p>
<p>Go to your local pet shop and ask for “bitter apple spray”. </p>
<p>When our dog was a puppy (he’s 1/2 golden and 1/2 yellow lab), he basically ate the inside of our house. He ate our shoes, the coffee table, the rugs, and anything else he could get his mouth on to. After he ate a pair of brand new expensive soccer cleats, we asked our vet for some help with the problem. He suggested “bitter apple spray”—it’s natural and won’t hurt the dog. Well, it was a miracle!! When you see your dog chewing on your stuff, spray on squirt into his mouth and he will stop. Spray it on the corners of your furniture, on his bed, and keep the bottle on a table nearby. When he learns to associate that bitter spray with chewing, he should start to break the chewing habit. I swear it took less than 5 sprays from us for the dog to learn to stop. It got to the point where all we had to do was to pick up the bitter apple spray bottle and he would stop.</p>
<p>We have a raised bed, nylon one with a back and sides, ordered online I think from Petco. It isn’t the kind of bed that dogs would chew - no filling - and you can hose it out when it gets dirty. Petmate Durabed - [Petmate</a> Durabed Frame Beds for Dogs - Raised Dog Bed from PETCO.com](<a href=“http://www.petco.com/product/4663/Petmate-Durabed-Frame-Beds-for-Dogs.aspx?CoreCat=OnSiteSearch]Petmate”>http://www.petco.com/product/4663/Petmate-Durabed-Frame-Beds-for-Dogs.aspx?CoreCat=OnSiteSearch)</p>
<p>Bitter apple spray is not supposed to be sprayed in the dog’s mouth. It’s supposed to be sprayed on whatever the dog is chewing. </p>
<p>Dogs naturally enjoy chewing. Totally suppressing the chewing urge is not natural.</p>
<p>Supplying the dogs with things s/he can chew is much more humane.</p>
<p>When my dog was a puppy, he could demolish any store-bought bed. I finally went to the fabric store and bought some polar fleece and made some mats for his crate out of it. They weren’t very cushy (just three or four layers of fleece), but at least I felt like they were a little warmer than the plastic bottom of the crate.</p>
<p>He could bit through the mats, but could never get one to rip. I think he finally just gave up. As a grown dog, he no longer chews on his bed, but he will still tear a stuffed toy to shreds in minutes. I have a fleece chew toy I purchased a couple of years ago, and it has held together very well.</p>
<p>Off topic a little, but when our Golden was about 1 he ate a brand new $80 bike saddle that H bought on eBay and had JUST removed from the shipping box. Not good.</p>
<p>correction to previous post: bitter apple wasn’t sprayed directly into the dog’s mouth. I did spray it in the air towards the item he was nipping at and I’m sure he got a taste of it but it wasn’t sprayed directly into his mouth. Also, sprayed it on the corners of the furniture and his bed. It really did work. At the time, we were desperate to cure his chewing because the damage he left behind was costing a small fortune. </p>
<p>He’s 8 years old now and we love him. When talking with our kids, husband refers to the dog as “your brother”. For example: “Go take your brother for a walk”. “Feed your brother”. :)</p>
<p>nysmile-my H refers to our puppy as “the baby”.
MomofWildChild- loved that “off topic” bit. When our lab was about 5 months old the UPS man left a package at the bottom of the driveway. When we came home the entire yard was covered in tiny bits of paper. He had destroyed two paperback books my D had ordered including the packing box.
We have given up on fixing the drip lines. We figure it is a losing battle. Every morning we have more black tubing on the driveway.</p>
<p>One vet told me to give my golden mix small ice cubes to chew on. He loved it! He got the pretend rubbery bones to chew. He would chew the ends off then throw them up in the air to play catch with himself. They do hurt when you step on them barefoot! We put a small amount of Tabasco sauce on the woodwork he liked to chew and it worked like a charm. He also grew out of the obsessive chewing stage at about a year, but would still chew stuffed animals. He didn’t have a bed chewing problem, but fleece toys usually survived.</p>
<p>We have three large dogs, two of which are German Shepherds that have always been bed chewers. I hate to think what we have spent on dog beds, including personalized, expensive ones, for a reason I cannot explain. The best inexpensive dog beds, and for some reason they remain unchewed, are from Costco. Not only are they inexpensive, the color choices actually look nice! I don’t know how to explain why the dogs haven’t chewed them unless it is because they like the decor, too!</p>