Re: chewing of shoes!!

In Reply to: chewing of shoes!!
Category:   Behavior Problems
Posted by:  julie
Posted on:  November 27, 2002 at 05:46:54

: I have two neutured male JRT's and when I leave them during the day to do the school run, which takes about 30 minutes, one or both will chew any shoe left accidentally. I would like to know how to find out which one is the culprit or whether I should just crate both of them for the duration. This never happens overnight. If there are no shoes to chew, he/they will go for bits of paper/flex/or wood. I
: want to put a stop to it before they destroy my whole kitchen.

Response:

Hi Julie,

The simplest solution is to crate them when you are not there to supervise them.

That being said, a bit of correction won't hurt either. You don't mention how old your terriers are so it's hard for me to give precise advice, but I can tell you that you should be able to leave shoes, socks, and lots of other items around and expect your terriers not to chew them.

It's the rare inappropriate item that gets chewed on in our house and the reason for that is they have been taught what they can and cannot chew on. For instance, when you catch the culprit with something inappropriate, you give a "NO" , get the item from them and give them something that they are allowed to chew on. When they take it you praise them and say "GOOD BOY!" Repeat as often as necessary until they understand. The trick is to have more tenacity than they have haha! Always correct them, this breed is smart enough to think for themselves and if you don't give consistant corrections they truly do think that you don't mean it all the time.

It also wouldn't hurt to make sure these boys get some hard exercise because, as we always say here, "a tired terrier is a good terrier."