Bullfrog or Boxer?

[donzysmomma]

Hi everyone!
My boyfriend and I got our first Boxer in September 2011. Donatello is 7 months old now and we love him to death however, there have been a few issues that have come up:

Donatello eats and licks absolutely everything! Whatever he can fit in his mouth goes in there-- just like a bullfrog. Inside the house he chews corners and any wood framing, rips apart any new toys and even the $200.00 "no-tear bed"!!! The second we get outside he starts licking the dry cement and ground and picking up any litter in the neighbourhood like a vaccume. I'm afraid he is going to get seriously ill!

Does anyone else have a boxer bullfrog like me!

ps. this guy isn't bored; he gets a ton of exercise and attention daily from 10 family members! He'll even do all of this in front of us!

 

[jacquim]

Raiden is the same way. He thankfully doesn't chew on walls/furniture but gobbles up anything in his path and is constantly licking absolutely everything! He is notorious for destroying tennis balls in a matter of minutes. He doesn't destroy stuffed toys, but my other dog does and Raiden runs quickly to try to gobble up the stuffing before I can get to it (which really worries me, but I am pretty good at getting to it before him and don't buy them stuffed toys anymore). He hasn't eaten his bed, but it is pretty tough material so I'm not even sure how he would go about ripping through it. He is 8 months old and also very well exercised. He is gradually getting better as he gets older as long as he is supervised (if I turn my back for 3 minutes he will find something to get into!). Luckily he is not super destructive for the most part but is like a little hoover, especially outside, sucking up anything he can find.

 

[EllieKem]

Emma was and is a little munch monster. I had to learn to stop saying "Emma don't eat that!" in too frantic a voice because she took that to mean eat it as fast as you can before mom gets it... I swear you could look straight at her and try to get her to stop and she'd just hoover it down as quick as she could. It was hard not to laugh and cry over it. Eventually she grew out of it and I calmed down; I taught her to "trade" for things.

Doesn't mean that I don't have a corner base board that has chew marks in it (the only one) or that she hasn't eaten her fair share of crazy things. Now at almost 3 she still has an unhealthy addiction to cigarette butts (I know, I know... it's terrible and unhealthy for her but she found a random one outside as a puppy and gobbled it up quick as can be. Now she just loves to eat one if she can find it and she also loves hair ties and menthal lip balm (I blame the cigarettes!) I litterally have to warn people at the dog park who may smoke that she'll wait around trying to steal it!

Hang in there and redirect with treats and good chews appicon

 

[sandy's mom]

Their baby teeth are comming out and new teeth are comming in.
They need something hard to chew and they will chew whatever they find.
It is normal. Puppies chew.
I have 9 windows in my sun room, each of the window sills have teeth marks in them from Napoleon.

You can re-direct them to something that is safe. There are sprays and things you can use, but I have never had great luck with any of them.
Lemon juice has worked in the past for me.

Try to be patient, I know it is hard, my Bella is 4 months and has started losing teeth, so I know she is about to start chewing things.

Good Luck!

 

[donzysmomma]

Thanks everyone! Yes we were thinking about agility classes! But it's not that he has a problem chewing things...if we give him a toy and tell him no he will begin chewing his toy and leave what he was chewing. But Donatello eats a lot of garbage and just the other day he's started to eat rocks!! He wants to swallow everything and he knows when I'm coming for him to take it out and he'll run for it. It's usually when it's off leash..but even when he's on leash he continuously licks the oily roads--wet or DRY. And I always correct him since I first saw him do it at 10 weeks old but he has continued to do it. It's the strangest thing...

 

[tangorover]

Raiden is the same way. He thankfully doesn't chew on walls/furniture but gobbles up anything in his path and is constantly licking absolutely everything! He is notorious for destroying tennis balls in a matter of minutes. He doesn't destroy stuffed toys, but my other dog does and Raiden runs quickly to try to gobble up the stuffing before I can get to it (which really worries me, but I am pretty good at getting to it before him and don't buy them stuffed toys anymore). He hasn't eaten his bed, but it is pretty tough material so I'm not even sure how he would go about ripping through it. He is 8 months old and also very well exercised. He is gradually getting better as he gets older as long as he is supervised (if I turn my back for 3 minutes he will find something to get into!). Luckily he is not super destructive for the most part but is like a little hoover, especially outside, sucking up anything he can find.

The ones thing that really worked for me was to have a LOT of toys around for him to chew. If he ever started chewing on something I don't want him to I just yell ":uh uh" lound enough to get his attention and quickly give him the toy.
One thing I also do is to wash all his toys so that he thinks they are new.