Chewcifer

My dog was a beast this weekend. I was away for Mothers' Day, but every time my husband turned his back (and sometimes in plain view!) Arlo was destroying some contraband household item.

We adopted Arlo from the SPCA in Charlottesville, VA, when he was eight months old. Back then, he chewed the occasional shoe and that was it. We thought to ourselves "Man, did we get lucky!" and kept our shoes well-hidden (mostly).

Now he is two and it's like anything within reach is up for grabs. We have definitely been downgraded in the behavior department.

He chews tissues, dryer sheets, my (ahem) personal products, pens, socks, shoes, cardboard, feather dusters, dish towels and the list goes on and on. Nothing is too gross, too hard, too potentially dangerous for my dog's little jaws.

Short of keeping our apartment pristine at all times (ha!) we aren't quite sure how to handle this situation. We scold, we rub his nose in whatever he's shredded, we glare, we even resorted to crating him yesterday while we were up at my mom's in the suburbs.

We super-duper-really-a-lot do not want to go back to crating Arlo. He has some separation anxiety issues that make that a not-so-great idea and we were thrilled when he seemed to do well out of the crate. Mostly he sleeps when we are gone. We lock up our bedroom and closets and give him free reign of the kitchen, living room, and bathroom. For about four months now it's been easy livin'.

Now we are never sure what we'll find decimated when we get home from work and school.

As I said, we would really rather not go back to crating Arlo. We are gone long enough during the day that if we can avoid that at all, we will. So now I'm asking: Do you have any advice for young pup parents whose dog has turned into Chewcifer?