A Boxing Day disaster! 🐶

When we had a new puppy and a toddler we hung the Xmas tree from the ceiling. Looked a bit strange that year but solved the problem lolol

We had 2 springer spaniels . The first we got as a puppy and was well trained but the other was a rescue who was very timid . One morning I got ready for work and went to put the kettle on. I heard a clunk behind me and turned where DDog1 had brought me one of DD brand new shoes which was badly chewed. She kept looking back at the dining room where DDog2 was lay by the other shoe looking very guilty.
It was obviously DDog2 who had done the chewing and DDog1 was snitching on her. Daughter learned the hard way not to leave her best shoes near the dog after a drunken night out .

Puppies always chew cables. Dangerous things need to be kept out of their reach just like you would with a toddler.

We let our dear friends use our house in Devon when we went to Portugal years ago, we came home to find their Labrador had eaten the whole arm off our g-plan leather settee. They thought it was funny, we did not. We had to have the suite recovered and it cost us a fortune, they never offered to contribute and we did not want to claim on our insurance. It was the last time they used our home. Our own golden retriever puppy once ate all our toddler's food whilst our ds ate the dog dinner, the dog thought it was a great swap. I was not so happy.

I remember one Christmas when my youngest was a baby, we were all sat watching tv when the lights went off. The light cable had been bit through....we later found out by a rat

All pets are irreplaceable and tree lights can be bought again.

I bred pedigree cats and would sometimes have 11 running about . We always treated any electrical cables with Bittet Apple from the pet superstore. A bit like the stuff mums stopped us biting our nails with.. better safe than sorry with lamps, tv and computer cables.

We knew an electrical repair shop that said they regularly had to mend standard lamp cables chewed by puppies and parrots.
One of my DDs had a pet rat fully house-trained I might add. My mother came to visit and was frightened of it and it chewed through all the cushions at her back on the setee what we did not realise was he had an exit hole into the setee itself.
DH was away when it went into the setee and we finally got the rat out of the setee at about 2 a.m. only to find it had chewed all the strapping, it was alright but we had to buy a new setee.

Dogs chew things, it's what they do. When my son was 2 he was bought, for Chritmas, a wind up dog that yapped and jumped. After opening all the other presents I was clearing up all the paper and boxes but couldn't find the dog. Eventually I found it in pieces behind the sofa as my dog decided he didn't want an interloper to join us. He wasn't a puppy he was 5 years old.

On a similar vein, I bought my husband a circulation booster similar to those advertised by Ian Botham this Christmas. He was trying it out for the first time when our dog decided to lick it! He gave a little yelp and sat in the corner looking dejected poor thing. We now make sure he can't get anywhere near it but I'm afraid we did laugh.

Like Luckygirl we once had a rabbit which spent a lot of time indoors and cut the phone off. On the third occasion the engineer said sorrowfully that he would have to charge us this time as three times suggested we hadn’t learned our lesson.

A friend lived in a beautiful old cottage with a long pantry running the length of the property containing her chicken’s eggs, large fridge, welly store, and various food products. She had a very large Italian Spinone and used to leave it alone to go shopping. One day she returned to find he had learned how to open the door and had eaten a box and a half of All Bran. She was obviously after a balanced diet as she also ate a dozen eggs. Needless to say it was a long 24 hours for my friend jumping up and down to open the garden door.

Thank Goodness he didn’t end up with a Curly Perm,

My vet once described his lab as “making eating the sofa his life’s work”

These puppy stories have made me smile . Thankfully the ops puppy was ok . My last dog once chased a rabbit into a field which had an electric fence . She yelped but was ok and she was cautious about fields after that .
My current puppy spent a day last week with our dog boarder . He nicked a corn on the cob from the worktop and was taken to the emergency vet for sickness meds . Thankfully he’d chewed it , not swallowed it while . When I phoned the insurance company, they said labs definitely need insurance!!

These puppies causing mayhem stories are just the thing to make us smile. My Labrador was angelic so far as labs go, only eating one pair of specs, a couple of skirting boards and famously the meds that regulate my atrial fibrillation, yes they were in the drug cupboard high on the wall. A strip fell out as i took out calpol for my 18month old grandson, running a scary high temp.
He and his 3 year old brother sleeping over so mummy and daddy could go out. The calpol would have been 3am. We all slept and I went down at 6am to see the strip shredded. My pup was huge but only 15 months. I phoned the emergency vet. Phoned mummy and drove the boys home so I could go to the emergency vet hospital. Poor mummy didn’t get her lie in, she got the next dose of calpol.
I took my lab and 4 year old spaniel to the vet hospital. Both checked over, no worries, lab kept in for observation, I collected him that evening. All the staff in love with him and he was no worse for wear.
My grandson recovered and his parents were entertained, the rotters, by my exhausting night/day

We used to shut the puppy up in the kitchen at night. When our Sky box ceased to work, the engineer was called in. He quickly found she'd chewed her way through the Sky wire, cable-clipped to the wall, behind the kitchen door (which we never shut with us inside!). We had very red faces. Sky engineer was lovely, and amused.

🤮
And babies' nappies too!

We had a border collie who used to open the fridge door on the seal part, and scoff all the contents. We moved on to retrievers after that because they aren't so clever.

🤮 alert! Do not read if squeamish, but…

…a neighbour’s elderly Labrador, who we look after now and then, found in our guest bathroom, the (used) incontinence pad a 90 year old aunt of mine had very recently left in the bin.

Visiting dog evidently had a thoroughly enjoyable time shredding it (and I dare say eating some) all over the landing carpet.

My daughter's labrador, when a puppy, managed to pull open her bedside drawer and eat half a packet of Nurofen, so that was an expensive trip to the vet's.

Juliet27

With a young puppy, the lights problem should maybe have been considered in advance. So glad he’s ok

Well, the pup wasn’t theirs, they were doing the owners a favour, and (I was there) we thought we’d put away everything chewable. I doubt it’d have been possible to ‘put away’ the lights cable of a tall, real Christmas tree, which TBH unlike so much else, wouldn’t have seemed exactly chew-friendly anyway.

Having had a pup ourselves years ago, who chewed half the face off a beloved old teddy, we were pretty well aware of the potential problem.

Juliet - I posted our similar experience earlier, adding how much more cautious we are now. I avoided mentioning crate training because this is a light hearted thread. But - Max chewing through an electric cable when we were chatting, assuming he was asleep is one of the things that influenced me to crate train my last 5 puppies/rescues.
Stressing here - always positive/safe space/never punishment or time out
Peace to us all 🙏🏽🐶🐕

With a young puppy, the lights problem should maybe have been considered in advance. So glad he’s ok

We had a house rabbit that did the same thing!

New lights can be bought - but happy puppies are not that easy to replace.