Luna the Cockapoo is addicted to paper, actually, to chewing in general.
It’s a puppy phase, we are told.
She is not particular about her forest products: napkins, paper towels, receipts, band-aid wrappers, brown paper bags. We try to scan our major receipts and then shred them; maybe Luna could be our “green” shredder! She has a great future career as a professional label remover.
Great shredding results in quite the nest. Was she a bird or a wasp in a former life?
If our girls were still in school, we would have a real chance of sending to school some pictures of homework the dog destroyed (whether or not it was intentional.)
At a recent dinner party I watched from the kitchen as Luna quietly snuck up to a guest’s lap and oh-so gently pulled off that guest’s napkin without his even noticing. (Shredding was also quiet.)
When she plays “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” guess what? She always plays “paper” (although it can be hard to tell with her paw.)
Of course, her chew targets are much broader: she fixates on the throw rugs in front of the back door and has destroyed several. When the rains return, I hope she’ll appreciate the opportunity to dry her wet paws (and fly about the back yard with her new wings.) Probably not.
Puppy chewing has expanded to the handles on her toy box, which are at just the right height – no reaching or bending over, but oh so tasty.
Her fixation on forest products occasionally extends to a chair leg; I’ve recently caught her chewing on the edge of a piano bench. Fortunately she is easily distracted by a woody-looking bully.
As one online training site suggested, “Although it’s perfectly normal for a puppy to chew on furniture, shoes, shrubbery and such, these behaviors can be a problem for you…. As long as you keep the learning behavior from becoming a habit, your puppy should outgrow this chewing, too.”
Either Luna doesn’t know she should have out grown this two months ago or we’re screwed.