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One of the easiest toys to destroy is a stuffed one, right? Your dog will chew it and find a weak spot in the toy and there we go again. The filling is everywhere and you feel disappointed. Why even bother to buy stuffed toys?
We want our dog to have different kinds of great toys to play with. And that’s great! Dogs need different kinds of stimulation.
We can also learn to buy different kinds of toys that fit better to our dog’s needs.
There’s several theories why your dog might destroy toys:
- Boredom
- Pray drive
- Learned behaviour
- Separation anxiety
- Habit
- Wrong toy for the purpose
- It’s just fun
- Not enough challenge
- Puppy phase
When you get to know your dog, you will notice what kind of toys you should buy. Some dogs will love stuffed toys and they take care of them. They are like comfort toys for them. Dogs might bond with the stuffed toy, clean it and sleep with it or maybe it’s not just meant to be.
That’s okay, every dog toy is not suitable for every dog.
Let’s dive deeper!
Boredom
Your dog might just need something to do and stuffed toys are really easy to destroy. Consider to take your dog for a longer walk or if you can let your dog run a while before leaving your dog alone.
Pray drive
Before dogs had to hunt for their food and small animals were the target. Some breeds still show signs of wanting to hunt prey more than others, such as targeting squirrels in the park. If your dog has a strong prey drive, it’s more common that your dog will destroy a squeaky toy because it represents prey.
Learned behaviour
Your dog might have used to this kind of behavior because you have given your dog praises. Every time you give some kind of positive reinforcement for your dog when your dog is shaking toys vigorously – your dog thinks it’s a good thing and continues.
Separation anxiety
If your dog is suffering from separation anxiety, it can show different symptoms. One of them is destroying things around the house when you’re gone. That can become a learned behavior as well: when dogs are used to rip something, they can do it again with different items as the target.
Habit
If the things above aren’t solved, it can become a habit. When you tackle the separation issue first, the rest will follow and your dog will be more comfortable when you are gone.
Wrong toy for the purpose
There’s different dog toys for different purposes. The most quarante-strong-ones are used when you leave your dog alone for a period of time. All the others basically are used together with your dog. So it might be that the toys you give your dog are the wrong kind of ‘dog sitters’.
It’s just fun
Let’s face it – sometimes it’s fun to just rip something. If your dog is destroying every toy, it’s time to invest in extra-durable ones.
Not enough challenge
The toys you give your dog might not be the most exhilarating. Try to give your dog different kind of toys to see which your dog likes the most.
Puppy phase – use my puppy bucket method
The destroying phase is between 9-11 months in dogs so you should expect to have something being ripped to pieces. Our massage roll took a hit one day when one of our dogs was little. When your dog is getting close to that age it might be good to go over the place where you keep your dog when you leave.
When my dogs were younger I used a puppy bucket method. I got the idea years ago when I searched for different methods on how to leave your dog alone without separation anxiety.
I used this method with both of my rescue dogs I have at the moment. My youngest dog was more of a hyper-puppy than the others so I wanted to continue this method. This has saved me a lot of headaches and a ton of money because I didn’t have to replace any of my furniture or worry about separation anxiety developing.
My puppy bucket -method
- Use a bucket that you already own. It can be in any size. If you don’t have a plastic bucket, you can use anything else with strong material.
- Take out old towels, old t-shirts, old sheats – any fabric you don’t mind getting rid of.
- Take out treats: dry kibble, soft treats – anything you have for your dog that would be safe to leave alone with your dog
- Tie knots in most of your fabrics.
- Push treats inside those knots on your fabrics. That way there’s more of a challenge to find those precious treats.
- Put all the fabrics, treats, and hard toys (like tennis balls) into the bucket and place one fabric as a cover on top of the bucket.
Word of warning: our other towels took a hit for a few weeks after the puppy bucket -method when our towels were left unattended in the living room. The edges of the towels were chewed (learned behaviour). This stopped when our dog was less than a year old.
You can use this method for several months.
You will see the change in time and know when you don’t need it anymore: your dog will first take everything out and play with them. Then some of the toys will stay in the bucket and your dog will choose the favorite ones to play with.
In the last phase, your dog will still eat any treat there is but maybe just one favorite toy is out of the bucket. At this time your puppy is also older than when you started.
They grow up so fast!
Now your dog should be used to the fact that when you leave they get something special. When you come back home, take everything that was in the bucket away from your dog. Those ‘special toys’ are given only when you leave your home. Let me know how it went!
How to get your dog to stop destroying toys
If you notice that you can’t leave your dog with a stuffed toy, then basically don’t.
The only toys that I can leave with my dogs are really hard ones and tennis balls. The hard ones were iffy as well when one of my dogs was under one year old. But when I had a pug, she loved her stuffed toys and slept with them. So cute.
If you have a super-intelligent doggo that needs something extra, there are these great hard ball-shaped dog toys that you can put kibble in. A little bigger than a tennis ball. I love those! Your dog will learn to roll the ball to get the treats out one by one.
Sometimes when I forgot the treat the ball on the floor when I came back home, one of my dogs used to roll the ball when it was empty. At the same time, he would look at me like: “Hey, you see this..?! There’s nothing left, come on… few more.”
If your dog is destroying every toy, it’s time to invest in dog toys that promise to be extra-durable.
I bought this slow feed extra-durable dog toy last fall and we use it inside and outside at the moment. With supervision at the moment, hahh! What makes it great, is the little flexibility. Like with our tennis balls that lay around in our home: they give in a little and they roll around effortlessly. They are not like soft toys without movement.
A ball doesn’t need a lot to become more interesting! So our dogs gan chew them without breaking them and that little movement makes them go after it.
Conclusion
We can learn to know our dogs better and buy different kinds of toys that fit our dog’s needs. Depending on the age and breed of your dog, you will learn and find out what is the most ideal toy for your dog.
The destroying phase in dogs is between 9-11 months so you can expect to have something being ripped to pieces. Invest in some more durable toys and don’t leave your dog alone with toys that your dog can easily destroy.