When we first brought Ted home, JG took him to the vet the next week and received the 411 on puppy-raising. He filled me in once I got home from work and informed me that Ted would lose his teeth when he was around 3-4 months old so that his adult teeth could grow in.
Excuse me? No one mentioned the possibility of finding stray teeth around the house. Gross.
“No, that’s not really an issue,” JG assured me. “According to the vet, he’ll probably swallow most of them.”
Even more gross.
JG and I have a general policy of having only three of Ted’s toys out at once. I don’t want to be tripping over toys everywhere and we have some vague delusion that we might cultivate some semblance of an attention span in Ted if we don’t offer the full array toys all of the time. We have passed the stage when the toys were streaked with blood and now, Ted is baring some brand-new “big doggie” teeth. He has become frustratingly good at freeing treats from his Kong ball and his nips are closer to bites in the pain factor, so our rule has just about gone out the window. To stave off the attempts to chew on us, JG and I have become increasingly lax in bending the rule and shoving whatever seems interesting at Ted’s mouth. Otherwise, he goes for our arms, hands, or toes, or maybe the corner of his couch blanket, which is not the plan at all. In our desperation to satiate the need to chew, the toys are the only recourse and I feel like they are everywhere.
I never quite understood those parents who, when confronted with a living room overtaken by children’s toys, would say something like, “I don’t know how it got this way, but look at all of this stuff!” Taking care of Ted does not require nearly the effort of raising a child, but I now understand the gradual invasion of the toys. I’m depending on the thought that this chewing is just a phase so that we can return to our normal level of destruction. Right?
Tune in to Roosday-Tuesday and Wednesday-Bensday for the other two-thirds of the doggie cuteness trifecta!
6 comments
Does Ted get cuter every week, or is it just me?
Our hose is littered with cat toys. I have stopped caring. If someone’s coming over, I stuff them all in the kitty condo… and they’re scattered around the house again by morning.
It is not you - he is that cute! I’m kind of biased, though.
The weird thing is that I’m not bothered by other people’s pet toys all over the place, just MINE. Because I have an rep to maintain or something.
It is definitely just a phase, don’t worry! Ben used to go through toys at record speeds, but now he’s been working on the same 2 for about 6 months. It might take a while, but eventually Ted will get over his need to put every single thing in his mouth.
Oh, thank goodness.
We went through this with our now 9-month-old black lab when we first got him. We did some research on the internet on how to break the habit, and what we found ended up being VERY effective.
In a nutshell, basically every time Ted tries to nibble on any part of you, yell “OW!” very loudly and act like it hurts you. The yell should surprise him into stopping momentarily. (They say this is the reaction another puppy would give him if they were playing it got too rough.) If after a moment, he tries using his teeth again, you should yell “OW!” again and turn your back on him and ignore him as if to say, “I don’t want to play with you if you’re going to bite me.”
This really worked with Strider. We reinforce it now by giving him a treat everytime he licks us or puts his mouth on us without using his teeth.
Good luck! =)
Hm, that is very interesting… I hardly ever let it get to the point where I get bitten, but sometimes, Ted is sneaky.
I love Ted! Good thing he has so many delicious-looking toys to chew on.
How do you make those awesome nine-square collages???
Mm, Octopus.
As for the collages - I use the Mosaic Maker at fd’s Flickr toys and just upload and go. They have a handful of different layouts, but that’s essentially how I’ve done almost every Dogarazzi picture.
The squishy octopus is priceless! I want one for myself!
We never got told about the puppies losing their teeth… Yipes. How did I miss that?
Ha. I guess yours just swallowed the teeth, the thought of which still skeeves me out.
Oh the teeth! It never occurred to me that Rufus would lost his teeth. Once the vet told us, I felt kind of stupid…I mean, how could I not have realized???
I know, it seems obvious after the fact, doesn’t it?
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