Eating Bedding.

[matilda1]

Katie is a little older now (6 months) and has suddenly started eating her bedding.

She sleeps in a soft crate at night and I have already removed all fluffy filled type bedding as she pulled the foam out of these.

I then started using a wool blanket, well she's now eaten parts of that too.

I have been very lucky that all fibres ingested have so far passed through and come out in her stools but I am worried that obviously this causes a very high risk of a foreign body.

I do have her nsured, but that doesn't mean I WANT to take her to surgery.

So the woolen blanket has been taken away too.

I switched to a giant polar fleece blanket as she didn't seem too interested in eating this, well this morning, it too had giant holes in it. no pieces of polar fleece to be found, so obviously ingested.

Does anyone have any advice on what to do now. I don't like the idea og her sleeping on nothing, and worry that she'll start to eat the crate then.

I never hear her doing this to come out and catch her in the act to tell her off.

Tonight I am giving her some chew toys in he crate to try and prevent it.

Last night I has Skye in her crate with her (it's a giant crate) for company and thught that this might distract her from eating her bedding, but that didn;t work either and I don't want her teaching Skye the bad behaviour.

In their outside Kennel they have straw and she doesn't chew on this. but I can't have straw in the lounge room for obvious reasons.

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

You could try flavouring the bedding with something taste - yuk. But that might make sleeping on it a bit dodgy.

Possibly the safest thing for a dog to eat would be cotton, so consider having a cotton blanky or towel and doing what you can to discourage her from eating it, like having one in her day time area and giving her something else to do if she thinks about eating that.

Even the cotton bath mat I have next to the kitchen sink has small holes in it where the chewmeister in my house has modified it. She's two years old now, and does it much less. But got a new bit of bedding last week from the net and first thing she did was chew a hole to get the stuffing out... I'd never spend big money on dog bedding.

[matilda1]

Katie swallows giant strips of any bedding I give her and then does these poo's completely made up of blanket.

I don't want to end up in surgery with her.

I am afraid that if I take the bedding away from her though, she will eat the plastic lining of the crate and that will be worse.

Will try her tonight with a chew toy in her crate.

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

I admit when my dog was a puppy, she slept in a metal crate (secured with cable ties so it couldn't collapse).

I've only just got a soft sided crate and haven't left her in it long enough for her to test eating it. When she was a puppy I put a cheap picnic blanket over the top of the crate and she ripped that up. And ripped up any newspaper I left in the crate. Go figure.

You might want to have a discussion with the vet about this, but this technique stopped my dog from eating plastic pegs though that wasn't my intention when I did it.

She chewed up a plastic peg, and I thought she'd swallowed some - and we'd just had massive problems (and small vet bills) associated with bits of peg not going through smoothly. So I make a salty like seawater solution, and fed her a tablespoon or two (she's 22kg, one tablespoon would probably have been enough), and she vomitted up everything she'd eaten recently - which didn't include peg. I found the missing bits of pegs - over there. Ah well. But she has not touched a peg since.

At six months your puppy may be teething (replacing baby teeth with adult teeth), and that may be causing the chewing. Here's hoping a chew toy will help. Mine has a squirrel dude that is doing well. If she plays with it during the night, she wakes me up - which might be good for you to check no bedding is being eaten. A large rubber toy being tossed around the room in an attempt to get the remaining kibble out if it can be quite noisy.

Edited November 2, 2010 by Mrs Rusty Bucket

[persephone]

Newspaper until she grows up

newspaper is warm... and cheap, and nowhere near as satisfying to rip/chew!

[matilda1]

Newspaper until she grows up

newspaper is warm... and cheap, and nowhere near as satisfying to rip/chew!

ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT !!!!

That's exactly the kind of solution I was hoping for and was too dumb to think of myself.

off to collect all the old papers now.

you're a life saver.

[Bundyburger]

We chaged Bundy to newspaper after it was suggested on here and it helped him massively. I didn't even think of it!!

Now his latest batch of bedding has lasted 3 months

[matilda1]

I have just done a search around the house for newspaper and have none for tonight but will get some from the pile at work tomorrow. So one more night on some ripped bedding ....WITH a chew toy and then will change to newspaper tomorrow night.

thanks so much for your help :D :D

[persephone]

:D

She will be SO unimpressed

[matilda1]

hehehe, I'll fix her little red wagon.

Gathering supplies today. :D

[The Spotted Devil]

When my Dally was a puppy I bought him a Snooza D1000 bed - stopped him in his tracks Not particularly cheap but still going strong 4 years later and he snuggles in with a big blanket.

The day before my new pup came home I bought her one too. She has an old rug to snuggle up on and I make sure she is well and truly tired and winding down by the time she goes to bed so bed time = sleep time. In her 'day crate' where she naps, there is lots of lovely newspaper to shred as well as another blanket. She also has 2 special toys that she only gets when in her crates so they get a lot of attention

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

I didn't suggest newspaper because my dog really enjoys ripping up newspaper. It is so finely shredded after an hour or so of crate time that I can use it in the compost bin. And Belladonna's dog eats things she shreds. Mine will eat toilet rolls. She loves ripping them up but I have to ration, no more than one a day.

[matilda1]

I didn't suggest newspaper because my dog really enjoys ripping up newspaper. It is so finely shredded after an hour or so of crate time that I can use it in the compost bin. And Belladonna's dog eats things she shreds. Mine will eat toilet rolls. She loves ripping them up but I have to ration, no more than one a day.

Hmm....very valis point.

And also will i be teaching her to shred her bedding by allowing it with newspaper??

Arrghhhhh...i don't t know what to do.

I just really worry about an obstruction with all this blanket and bedding eating.

She can tear strips off a pure wool thick blanket.

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

Well my dog doesn't shred her bed anymore unless she's really stressed or really wants attention.

And while she shredded the newspaper - she didn't shred the bed-mat or anything else in there. So better the newspaper than the other stuff.

They will grow out of it, promise. Like I said before - think it might be her teeth are sore.

I reckon if you can get butcher's paper - it would be fairly safe for her to eat. Much less likely to cause obstruction than towel and not as toxic as coloured newspaper ink. Either that or build a nappy for the crate and put straw in there.

[matilda1]

well she's been sleeping on nespaper for the last 3 nights now,and she shredded some of it the first night, but no more shredding since then.

I will let her sleep on it a little longer, as I really don't want her eating her bedding.

I've been lucky so for that none of it has gotten stuck, but I am not risking it.

She seems fine on the newspaper, I think I 'feel' worse thinking she doesn't have a nice fluffy blanket tha she does. She really doesn't care much either way.

[persephone]

She seems fine on the newspaper, I think I 'feel' worse thinking she doesn't have a nice fluffy blanket tha she does. She really doesn't care much either way.

[mokhahouse]

The only type of bedding Molly wouldnt chew up when we brought her home was a Hessian sack. I felt so bad but after going through so many beds, including trampoline ones and newspaper we found for some reason she did not like chewing hessian. Both dogs now have foam filled hessian and as long as I put a woolen blanket only on top we have no further problems. Hopefully you will find something your pup does not like to chew. The bitter spray on the corners of the sack helped too.

[matilda1]

I started off with hessian. Didn't work for us unfortunately and the woolen blanket is the culprit this time.

It's been 4 days now on newspaper and she is still passing bits of wool blanket in her faeces. At least it's coming out, but I do worry that it's taken 4 days.

I go in for Ex lap surgeries all the time at work, I really don't want to do it on my own dog right now.

She's eating and drinking fine and going to the toilet fine, she's bright and happy and has no abdominal pain (just Kennell cough thanks to skye) so I will keep on with my 'poo-ology studies' daily for now until I am happy they are back to normal.

She has stopped shredding the newspaper so that's a good sign.

[persephone]

perhpas give her some nice canned food to help with the blanket traveling thru?

[matilda1]

I actually gave her a syringe full of paraffin oil, will give another in a few days just to make sure.

Blanket still coming out at times.