chew chew

Puppies chew.  And bite.  But mainly chew.  This is a difficult stage for people to survive with their new puppies - especially the young human members of the family.  They don't know how to avoid getting bitten, and those tiny teeth are like razors.  But bite and chew the little dogs must - they are learning about how to (and how not to) use their mouths, they are strengthening their jaws (a necessary activity for a dog), and they are growing new teeth, so they need something hard to chew on to relieve the pressure and pain.

Razor teeth?  These puppies?

Or these?














YES!


I always advise people to have lots of different kinds of toys.  First of all, have a few soft stuffed toys lying around - when an over-enthusiastic puppy clamps teeth on a young (or older) hand, a soft toy stuffed into the puppy's mouth accomplishes two different useful things: stops the child getting bitten while at the same time it teaches the puppy what he is allowed to chew on without hurting him the way it would if a hard toy was jammed in there.

Then there are the actual chew toys - harder items for serious chewing.  Have lots of different ones and swap them daily so that the puppy doesn't get bored with them.  There are literally hundreds - possibly thousands - of different products on the market for this purpose.  Some of them provide food as well as a good chew, like tripe sticks, bull's pizzle or stuffed Kongs.  They don't last long.  Others are food-like and although longer lasting, will also disappear relatively rapidly without actually providing much in the way of food, like rawhide, pig's ears or hooves (hollow ones with no stuffing)*.  Then there are the tough chews that have no food value.  The benefit is that they last longer, the drawback is that the dog is less enamoured of non-food items.  Some examples are Nylabones or hard rubber or plastic toys like empty Kongs.

One long-lasting non-food item that is more satisfying than the rest are antlers, which most dogs seem to be very keen on in spite of the fact that they have no food value.  While they were here, all the puppies enjoyed the antlers and would steal them from each other as a great prize.  Then Tuuli would jump in and take them away altogether.  Very popular, antlers.  As with all things, I hear that there are good quality antlers and poor quality ones that splinter when chewed.  Buy Stagbar antlers direct from Pure Dog for top quality.  I've never had a problem with them.  Lappies need size large or bigger.  Yes, they pretty expensive as far as dog chews go, but believe me they will last and last.  I still have the stub of one that is more than a year old. 

The best thing to give your dog to chew, in my opinion, is a fresh raw bone from the butcher.  They last a long time, always hold some fascination for the dog, and provide hours of entertainment and exercise.  Yes, that's right, I said exercise.  Enthusiastic chewing is very good exercise for your dog.

Notes:

*  I don't give my dogs rawhide because they are greedy, they love it, they don't take their time with it, and they are in danger of choking on it.  Rawhide softens when chewed rather than breaking off in little bits that are easily swallowed.  Therefore it poses a real choking hazard.  If you have a dog who will take his time, then you might be ok with rawhide. 

*  Supervise your dog carefully with all new chews.  Hooves in particular can be brittle and splinter into dangerous shards.  Once it has been chewed a bit, then it is likely to be safe.

And what is all this chewing in aid of?  In addition to jaw strengthening and exercise, there is the little matter of growing teeth.  Tuuli is losing hers faster than she is growing new ones at the moment.

Gummy puppy with tiny adult teeth at the front, one puppy canine in the top and very little else.

These are the only ones we managed to find.  The rest were swallowed or went up in the hoover.  Or Maija's coat.










One thing I have recommended to people for their teething puppies is frozen carrots.  The bigger the carrot the better.  Very soothing and satisfying for the puppy without much in the way of food value, as it just comes out the other end.  As it thaws, just stick it back in the freezer.

This didn't work with greedy Tuuli, however, who somehow managed to devour a frozen carrot as big as she was.  End of that idea. Maija as a young puppy, on the other hand, enjoyed many hours with frozen carrots.

So what is not a good chew?  The big-name, big-marketed so-called chew toys produced by the McDonalds of dog food.  These are NOT chew toys.  They are treats with a lot of calorific and fat value (without being actually nutritious food, that is).  They are Big Macs.  Or worse - they are McRibs!  They are treats.  Not daily chews and not toys.  Special occasion stuff only.  Included in this list is all the stuff sold not only in pet shops but also in supermarkets.  Dentastix, Jumbones, Bakers Dental sticks, Bonio-type hard biscuits, strangely coloured things (as well as no food value, these will have the added "benefit" of pumping your dog full of hyperactivity-inducing additives, preservatives and chemicals.  Yum yum.) 

Bones are best.  Antlers & bones.  And a few other things for added interest.

somewhere to lay my head

For those of you who have asked and wondered where I find time to blog, the answer is that the time I spend on my blog is the time other people spend cleaning their houses.  If you have ever visited, then you will know that this is but a small exaggeration.  Bathroom?  Clean.  Kitchen?  More or less hygienic.  The rest?  Often muddy and normally dust to be found in abundance.  Puppy pen?  Clean.  Oh yes, the best of everything for the puppies.

And because the puppies get the best of everything, they have also now been allocated the cleaning/blogging portion of my day.  I already don't sleep much, so I don't know where I could possibly carve out an additional bit of time from my day and the puppies' socialisation schedule has started in earnest.  That's why yesterday the blog suffered. 

One by one the pups are being carried into town to see all the traffic, people and noise.  They get to visit the folks in the post office and the bakery and get cuddles and oohs and aahs from all kinds of strangers, including kids.  Along the way they get to feel grass under their paws and sniff and feel and hear lots of different types of foliage as I rustle it when we pass.  They're doing great at it. 

Each puppy is getting to spend a little bit of time alone inside and out.  They're not very keen on being alone, but if there's food involved, well then it's not so bad after all.  Typical little Lappies already. 

Today each puppy will get to sit in the car with me with the engine running and a little movement out of the drive and back.  This is in preparation for their first real car trip next week when they go to have their eye tests.  There is usally much vomit and yowling involved in the eye test trip. 

It's a tiring time for puppies with all this activity.  Here they are looking for a comfy pillow.

Brown Wolf resting on Hopea

Hopea resting on the water bowl.

Brownie snoozing on the cow.

Little Ilo on the boomerang.

Toes on the lobster.

Brown Wolf finding the sun too bright for sleeping, so she hides under the paper.

more toys

When the puppies turned 4 weeks old they moved downstairs to see the world from the safety of their pen in our living room. Today was their first foray into the outdoor pen, and they had lunch al fresco. But the wind was a bit chilly so they didn't stay out there long.

Here is the gang shortly after moving into their pen, settling in and getting to grips with their new toys. Note poor little 2Tone getting picked on by all his sisters. In the end I had to stop filming to rescue him. Awww...

toys

The puppies are really interacting with their toys now. They're growling at them, pouncing & chewing on them & dragging them all around.




My First Bone










Wine boxes make great chew-toys-come-climbing-frames - fun for the whole family!









As you can see, sometimes the most unlikely items make the best toys.




2Toes attacks the corner of the mat









A poor photo, but excellent subject: 2Tone dragging paper all over the pen while Taika & Maija look on in envy.









And after all the playing is done, some toys make the best pillow.

puppy shopping 3

Toys & Chews

If there's one thing I know about Finnish Lapphunds it's this: they sure do love to chew. Having said that, chewing is a necessity for all dogs, especially young ones and, to be honest, some Lappies are more interested in chewing than others.

Little did I know how lightly we were getting off with Neka in this respect. As a puppy she destroyed very few things. And those that she did get were irresistible and we take full responsibility for leaving them within reach - plastic lens cover from camera, remote control, the occasional shoe here and there.

Then Keskiyo moved in and, boy, did we get a shock to the system. He destroyed everything in sight and then some. Nothing was safe, including the exposed corners of any wood. Woe betide us if we left anything within a paw's reach of the bars of the crate in the car. Four years later I'm still wearing my very expensive waterproof jacket but since it was less than 2 weeks old it has had a few unnecessary holes and a half-missing zip (so, not so waterproof any longer, actually). You guessed it - left in the back of the car and dragged through the bars of the crate.

Then Maija came along. And, sheesh, we thought Keskiyo was bad! She was the worst of all. Socks galore, pens & pencils, several leads, the edge of the vet bed, her blanket, anything at all left on the coffee table within reach. Many, many things destroyed.

However, one interesting thing about all this was that if the chew toys were yummy enough and interesting enough, then the dogs would always prefer them over the pencils and remote control, etc. Socks, maybe not so much. They will always be appealing, I guess.

So, the moral of the story is this: when you get your puppy you'll need lots of different chew toys and bones. Our adult dogs' absolute favorite thing that they will forego all other treats for is a fresh bone from the butcher.

For puppies and their growing teeth and jaws, Nylabone puppy bones are terrific. At the rate they grow, though, FL puppies very soon graduate out of those little soft ones. By 10 or 12 weeks Neka was going through the softest of these in 1 minute flat. She still loves these little puppy bones, though, and when Maija had them we had to make sure Neka didn't steal them from her. For the bigger and older dogs, this type is also good with the fake marrow inside.

There's literally hundreds, possibly thousands, of different types of dog chews on the market. Most of the very best ones also have food value, so if your puppy is a destroyer and swallows everything instead of just chewing & savouring, then you need to keep that in mind and balance it with their meals. Ours all love pigs' ears (I draw the line at buying trotters and, worst of all, pig noses!) paddywhack, tripe sticks (of course they love that - the most disgusting smelly thing ever produced). Call me squeamish if you like, but in addition to pig noses, I also cannot bring myself to give our dogs pizzle. I'm sure Jay agrees.

In addition to these things, and others like them, there's all the less-natural things like Dentastix, Jumbones, etc. Ours also love all these. Regardless of what it says on the packaging, though, these are not treats to be given everyday! Our dogs only ever get half a Dentastix at a time and only once in a while. Jumbones are great because you can also buy them in slices, which is a much more sensible size of treat for a dog.

For lengthy chewing, I stick with bones (fresh, nylon, smoked, stuffed) and occasionally the other items.

Rawhide is another very popular dog chew product. We only ever give the shredded, re-formed variety because of the dangers associated with other types. Rawhide pieces get soft when chewed and it's surprisingly easy for dogs to choke on it, so we avoid it.
As for toys, no one needs advice on this, really, as pet shops are stuffed to the rafters with toys of every imaginable type and you'll soon discover which are your puppy's favorites. Be prepared for them to be destroyed as well - that's all part of the fun for puppies. There are a few must-haves, though:

• Tennis balls
• Stuffed animal for snuggling at bedtime (at least as big as the puppy - so pretty big)
• Activity ball (just put their meal kibble inside)
• Kong
• Tug ropes

For some fabulous advice on how to survive your puppy's chewing phases, go have a look at Gwen Bailey's excellent article.