Chewing Chow

[Sylvia]

So I need some advice from those of you who have Chows that chew stuff up. Sweetie seems to take a fondness for chewing the drip emitters in my backyard irrigation system. Of course Sweetie would never chew them when I'm within viewing range. And she would never admit to being the culprit. But the teeth mark and the broken pieces are a pretty good giveaway.

Now, she has lots of other things to chew including cow hooves, toys, etc, but she seems to have a special fondness for the drip emitters. During the winter months this hasn't been a big deal since the sprinklers aren't on, but with temperatures getting into the 70s (in California), I will need to turn them on soon. And would prefer to not have to continuously repair them. Fortunately, it's inexpensive to fix, but I'm thinking there must be a way to discourage this behavior. Any ideas?

Oh and one more thing, when I have seen her chew things like her cow hooves, she seems to be chewing mostly with her far rear molars, so I think she may still have teeth coming in.

[kiwani]

Now, she has lots of other things to chew including cow hooves, toys, etc, but she seems to have a special fondness for the drip emitters...


...Oh and one more thing, when I have seen her chew things like her cow hooves, she seems to be chewing mostly with her far rear molars, so I think she may still have teeth coming in.

The far rear molars are the last to erupt, and she might be attracted to the irrigation emitters for their coolness (?) You might consider freezing her chewy treats or offering her some ice-cubes to help soothe her gums.

[Sylvia]

Thanks, Kiwani, I will try that and see if it helps.

[scrpbk1]

Stormy our 16 month old blue chow is a big chewer and also enjoys chewing on our drip system emitters.

To keep her mind off of the drip system I give her lots of chew type bones (Nylabones, stuffed Kongs) but I have found that she enjoys chewing on bully sticks the most. Costco in our area carries them for a much better price then the pet food stores.

Shelly

[IliamnasQuest]

What's a drip system emitter? *L*

From a trainer's standpoint, the simple answer is "never allow her access to things that she likes to chew (that you don't want her to chew) unless you are able to watch her and prevent the unwanted behavior".

That's usually the easiest route. And then you can reward her for NOT chewing. You can teach her that when she stays away from the drip emitters, or looks at them and then chooses not to chew on them, that she'll get a special reward. You can also boobie-trap things. With the cats I used to blow up those long skinny balloons and then attach them to places the cats would scratch (like the side of furniture). When they scratched the balloon, it - of course - popped and frightened them away. With dogs we often use a mousetrap like object that has a huge plastic paddle hooked to the section that snaps shut. The idea is not to have the dog get caught in the trap (and I've never had that happen) but that when they stick their nose into a place it shouldn't be, the paddle snaps shut and scares them. Some people get the same effect by using regular mousetraps and placing a couple of layers of newspaper over the traps. The traps snap closed under the newspaper, causing the dog to jump away from the area. Again, very effective but if you use this you would still want to be fairly close by in case your dog happened somehow to get caught by a mousetrap (again, not something I've ever had happen or even heard of happening).

I found that when Khana was a young'n, she loved to chew on plastic, cardboard and metal. I bought her tons of toys, and she preferred to chew on the boxes! *L* And when she was teething, I'd hear her teeth rattling against the metal legs of the computer chair when I was on the computer. So I started giving her paper plates and cardboard boxes to rip apart, and the plastic dishes from microwave dinners, etc. It seemed to calm her need to destroy and we made it through puppyhood with a minimum of important things being destroyed. At four, she still likes to chew some but mostly she likes to clean off the dishes or run off with the plastic microwave containers so that she can get every bit of taste out of them. Then she lets Tazer tear them up .. *L* .. but she still likes plastic pop bottles. And if she can get her mouth on a metal can (pop can or any other type of canned food can - especially tuna fish cans) she will chew them up. I really try to avoid that.

Anyhow, hope you get Sweetie's chewing under control! Do these drip emitters spray out water? A quick spray or two and she may decide they're not so fun!

Melanie and the gang in Alaska

[kiwani]

...Of course Sweetie would never chew them when I'm within viewing range. And she would never admit to being the culprit. But the teeth mark and the broken pieces are a pretty good giveaway.

I've done some reading about these irrigation emitters, and learned that assorted wildlife (rodents, rabbits, foxes, skunks, etc.) are attracted to them too and do chew them

[scrpbk1]

My husband thinks that the emitters may hiss or make some noise that Stormy doesn't like as she only chews select ones in certain areas of the yard. And always when we aren't looking

[Sylvia]

What's a drip system emitter? *L*

LOL!!

...Of course Sweetie would never chew them when I'm within viewing range. And she would never admit to being the culprit. But the teeth mark and the broken pieces are a pretty good giveaway.

I've done some reading about these irrigation emitters, and learned that assorted wildlife (rodents, rabbits, foxes, skunks, etc.) are attracted to them too and do chew them

Unfortunately, the chewing of the emitters started happening at the same time that Sweetie came to live with me. Never happened before, but I'm sure Sweetie would love me to believe it is some species of assorted wildlife that miraculously showed up at that exact same time.


So I went out and replaced the chewed emitters again, and as a first step, I thought I'd see what I could do to somehow protect them. This is my first prototype of the anti-Sweetie drip emitter protection system, I figure I can always make modifications via trial and error later.

The following picture is an emitter (actually spray emitter) that hasn't been chewed. It is in my vegetable boxes and I normally (post Sweetie's arrival) have it hidden under some weed barrier cloth in the boxes. I just pulled it out so you can see a "before" picture.

Before Picture


Now this is the prototype anti-Sweetie drip emitter protection system

After Picture (alpha prototype)


As you can see the part that sprays water is just slightly above the top edge of the toilet paper roll. Now could she totally chomp down on this? Of course, but I'm hoping I've changed the way it looks enough and changed the texture enough that she won't. Like maybe she'll choose the sticks instead, or would rather just not bother with the emitter and go chew one of her half dozen cow hooves laying around in the yard.


Here's a picture of Sweetie wondering what the heck I'm doing. As you can see she is ignoring the camouflaged emitter




Now that I have the emitters semi protected, I go to step 2, find something Sweetie would like to chew more than the emitters, maybe a frozen chew treat like Kiwani suggested, or plastic soda bottles or cardboard boxes like Melanie said Khana recommends

[kiwani]

Here's a picture of Sweetie wondering what the heck I'm doing. As you can see she is ignoring the camouflaged emitter

Yes, she looks very concerned

Have you tried citrus peel as a repellant, either rubbing the
emitters or just stuffing the tubes with rinds?

What a beautiful garden!

[Sylvia]

Thanks for the compliment on the garden, I do enjoy gardening.

No, I hadn't thought of citrus rinds. Actually I have some lime juice in the fridge, maybe I can put a little of that on the emitters and see if that helps deter Sweetie.

[scrpbk1]

LOL. Love your anti-Sweetie drip emitter protection system. Can't wait to show my husband!

Shelly

[Sylvia]

So after the first day of use, the anti-Sweetie drip emitter protection system has done its job. All 5 spray emitters that were protected are still in good shape. However, Sweetie did manage to take three of the protective devices (cardboard toilet paper rolls with duct tape) off. I found two pretty chewed up but still usable and the third is hiding some place only known to Sweetie. This leads me to believe that I may have found a "toy" that Sweetie enjoys chewing more than spray emitters. I'm considering getting a cardboard toilet paper or paper towel roll and just taping some duct tape around it and let her play with that. In the meantime, I need to put that lime juice on what's left of the remaining protective devices.

[Auddymay]

She probably thought they were Jack-a-lopes...

[Sylvia]

She probably thought they were Jack-a-lopes...

LOL

I've been out of town for the last couple of days and a Sweetie has been at a friends house. I will be picking her up tomorrow. Hopefully Sweetie will know that Jack-a-lopes don't taste like lime juice.

[Sylvia]

Unfortunately, Sweetie has not learned to differentiate between the taste of jack-a-lope and cardboard with lime juice. So I had to make a trip to Lowe's and come up with a new and improved beta prototype for the Anti-Sweetie drip emitter protection system.

While at Lowe's, I found a type of staking system for trellising. Turns out where the trellis support fits into the metal stake, is exactly the right size to act as a metal housing to protect the spray emitters. See pictures below.

Here's a picture of the stake.


So I replaced the cardboard "jack-a-lopes" with these stakes and put some wire fencing around my flower bed.

The newly staked emitter, with a few scattered chewed ones, prior to the new protection system.

On the right you can see the new and improved Anti-Sweetie drip emitter protection system next to the failed cardboard version.
It's been a week and so far so good no chewing of the protected emitters.


So this past weekend I have extended this system to my vegetable boxes. We'll see how it goes.




And I have to end this with one more happy puppy picture
Notice to the left of Sweetie's head, just behind her, is one of the failed cardboard toilet paper roll with duct tape prototypes. Sweetie has had fun taking them around the yard.

[Auddymay]

She is so cute. The tulips were nicely placed in the photo with her. Sad, about the jack-a-lopes.

[kiwani]

The right tool for the right job : ) Congrats and an A+ for aesthetics.