the sheltiechick blog

Razor sharp puppy teeth

I bought Payton a dragon from PetSmart, one that claimed to be “durable” and hold up to chewing. It’s the only thing he has in his crate, because he is a monster and I’m 99% sure he would destroy a bed or blanket if he had one in there and probably eat it. I feel a bit bad for him because he seems a bit uncomfortable, and whenever he gets up to move I can hear his little paws tap dancing around on the plastic crate tray, but there are worse things in this world. He is sleeping with his head on the dragon sometimes, using it as a pillow.

Anyway – this afternoon I was putting him back in his crate and picked up Durable Dragon, and he is ripped open. I thought it was stuffing-free, but it is apparently “understuffed,” so there is stuffing poking out. I think I’m going to rip all of the stuffing out and then sew it closed again. It’s not shredded into pieces, but he did rip it open.
I also gave him a Wubba to play with yesterday, one I picked up a few years ago as a prize at an agility trial. He somehow managed to rip the fabric on that too – and not the little flappy legs at the bottom where it would make the most sense, but the fabric wrapped around the squeaky part at the top.
Stupid razor sharp puppy teeth!!

I’m trying to decide if it’s worth trying to buy one of those really durable stuffed toys, or if I should just doom him to an empty crate until he grows up and limits the chewing everything in his path.
Meanwhile Auggie’s crate has a nice pillow I sewed for him, his own Wubba, a Kong, a rope toy, a loofa dog, and a stuffed puppy. Auggie is livin’ large in his nice, roomy, furnished crate… and the puppy has a smallish empty crate. LOL. I imagine Auggie is laying in his crate right now all “AHHHH, this is SOOO nice… think I’ll just chew on my puppy here… ohhhh so lovely…” and poor Pay is laying there like “=< =< =<" with his head on an empty crate pan…

And the funniest part of this? I went to PetSmart to pick this up (I'd been eying it a while) and to see if they had any cord covers, and when an employee asked me if I needed help and I asked him if they had cord covers, he asked me what kind of dog I needed to protect my cords from. I told him sheltie and he looked at me completely confused and told me "Shelties don't really chew…" I almost died laughing in the aisle. I've been taking photographic evidence of Payton chomping various things he should not be chomping on. I suppose Mr. Dwiggie and Ripped Wubba can be added to the "Shelties Don't Really Chew" slideshow now.