Anyone have a dog that’s an aggressive chewer?

Our 10 month old Goldendoodle puppy is the cutest and sweetest dog we've ever had with one exception. This innocent looking fuzz ball has destroyed every toy we give him! When we picked him up at 10 weeks old we bought him numerous toys and everyone also seemed to show up with new ones for him. It went well for 3-4 months and he was quite gentle with both his rubber and plush toys and especially liked anything with a squeaker in it. He would play for hours with them and we would swap them out every few days to keep it exciting for him. After his adult teeth came in, these new "choppers" became weapons! Within a week and at the rate of one to two toys a day, he would simply dismantle/shred them to pieces. Not just the plush/fuzzy ones, but the hard rubber ones as well. We chocked it up to teething and figured it would go away once the adult teeth fully came in. Nope! It seems like nothing is safe. Now, he doesn't chew furniture or pillows or anything else around the house, so thank goodness for that, but now he has no toys to chew on during the day. We went to the local chain pet stores and spent the money for KONG toys at the suggestion of the store employees and interwebs. He can dissect them in minutes and at $10-15 each, buying him toys is getting a bit ridiculous. We even graduated to the black KONG "extreme chewer" toys and they don't survive either. I ended up buying 2 Goughnuts black rubber toys for him and so far they've kept him amused and at bay so far. Trouble is, we would like something a bit more exciting for him than a rubber donut. 
 

Anyone else have a chewer and if so, what has worked for them? 
 

We have an 80lb pit/lab mix. We haven't found anything she won't destroy in less than an hour. 

Our dog was a woodchipper for about a year (she's a mutt-weiler). Toys lasted minutes, beds a few days. Couldn't do rawhide bones because she'd eat an entire one in a single sitting. We ended up getting those comically large beef knuckles for her. Like the ones the size a cat (which probably scared our cats). She'd sit and gnaw on them all day. Once they got small enough to worry about her swallowing it, we gave her a new one and tossed the old one. Our vet wasn't happy with the beef bone solution, but she wouldn't touch the plastic bone our vet sold us, so we figured the beef bone was best for us. Now she's 9 years old and still guts her toys, but not as fast. Good luck!

slefain said:

Our dog was a woodchipper for about a year (she's a mutt-weiler). Toys lasted minutes, beds a few days. Couldn't do rawhide bones because she'd eat an entire one in a single sitting. We ended up getting those comically large beef knuckles for her. Like the ones the size a cat (which probably scared our cats). She'd sit and gnaw on them all day. Once they got small enough to worry about her swallowing it, we gave her a new one and tossed the old one. Our vet wasn't happy with the beef bone solution, but she wouldn't touch the plastic bone our vet sold us, so we figured the beef bone was best for us. Now she's 9 years old and still guts her toys, but not as fast. Good luck!

2nd this. Our dog is big enough to do serious damage if she wanted to. She likes sticks outside but is fine inside. SWMBO gets her beef bones with the marrow still in for entertainment.

Some dogs just dont do toys, but rather do what their wolf mind tells them: eat the bones.

We dont like the smoked bones because of bone chips, but having raw bones sitting on the furniture or the carpet isnt great either.

We found more exercise and dog on dog socialization can keep the excessive chewing at bay.

We buy raw chicken wings and feet for chewing snacks. I usually toss them outside for our dog munch.

In reply to RossD :

Minnie keeps hers in the shop by her shop bed

No dog-to-dog interaction for ours as he is a mad-humper! Any dog anywhere with no shame! It's embarrassing because he isn't very picky. We decided to "fix" the problem and the fateful day is next Friday. Hopefully that will curb his enthusiasm a bit and allow him more dog socialization in the near future. We shall see.

Our youngest is a cloth chewer. Anything with cloth, unsupervised is toast. Balls are the only thing she really wants to play with. Meier has a 3 pack of really tough but squishable rubber balls that her and her older sister love to play and we have the Benebone we by from Amazon/Costco/Sams for them to chew.  They'll sit there and just squish the balls in their mouth making the noise and when they feel like chewing the bones are there. The Benebones last about 2 months with mouth active 70 lb GSD.  If they're under 2 years old, they will destroy everything they can get their mouths on. It's work, but correcting them when they do it, and provide different outlets is preferable. 

Most dogs go through two major chewing phases. One right after their adult teeth come in and the second between 18-24 months. Keep something they can chew on handy and offer it instead of the bad thing. Oh, and none of our dogs get beds to lay on unsupervised until they are almost 2. 

Ours is a 60 lb. mixed breed.  She's funny, her soft toys she plays with and chews gently, the harder stuff she will grind up pretty quickly.   Be careful with very hard toys/bones.  We had a number of hard chews available to her including Nylabone.  Not sure what she was chewing at the time, but one afternoon she was going at it and broke a tooth.  A molar.  Chipped the top off of it (which we later found in her bed) and split the remaining part.  She had to have that tooth extracted.  So, with a 600-dollar vet bill as the consequence, we have discarded all her hard bones. 

The right answer is to find what works for your dog. My 85 Penn dog is extremely aggressive chewing, but what she likes is different than others. She has a couple of balls that she likes to just chew. She also loves the squeaking pigs, but destroys them within 30 minutes.

Funny story: Growing up we had Siberian Huskies long before they became popular. at one point we had 12 as were an AKC registered kennel. At one point my parents thought it would be nice to get them squeaky toys. For an hour it sounded like a squeaky toy massacre was going on out there. How the neighbors never complained about the cacophony, we will never know.

Large antlers and ice cubes 

It doesn't fix the problem, but it slows down the damage if you buy a Kong and shove food inside it that they cannot access easily but that smells good. Our Lab would sit there for hours trying to extricate a small piece of meat or something from inside his Kong rather than just chewing it to pieces.

In reply to bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) :

We do the same, but put small carrots or sliced apple pieces in the Kong... our Lab will bring the Kong to us to get the food out after awhile of trying...