Cuddlebug has managed to chew through the faux wood on (kind of a crappy) filing cabinet of mine and I would her walking around proudly with the caster wheel in her mouth last night. The cabinet was not a big deal but I was surprised she would still do this. It is easy to forget that she is still 100% a puppy.
I asked for some advice from other puppy owners regarding whether to give them rawhide. Mouse's owner says yet but is careful about the shape so that there is less danger of splintering. She also gave me some advice about stugging a kong with peanut butter and freezing it. I will be forever grateful for that one - it went over huge. I had heard of it before but had not tried it because I was afraid of getting peanut butter all over my house. She assured me the pb would be gone before it could possible hit the floor - and she was absolutely right!
Ashley, the veterinarian, had this to say about rawhide:
My view on rawhide is that it is fine to give provided you follow common sense and a few guidelines:
1 - Keep the size of the rawhide and the size of the dog similar. You don't want to give a tiny dog a huge bone and let her eat all of it at once. Conversely you don't want to give a huge dog a small rawhide which he could potentially choke on.
2 - Always be with your dog when they are chewing on a rawhide, that way if they are eating too quickly or start choking you can do something about it.
3 - A holistic vet told me that most of the rawhide sold in Petsmart is made in China and has been found to have arsenic in it. True or not I find that off putting so I usually look for something made in this country, organic is good too.
Chewing on tennis balls is bad as it grinds down their teeth. Nylabones are OK (some reports that if they are too old then they break off in big chunks which can cause obstruction.) Kongs and Petstages toys are great.
I have a couple of Power Kongs for Cuddlebug. She is much more interested in ripping things apart. She is also not acting like she is used to having limits. We are teaching her that she does not always get what she wants by grabbing, barking, whining, lunging, jumping, etc and she is RATHER shocked by this!!!
We got a good look at her fear response yesterday when her potential adopters visited. I really liked them. But she went nuts - she wasn't as bad as Cheetah used to be, but her body language was very fearful and she barked a LOT. She is more vocal than Cheetah - which I never would have thought possible. But she did not lunge or nip and the adopters handled it very well and were very patient. Mr PM said later - he would've been outta there if a dog we were looking to adopt did that! I am not sure I would've been outta there but I certainly would be cautious. But they are willing to work with her and they are calm and gentle with no kids and I think will offer a great environment. I offered to start using a differnt name with her, as she does not seem to know her name (so I reverted to Cuddlebug or CB ("SEE-Bee") when talking to her), but they like Cuddlebug! So looks like she is getting her old name back. We do have one more adopter to meet, but I am relatively certain these are the people.
I had the webcam up and running the other night - I wish there was an automatic notification sytem when it is broadcasting and when it is not because it will be spotty. But I took video of CB and Cheetah playing and it is on the channel.
