Canine shredding is a normal, instinctive behavior linked to a dog's prey drive, allowing them to "dissect" a kill, and is also a way for them to relieve stress, boredom, or agitation. Providing safe outlets for shredding, such as cardboard boxes filled with treats or appropriate chew toys, is the best way to redirect this natural behavior away from inappropriate household items and prevent it from becoming a destructive habit.
Dog parents have contacted me hundreds of times to see if I can help their desire to shred stuffies and toys.
So here is the low down. THIS IS NORMAL CANINE BEHAVIOR. It is biologically appropriate and they don’t understand why you are yelling or scolding them. It is their toy. Should they shred your couch, NO. They need to be taught the difference. It is biologically normal to shred a prey animal (even though you dress them up in human clothes they are still dogs). Shredding ripping is their normal behavior. If it is something very important to them, they will care for their special lovie and will not tear or rip on purpose. Raw meaty bone like a neck bone is great to rip and tear.
I am from the belief, if you let them have their instinctual behavior (chewing sticks, Shredding stuffies, sniffing everything) then they will have less inclination to do it inside the home. A tired dog is a well-behaved dog.
Try to give them instinctual behavior in the home. Sniff games are excellent. Take extra toilet paper tubes and put some of their favorite treats or food in the cardboard tubes. Fold over the sides to hopefully prevent a mess. Let your dog sniff the tubes out and shred the tubes to get it out. If they get some don’t worry cardboard is untreated and won’t hurt them to digest A LITTLE.
Pub crawl style dinner- Split their meal into a few different bowls and place them around the house. Let your pup sniff them out and find and eat his food. Fun, biologically appropriate and mentally exhausting.
Take them on a long walk and LET THEM SNIFF. Let them stop as much as they want and sniff….
Canine pull( seek toys) are great one larger toy they can pull things out of