My GSD ripped up his new bed

IrishHomer

Bought a new bed last night in dunnes stores for just €20 for my 2yr old German shepherd to sleep on in the cold weather in the porch and he ate it to shreds on the 1st night.

Does anyone know is it possible to get one that the dog won't eat on the 1st night?

ppink

we got our ones which had a very heavy duty waterproof cover on and they did not chew those ones. they are not very warm for this time of year though, great for summer.
anyway it seemed to stop our guys from eating the beds. The only time they do it now is when they are stressed.....eg when we put them in kennels we came back to no beds and a missing lead, apparently eaten!

Was that his first bed or could he be stressed about something?

IrishHomer

He definitely was not stressed.

He is a very active happy dog he did do it before in kennels too and i put it down then to being bored in the kennels as i spoil him and i devote loads of time keeping him busy all day every day.

He was probably bored early this morning as i had an unusual lie in.

Galway K9

I hate to be mean but we dont give dogs enough credit for their intelligence and character, dont provide another bed for a few days barely a sheet under him...then get another bed in 2-3 days....he wont do it again cause he appreciates it now and knows the consequences....a cold floor.

andreac

I highly recommend vet bed, its great stuff and not that easy to chew, if at all. Ive 2 rotties and my male destroyed loads of beds when he was younger and i got fed up buying new beds so i buy sheets of vet bed with the rubber back on it so it doesnt slip.

I cut the large sheet in 2 and layer them and they are great. They are so easy to wash and dry very quick too.
The most they do with them now is pick them up and fling them around but he is yet to destroy one.

andreac

Galway K9 wrote: »

I hate to be mean but we dont give dogs enough credit for their intelligence and character, dont provide another bed for a few days barely a sheet under him...then get another bed in 2-3 days....he wont do it again cause he appreciates it now and knows the consequences....a cold floor.

Sorry to tell you, but dogs dont think like that, they dont think logically.

ppink

IrishHomer wrote: »

He definitely was not stressed.

He is a very active happy dog he did do it before in kennels too and i put it down then to being bored in the kennels as i spoil him and i devote loads of time keeping him busy all day every day.

He was probably bored early this morning as i had an unusual lie in.

that will teach you!
ours are in the hall so there is no lie in..one of them comes up stairs and stays "suctioning" at the door until we get up.
Its like a full time job to keep our active one happy and satisifed:)

I am not sure about about hard groundteaching him a lesson to be honest. One of ours may get that but the other would be far too intent on living in the moment.
Lucky you did not buy him a €100 memory foam matress!

Susannahmia

We always wrap our dogs bed up with a throw blanket. It stops any chewing issues for us.

liquoriceall

my sisters young elkhound just eats all beds given to him and to be honest he doesnt want them prefers the cold so maybe the gsd doesnt want a bed? they have a lot of hair

boomerang

I've two ideas...

In my experience Sheppies are one of those breeds that just LOVE to chew, particularly when they're bored. Could you leave something else with him for him to chew, that's more fun than his blanket? For instance, how about a nice, raw, meaty bone from the butcher? (A fine big one that he can't swallow in one piece.)

Then I'd give him just old blankets or an old coat to sleep on until you're confident he won't chew up his bedding. If you haven't anything suitable lying around at home you can get wool blankets etc very cheaply from charity shops.

sionnaic

andreac wrote: »

I highly recommend vet bed, its great stuff and not that easy to chew, if at all. Ive 2 rotties and my male destroyed loads of beds when he was younger and i got fed up buying new beds so i buy sheets of vet bed with the rubber back on it so it doesnt slip.

I cut the large sheet in 2 and layer them and they are great. They are so easy to wash and dry very quick too.
The most they do with them now is pick them up and fling them around but he is yet to destroy one.

Yep vetbed is great - I got a huge 1.5m x 5m roll of it for about €98 delivered from bronteglen.ie and just cut it up into pieces. Considering it cost about €25 for a small square of it in a shop it was fantastic value getting it this way. My two love it cause it's furry rather than just a blanket, and it really retains heat.

Just a word of warning though Bronteglen can be really really really slow about getting your ordered delivered. If they don't have it in stock it can take 2 or 3 weeks!! I've ordered from them twice and they didn't have what I wanted in stock (even though no mention of this on their website or I would have ordered a different colour they did have in stock!) so it took a good 3 weeks or more to receive my order. It did eventually arrive though and it's good quality.

kylith

Weirdly my terriers will only rip up their bed if they see any hint of white. I usually buy a cheap duvet from Guiney's. It only costs about a fiver to replace if they do rip it up.

boomerang

liquoriceall wrote: »

my sisters young elkhound just eats all beds given to him and to be honest he doesnt want them prefers the cold so maybe the gsd doesnt want a bed? they have a lot of hair

He mightn't need it for heat, but I do think it's important to cushion their joints from the hard ground, particularly for the breeds that are prone to arthritis.

Galway K9

andreac wrote: »

Sorry to tell you, but dogs dont think like that, they dont think logically.

yes they do. do your research before making assertive statements. Only bad trainers with no results or slow make these excuses and say there are no quick fixes, theyre are.

i think its abstractly you mean aswell and not logically.

kylith

Galway K9 wrote: »

yes they do. do your research before making assertive statements. Only bad trainers with no results or slow make these excuses and say there are no quick fixes, theyre are.

i think its abstractly you mean aswell and not logically.

I think that what andreac means is that the dog won't make the link that ripping up his bed means having to sleep on a blanket. He'll just accept that one day he sleeps on a bed, the next day a blanket. In order to teach him that ripping up the bed is a no-no he'd have to be caught in the act.

Galway K9

kylith wrote: »

I think that what andreac means is that the dog won't make the link that ripping up his bed means having to sleep on a blanket. He'll just accept that one day he sleeps on a bed, the next day a blanket. In order to teach him that ripping up the bed is a no-no he'd have to be caught in the act.

ya well thats implied, dogs are present moment livers and average association time is 1.6 secs and varies with dogs but dogs do associate after lengths of time. example, you get the lead, and takes a good while to get to door to go but yet he associates the lead with a walk but yetyou dont justr get lead and run to door within a second.

cocker5

http://www.zooplus.ie/shop/dogs/dog_beds_baskets/dog_blankets/vetbed/129392

Thsi stuff is excellent, it helps keep a dog warm and dry (draws any moisture away from the dog)... and they cant shred it! you cannot go wrong! :P

andreac

Galway K9 wrote: »

ya well thats implied, dogs are present moment livers and average association time is 1.6 secs and varies with dogs but dogs do associate after lengths of time. example, you get the lead, and takes a good while to get to door to go but yet he associates the lead with a walk but yetyou dont justr get lead and run to door within a second.

Learning through association is completely different than thinking logically.

Dogs dont think, "Oh i ripped up my bed, better not do that again or i wont have a bed to lie on" so they dont think logically.

Galway K9

they do if you make it black and white and mark the action. youve to communicate to the dog why.

Whispered

Galway K9 wrote: »

they do if you make it black and white and mark the action. youve to communicate to the dog why.

~ But to mark the behaviour you have to observe the behaviour. Otherwise the dog is not going to know what you are "marking", right?

If I've misunderstood you can you clarify - do you suggest that the op simply give the dog a blanket to sleep on now, and you think the dog will understand why? Or if not, how should the op communicate the reasons s/he has given the dog a blanket instead of a cushion?

Galway K9

Whispered wrote: »

~ But to mark the behaviour you have to observe the behaviour. Otherwise the dog is not going to know what you are "marking", right?

If I've misunderstood you can you clarify - do you suggest that the op simply give the dog a blanket to sleep on now, and you think the dog will understand why? Or if not, how should the op communicate the reasons s/he has given the dog a blanket instead of a cushion?

He wont understand why the cushion is missing but he will appreciate the cushion when it returns so he wont rip it up, very simply put. And if you mark the behaviour and remove the cushion he will understand that his behaviour caused the cushion to go...after couple of repititions...he will learn to nto rip it up as it disappears....

Whispered

Galway K9 wrote: »

He wont understand why the cushion is missing but he will appreciate the cushion when it returns

Ah I get what you mean now. But unfortunately it doesn't always work. It certainly didn't with my fella. I spent a fortune on cushions, water proof, wipe clean, wollen, removable washable cover, extra padded, spoiled little brat proof etc. Every single one he ripped. One, (the one with extra stuffing) he managed to sneak into the back garden and had a field day ripping it up and spreading that €60 padding around the back garden :mad:. So I got rid of everything comfy and threw down a few towels for his bed. ~After a few days I went and put a cushion down again. You can guess what happened.

Now he has a few vet beds, which is probably not as comfy as a big stuffed cushion, but he doesn't rip them and I'm sure they must be comfy enough.

I recently bought him a really cheap cushion and I put it down on the sitting room floor when we're with him. I haven't chanced it unsupervised yet.

OP I'd recommend a vet bed. It's the only thing my dog hasn't ripped up and he's a bed chewer. I got a huge one as a gift from a friend, she got it at a dog show, apparently they are cheaper there?

crally

i have had i would say about 5 beds ripped up. one reason - young dogs will do that. 2nd reason they are bored. dont buy good beds till the dog is older/calmer. i used to go to a furniture store and get cushions from couches that were not being used. or old pillows.

The Sweeper

Snooza D1000.

Destruction-proof.

Galway K9

The Sweeper wrote: »

Snooza D1000.

Destruction-proof.

sounds like the latest in technology for canine pleasure and comfort.

The Sweeper

yep

fenris

The Kuranda dog beds are great, our GSD used to kill every bed within a few days we tried vet bed which was great but it just got ripped into strips.

The Kuranda bed is off the ground and is like a heavy vinyl sheet but the important thing is that there are no seams that he could get a grip to start shreding. We used to see him attempting to dig through the bed without any success it has lasted well over a year and is still looking good!

We got ours from K9 Komforts

http://www.k9komforts.ie/kurand-dog-bed.html

Davy

That looks like a mad bed for a dog. Does he like it?

fenris

Loved it!

Even used it in preference to the sofa!

The nice thing about those beds is that they are nice and light so you can just pick it up and prop it against the wall out of the way, unlike the soft beds that just take up lots of room all the time

The Sweeper

My lad went thorugh one of the above aged 5 months. Not precisely that brand, but that design. He dug and nibbled his way through the fabric - he'd been given a treat or a bone or somesuch in his bed. Some of it was smeared on the fabric. He started licking. Then he started nibbling. Then he managed to roughen the surface. More nibbling. Then some pulling. Eventually a small hole.

Then he spent a day in the yard in the sun with his bed out there with him in case he wanted a snooze.

I got home to a frame with a few tattered shreds of material left on it.

Davy

fenris wrote: »

Loved it!

Even used it in preference to the sofa!

The nice thing about those beds is that they are nice and light so you can just pick it up and prop it against the wall out of the way, unlike the soft beds that just take up lots of room all the time

Ye I was thinking that, for cleaning would be handy to by the looks of it. Doesnt look car friendly though

fenris

Not exactly car friendly, better off with some vet bed or a soft type for the car, its not as if the dog will be unattended in the car.

A medium turned out to be plenty big enough for my GSD, we got a large and a medium as we also have an irish setter, but mostly the two of them curled up together on the medium. Large is just a bit too big and tends to be in the way whereas the medium can be just flipped up behind a door to get it out of the way.

Sigma Force

fenris wrote: »

The Kuranda dog beds are great, our GSD used to kill every bed within a few days we tried vet bed which was great but it just got ripped into strips.

The Kuranda bed is off the ground and is like a heavy vinyl sheet but the important thing is that there are no seams that he could get a grip to start shreding. We used to see him attempting to dig through the bed without any success it has lasted well over a year and is still looking good!

We got ours from K9 Komforts

http://www.k9komforts.ie/kurand-dog-bed.html

Have thought about these beds before, do they have non-slip legs?