My dog ate foam padding. How can I stop this?

6 years ago

A Beagle sitting on the cushion of an orange couch

Hi Judy,

Thanks for your question.

I get very concerned when I hear this. You’re certainly risking a possible episode of foreign body ingestion which can be fatal, cost a great deal of money at your veterinarian office and put your dog through uncomfortable surgery. If this material gets lodged in the digestive tract, it could be fatal. We need to address this problem well and immediately.

My strong recommendation is to stop allowing access to the couch and the bed. At night or when you leave the house, you can place chairs on the couch and shut the bedroom door to prevent this behavior. It’s possible that after doing this for weeks or months, your dog may learn not to engage in this behavior. If you don’t want to kick your dog out of the bedroom, I would most certainly kick her out of the bed. Consider getting her own dog bed that goes on the floor of the bedroom. To attract her you could put a warming device underneath or offer her treats after she behaves and stays in the bed. Continue to indicate that she must sleep there no matter how much whining she does. It can become a safe place for her. If you want to get even more serious, you could buy a large open crate and put the dog bed in it and then eventually remove the crate as she gets used to sleeping there.

Here are some other strategies that may get her mind off chewing all of these inappropriate items in your home.

Get appropriate toys and products that he is allowed to vigorously engage with that essentially substitutes the inappropriate chewing item with an appropriate one. Focus their attention on it by placing treats in it. This will give them an outlet for the behavior that is appropriate and tolerable.

Avoid punishment if you can. If you do catch him in the act, try not to be too strict. You could discipline or punish it in the moment, but I strongly recommend not to do this as it can make the home a scary place and create other problems such as anxiety. One thing you can try is moving him away from the item he is chewing, or command him to go lay down in his dog bed and then give him a treat or chewable item that is appropriate. By rewarding him for stopping the behavior, he’ll likely learn not to do it in the first place.

Engage them as much as possible. Provide your puppy with as much environmental stimulation as you can and they may fall out of the habit of chewing altogether. By providing environmental enrichment and consistent stimulation, they may not develop the habit of chewing at all. What I suggest is to use treats, laser pointers, play scavenging games (hiding treats) and long exhausting episodes of exercise to keep them as busy as possible. If some of this behavior is due to stress, you can speak to your veterinarian about anti-anxiety supplements and medication that may help as well but with a puppy, I highly doubt this is part of the problem.