Welcome back to the ACI Newsletter. We hope you had a happy and safe holiday season. In this edition we'll cover problem solving for destructive chewing, appropriate chew toys for your dog's chewing habits, teaching your dog to shake hands, and a quick frozen chicken treat.

Please send your favorite treat recipes, stories, pictures or contributions to our editor at
editor@dogskool.com. We really enjoy getting feedback from our readers.

Chewing is a normal, natural canine behavior. Dogs learn through their mouths and use their mouths as tools to receive a lot of information. Chewing on hard objects provides an appropriate outlet for your dog's desire to chew. It is an enjoyable pastime for many dogs. Dogs chew because they are bored, they have lots of energy or they're curious. One benefit to chewing is that it is good for keeping tartar from building up on the teeth, which helps prevent bad breath.

Puppies use their mouths to explore their new worlds. As with babies, teething is painful to puppies. Chewing helps relieve the pain and helps them develop strong jaws. That doesn't mean, however, that you should let your new puppy chew his or her way through the house. Chewing can be a very expensive problem, especially when the inappropriate chewing in on your rug, furniture, shoes or other household items. As with any unacceptable canine behavior, prevention is easier than treatment.

Dogs go through two chewing phases. The first is between 4-6 months when the puppies begin to loose their puppy teeth. Puppies like to chew on soft items, like carpet, rugs, rags or soft toys, squeaky toys and rope toys. Then they may stop for a while until the second phase, which occurs between 10-12 months when the adult teeth settle into the growing skull of the dog. During this phase, dogs like to chew on more dense objects, like wood, furniture, plastic, rawhide, hard rubber toys, and Nylabones.

Why Chewing Occurs

Teething - Between the ages of five weeks and six months, puppies will teethe. They will chew on anything they can find to relieve their discomfort. Make sure you have a supply of chewable toys on hand. To make these toys even more appealing to your puppy, place it in the freezer for a few hours. The cold toy will be very soothing to your puppy's sore mouth.

Improper confinement - Dogs are very social animals and do not do well emotionally when isolated from the "pack" or family. Confine your dog behind a see-through puppy gate or in a crate so the dog can see what is going on in surrounding areas. Never restrain a dog behind a closed door in a small room. An improperly confined dog may attempt to chew his way out of seclusion.

Cat's Motto:
No matter what you've done wrong, always try to make it look like the dog did it.
   -Unknown

Online training advice is a very sticky area, since every dog, owner and situation is different. Everything written in the ACI News merely offers suggestions to get dog owners thinking. We encourage all dog owners to take obedience classes, talk to their vets, and work with professional trainers so that their relationships with their dogs can be everything they should be.