I was wondering which item in our house would be the first victim sacrificed to the power jaws of Hershey. (Naively, I thought maybe I could be vigilant enough to keep her from ruining anything. Hilarious, I know.) Turns out, the first casualty in our house is one of our recliners. The lever to raise the leg-rest is the perfect height for her to gnaw on, and the perfect composition, with a hard rubber coating underneath covered with enticing—and now decimated—fabric.
I knew this was coming, because anyone who has ever owned a lab, or known someone who owned a lab—or even heard a story about a friend of a friend who owned a lab—has been telling me all of the horror stories about the voracious appetite of the Labrador Retriever, or as it should be renamed, The Labrador Eater.
One of my friends laughed for about two minutes straight when I told her we got a lab puppy. “My friends have a lab. It ate their phone, a whole plate of appetizers, a birthday cake, shoes, books…” I tuned her out as she went on and on about the items lost to her friend’s hungry puppy. Another friend told me about the underwear his friend’s lab ate, and another told me about the couch that had to be secretly repaired after a run in with their lab puppy.
My husband’s more nervous than me. His family had a particularly hungry lab named Abby growing up in Boston. Back then, people didn’t crate dogs, so whenever they got back home from being out, my husband and his sister would dash through the house before their Mom came in, looking to see if Abby had eaten or destroyed anything. She’d gobble up loaves of bread left too close to the counter’s edge. Pillows. Shoes. She even got into a big bag of dog food and ate most of it. “Don’t give her any water!” their vet warned, lest her tummy blow up even more.
But the topper had to be during a weekly trip down to Cape Cod, where the dog was happily and quietly riding in the back of their station wagon. There was a reason she’d been so quiet the entire ride—she’d been chewing the interior panel of the car. The whole side panel was destroyed. She ate a lizard in Florida—once. I guess that was the only thing she’d consumed over the years that she didn’t like. So yes, my husband is a bit worried about our little lab and the damage waiting to be done. He moved two antique tables and a chair up to the attic before we even brought Hershey home!
I thought we had a little bit of time before she started destroying things. She’s only 9 weeks old now, and I thought the real problems started a few months down the road when her back teeth start coming in. But no, Hershey loves to gnaw now. We’re trying hard to explain that you don’t bite fingers or hair or toes or clothes. She nips at my daughter’s skirt as she tries to rush past, and it’s almost impossible to pry her jaws loose from the fabric. My daughter says we should have named her Nibbles. Gobbles, is more like it.
We do try to redirect her with her toys and sometimes that works. But if you don’t have your eagle eye on her when she’s awake, chances are she’s gnawing on something. (Which is how the recliner lever was destroyed. I should have known something was up when she was being so quiet.) Even a loose shoelace on your sneaker is a prime target. And when you take her outside, it’s a whole new world of things to chew on: bark, shrubs, grass, snow. Everytime we go out she nips at my hyndrangea bush on the way back in, like it’s part of the going-back-inside routine. Hershey will even chew on her own paw if she can’t find anything else agreeable.
Hershey waiting for an opportunity!
And if Hershey’s not chewing on something she’s looking for something to eat. It takes her about 13 seconds to eat the food we give her twice a day. Two minutes after she’s finished, she goes back to the bowl. Is she wondering if she left any little bits? Is she wondering if I’ve refilled her bowl? I don’t know, but she checks it often, always hopeful. She’s constantly patrolling the kitchen floor, looking for microscopic scraps and crumbs. And the other day when I was loading the dishwasher, I turned around to find her lapping the dirty dishes. Lovely. (And yes, her own poop is on the menu too.)
All this eating means Hershey has gotten big in just two weeks! She is not the little itty bitty pup we brought home. I see her every day, but I can still see how much she’s grown. It’s amazing, really. Soon enough she won’t fit on my lap, and I know she won’t be happy with that. It’s one of her favorite places to be. (When she’s not on the floor, chewing on something.)
The cat’s not entirely innocent in the chewing game, either. He loves to chew on paper (you should see the paperback I’m reading right now) and as I type he’s trying to chew on the cord to my laptop. Between the two of my furry babies, I’m sure soon enough we won’t even notice the faint imprint of bite marks on everything in our house.
I know, I know. Puppies do that kind of thing, and they will grow out of it. Trust me, I know. Baby animals aren’t the only destructive things in my house. My 6-year-old daughter just wrecked my laptop when she spilled soda on it. I guess the little loves in our lives are the ones capable of causing the biggest problems. On that note, if you’ll excuse me, I better rush off. Hershey is in the other room being very, very quiet.
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Have you missed any of the articles in this series?
If so, you can find them at:
The Bringing Up Puppy Series page.
Related posts:
- Bringing Up Puppy Series – The Worst Lab
- Bringing Up Puppy Series – Holding Tight
- Bringing Up Puppy Series – Who is the Boss?
- Bringing Up Puppy Series – Fairy Dog Mother – Part 2
- Bringing Up Puppy Series – Hello Stranger
