There is a specific kind of disappointment that comes from spending an afternoon on the tree and finding half of it on the floor by morning. Ornaments chewed, ribbon eaten, lights pulled loose. Owners try some drastic things to prevent this. Most of them do not work, and a few make the dog worse.
Here are three that hold up, in the order you should try them.
1. Make the decorations taste terrible
A bitter apple or citronella deterrent spray, applied to the things your dog goes after, gives the chewing an immediate and unpleasant result that has nothing to do with you. Your dog learns the ribbon is bad rather than learning that you are unpredictable.
Two notes. Test the spray on a hidden spot first, because some finishes and fabrics stain. And reapply it regularly, because the effect fades faster than most labels suggest.
2. Set the room up so the mistake is hard to make
The decorations that survive are the ones your dog never gets a free run at. This is the unglamorous option and it is the single most effective thing on this list.
- Keep breakable and edible ornaments on the top third of the tree. The bottom third gets the things you would not mind losing.
- Skip tinsel, ribbon, and string entirely if your dog swallows things. Long thin objects are a genuine surgical emergency, and veterinarians see them every December.
- Anchor the tree so a curious dog cannot bring it down on itself.
- Gate the room, or use a crate or a tether, when nobody is watching. A dog cannot rehearse a habit it does not get access to.
- Leave a chew your dog is actually allowed to have in that room, so there is a legal option within reach.
3. Train the alternative instead of punishing the attempt
The old advice was to hide with a spray bottle and startle your dog in the act. Skip it. Ambushing your dog teaches one reliable lesson, which is that decorations are dangerous while you are in the room and interesting the moment you leave. That is how you end up with a dog who only wrecks the tree while you are asleep.
What works is teaching your dog what to do instead, and paying well for it.
- Leave it. Start with a low value object on the floor, mark and reward the instant your dog turns away, and build up to the tree over several sessions.
- Place. A dog with a defined spot to settle in that room has somewhere to be that is not the tree.
- Trade. If your dog already has an ornament, do not chase. Chasing turns it into the best game of the season. Swap for something better and remove the ornament calmly.
Be honest about the underlying cause too. A dog with too little exercise and nothing to do will find itself a job, and in December the tree is the most interesting thing in the room. A fair amount of holiday destruction is really a bored dog problem in seasonal packaging.
When it is more than the tree
If the chewing does not stop once the decorations come down, you are not dealing with a seasonal problem. Baseboards, furniture legs, shoes, and drywall are the same behavior aimed at a different target, and it rarely resolves on its own. It is worth getting to the root of the chewing before it costs you the furniture.
Partners Dog Training School has campuses in Scottsdale, at Shea Boulevard near the 101, and in Cave Creek, and we have been sorting out this exact problem since 1997. Call 480-595-6700.
