Training & Behavior

The young dog ate a shoe a week, not the cheap ones, the ones I liked, the left of a pair always, as if he'd done the maths on which loss would hurt most, and the house filled with single shoes and a slow rage I aimed at the wrong creature, because a dog who chews your shoe isn't spiteful, he's a dog with a mouth and no better offer, and I'd been giving him no better offer.

I tried the bitter spray, which he licked off with interest, and the shout, which wound him up, and the hiding of the shoes, which I was bad at, and the week rolled on with another sole gone and another pair ruined and the dog watching me mourn a trainer with the calm of someone who'd won. The chewing wasn't destruction, it was boredom with a hard edge, and the edge was aimed at the thing I cared about most.

The fix was a toy, a tough rubber thing with a give that satisfied the jaw the way a shoe had, and I gave it to him the moment he looked like chewing, which was often, and the shoe lost its charm the way any second choice does when the first is in reach. He'd been chewing the shoe because it was there and it bit back just enough, and the toy bit back more, and the shoes, suddenly, were the boring option in a room with a better one.

We built it into a habit, the toy by the door, the toy by the couch, the toy wherever he'd have reached for a lace, and the single shoes stopped appearing, the pairs stayed paired, and the dog, who'd been a one-shoe-a-week disaster, became a dog with a favourite rubber thing he'd drag room to room like a trophy. The spray went in the bin, the shout went unused, and the shoes, at last, stayed whole.

What I'd missed was that the chewing was a need, not a crime, the jaw of a young dog wants to work, and a shoe was the nearest thing that did, and the toy just met the need the shoe had been meeting badly. Give a dog a better thing to chew and the shoe becomes what it should be, footwear, not entertainment, and the rage I'd aimed at him turns out to have been aimed at the empty toy box.

He still grabs a shoe now and then, out of old habit, and drops it the second the toy's in view, which is the whole of the training, a dog who learned the shoes are boring because something better exists. The tough toy made the shoes boring, and the boring shoes made the pairs whole, and the dog, who'd been the enemy of my closet, is now the owner of a rubber thing he loves more than leather, which is the bargain I'd have taken on day one if I'd understood the jaw.

The shoe rack, once a casualty list, is now just a rack, and the one left shoe that survives from the bad weeks sits at the back as a small monument to the time I blamed the dog for a need I'd not met. He ate one of my shoes a week until the toy arrived, and the toy, more than the scolding, is what taught him the shoes were never the prize, only the nearest thing that bit back, and the nearest thing is no longer the one he reaches for.