Dear Hungry: The first thing you need to do is close the bathroom door, pick up the laundry and get yourself a crate for your pet. If you are not able to supervise your dog when home and he has a problem with chewing, you need to set up some physical solution immediately, such as keeping him in the crate when you are not home, before he does damage to his digestive system.

In order to stop this behavior you are going to have to teach your dog a more appropriate “owner-approved” behavior. Be proactive and let your dog know what you are expecting from him. I’d suggest obedience class to teach him how to pay attention to you and to increase the amount of exercise he gets, maybe increase your daily walk by 10 minutes a day to start.

Overall, just spend more time with him. I suspect his chewing is a stress reliever and a way to get your attention that he is craving.

Time To Toys

This is what worked with one of my dogs that had very bad toilet paper-eating habit. Whenever I saw my dog had something in his mouth, I instructed him to either “drop it” or asked for the object with the “give” command and then replaced it with an approved toy or his favorite sterilized bone. I also kept all his “approved” toys in an open-topped box and taught him that anything in box was okay to chew. Whenever he went into his toy box on his own I would praise him with a “good boy” and make a big deal out of this good behavior with verbal kudos or treats if handy. With paying a little more attention and training on your part and a newly instilled behavior for your dog, soon their will be harmony in house.

Dear Lisa: I have an 18-month-old yellow Labrador Retriever that I would like to breed, but need to get the proper hip certifications first. I have been told that the dog will have to be sedated for the hip x-rays. Is that an overnight stay at the vet? – Healthy Checks

Dear Healthy: Before you schedule that visit to your vet for hip x-rays, consider waiting six months until your dog is at least two-years-old. Two years of age is the age when most canine health organizations, such as the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA), will evaluate your dog’s hip x-rays and issue a permanent certification number. Any test done before that will only be evaluated on a preliminary basis.

Breeder Resources

If this is your first litter I’d recommend going to the AKC Web site www.akc.org to download a great booklet called, “A Guide to Breeding Your Dog” that can be downloaded as a PDF document.

Another great resource for you is the OFA web site: http://www.offa.org/hipproc.html - which will explain the procedures that should be followed by your veterinarian during the x-ray procedure. Work with your veterinarian on the best procedures for you and your dog as some vets do not sedate dogs since they are able to lie still enough during the x-ray on the table. Some prefer to sedate dogs. For example my vet does not sedate my dogs. Talk to your vet about what procedure they use. If your regular vet is not accustom to doing hip x-rays for evaluation, ask other breeders in your area who they use routinely. This procedure would not require an overnight stay, but usually you drop the dog off in the morning and pick him up later in the afternoon.

Lisa Peterson is the director of club communications for the American Kennel Club, 260 Madison Avenue, New York, NY. If you have a question, contact her at lxp@akc.org.