Dog chewing rocks/bricks

Question
Dear Beth

I hope i'm writing to the right person concerning my american staffordshirer terrier. She is about 8 months now and has this constant urge to chew bricks and eat rocks. She barks at them for hours on end and gets agressive when I want to get them away from her. I fear that her teeth will break and she has thrown up rocks recently. It's a disaster.
What do you suggest I do?
Kind regards
Charlotte

Answer
Charlotte -

You are absolutely right to be worried. Not only will she break off her teeth, but she could easily get an impaction in her digestive tract (which requires expensive surgery).

First and foremost, you need to make sure she does not have access to them.  The fact that she's getting nasty if you take them away means she is doing what we call "resource guarding."  Ok - here are my recommendations:

1.  Go buy some of the black kong toys. The black ones are for very rough chewers. I would get 3-4 of them, though they are not cheap.  I recommend that you fill them with peanut butter and other stuff (leftover spaghetti works well) seal the end with peanut butter and then freeze them solid.  A frozen one should keep her busy for several hours at a time.  Because of the taste, it is also likely to be something she likes better than rocks.

2.  Practice "trading up" with her. You need to work on being able to take things away from her, and the best way to practice that is to offer her something even better.  Let's say she has a toy.  You would offer her some cheese if she lets you take the toy.  You need to trade up with her several times a day every day for a couple of weeks. By then she should loosen up about "her" things.

If she just won't do this, you are going to have to take everything away from her and then practice handing her something of low "value" and immediately trading it for something better.  Doing it in a short period of time should help her not get too focussed on possessing that one item.

I hope this gave you some ideas to get started with.

-Beth