Can You Afford Your Puppy's Chewing Habit?

Recently, we welcomed a new addition to our family: a puppy! One of my elderly family members had bought a puppy of a mixed breed between a short-haired Dachshund and a Jack Russell Terrier. I had been told of the puppy's springiness and his slightly uncontrolled hyper demeanor. Aware of these issues, I still took the puppy. How bad could this puppy really be?

It had not taken long for me to see that despite this puppy's somewhat small size, it had been able to jump to heights that I had yet seen any dog jump. I was astounded by the puppy's ability to jump onto my four foot high counter top with no troubles at all.

If you are like me, hearing someone tell you the names of the different kinds of breed that a particular dog is, it always sounds like gibberish. I mean, a dog is just a dog, right?

Upon researching both breeds of dog, I had found that this is not so.

The Jack Russell Terrier was originally bred in Germany for the purpose of fox hunting. The Breed of Dogs web site explains, "Fox hunters needed small dogs to roust the foxes who had escaped to ground." Eventually, Jack Russell Terriers were used for ridding farms of rats and other rodent pests.

A Dachshund dog was originally bred in Germany. Like the Jack Russell Terrier, the Dachshund was used primarily for hunting purposes. The hunting chores of these dogs were to chase rabbits and chase them out of their wholes, to search for various game and also for tracking prey.

When we had gotten this puppy home, he had suddenly taken a liking to me, following me everywhere in my home that I had gone. Every time that we had left the house to even go to the store, we would come home with toys and books, as well as other items, chewed to pieces all over our floors.

The Wikipedia web site states, "If left alone many dachshunds will whine until they have companionship. Some dachshunds are prone to separation anxiety and may chew objects in the house to relieve stress."

We had gone through many forms of chew toys and tasty bones in an attempt to divert this puppies attention else where and away from chewing things that he should not have been chewing.