Hello,
I have a one year old girl named Maya and she has been the most well behaved dog i've ever owned, well until the past few weeks. I've been letting her out on her own when not at home for about 3 or 4 months now and she's never gotten into any trouble. However, in the past 3 weeks she's chewed up a cord behind the tv and two dvds. i know it's probably my fault for leaving the dvds out but there are a lot of things around the house she could have chewed and never has. i don't know what's gotten into her that all of a sudden she wants to chew on things. i know some of you may be thinking chewing up 2 things in 3 weeks is not that big of a deal, but she had never before, even as a puppy chewed anything up like that. i really would prefer not to crate her because she hates it but i also don't want her chewing things up, it's dangerous and costs me money when it happens. anyone ever been through this? any ideas of what's gotten into her and why she suddenly has the urge to destroy random things?

We've had 6 dogs over the years, now have 2 Berners. Only one dog was a chewer and she was 3/4 Border Collie and looking back, we know we weren't exercising her enough. Although I don't feel terribly qualifed to give you advice, I'll just say what I'd try if I had your troubles. I would definitely crate the pup again; better to crate her/him than to come home and find a dead or injured dog. I'm a huge fan of crates (or well-blocked off safe areas) because that's where we've had the greatest success at raising dogs who eventually can be left alone in the house unsupervised. We used Kongs with our pups. (I consider Berners pups until about age 2). I'd walk the dogs, then put their kibble into Kongs with a few treats stuffed in there or some peanut butter smeared inside and the pups would go quite happily into the crates and settle down to chew and then sleep. Now, we give our grown up dogs frozen raw marrow bones about twice a week that we get from a butcher . I know lots of people (& even vets) who disagree with this, but, in my opinion, they get their chewing in, their teeth are nice and white from the chewing and they are happier dogs. We also walk our dogs every morning without fail, rain, sun, snow, no matter what, about 40 min- 1 hr. I have to get up by 6 am everyday to accomodate this, but I'd rather do this than come home to find stuff chewed up. I've heard that Nylabones are good for chewing on too, our dogs have never really liked these, but they are probably worth a try. Good luck!

thanks for the advice Liz. One thing i forgot to mention is that she just had surgery on her hip so she can't really get in all the walking that we did with her before her surgery. we take her on short walks (a few blocks) but that's all she can do right now. i think she's bored and probably getting cabin fever because we can't really take her many places with her leg the way it is now. hopefully as she recovers we can take her out more and she won't be so anxious from being inside for most of the day.

We also had times where we had to keep our dogs quiet because of various troubles (spaying, nuetering/ACL jnt ops) so whenever possible, we used the time to teach them new tricks. We taught them to bat a ball back and forth to us with their nose and the "shy" trick where they cover their eyes with their paws or to roll over, play dead etc. I guess, just anything extra you can think of at this point will help your doggy to tire out the brain (treats help out here big time). However, unless you have an extraordinarly active berner, you probably have a pup willing to sleep for the day so don't feel too guilty!