Aaah . . . the chewing days. Those lazy, crazy days when your adorable ball of fluff can instantaneously reduce your favorite objects into worthless pieces of shrapnel. Good times . . . good times.

First of all, he WILL grow out of it. They all do. In the meantime, keep the expensive chewables out of his reach. For approved chewables you can take clean rags or dishtowels and soak them in water. Squeeze out the excess water and put them in the freezer! Voila! You have ragsicles to help ease the teething pain. Kongs are also good, but my dog was only interested in the treats inside. He has never been interested in chewing on them. Sometimes you have to experiment until you find the toys that will click with your puppy.

You can get different varieties of bitter apple spray at the pet store to spray on objects. Puppies don't like the taste. However, if you have a determined chewer, he might ignore the taste and just keep on chewing. I also found it only worked when the object (usually the couch) was freshly spritzed.

The best thing to do is to train Toby what the acceptable chewing things are. When you find him chewing on your cell phone, redirect him to his Kong or his rope toy. And, of course, run him off his paws so he'll be too tired to chew.

Hang in there!

Its all about training. Just let him know that that behaviour is not acceptable.Keep things you dont want him to have out of his reach, if he does get ahold of something he shouldnt, correct the behavior by taking the odject away and replacing it with an acceptable chew toy. Give him toys that he can chew on (steer clear of rubber shoes, newspapers or toys that look like things you dont want him to chew on, it gets confusing) It will be very time consuming and frustrating, and he wont get it right away. But if you are consistant he will eventually get it...consistancy IS the most important thing. If you let him get away with it sometimes, he will always try to get away with it.

oh yeah, find something that he does not like (but doesnt hurt him) to discipline. Most people prefer just a swat on the nose, some people dont like "hitting" thier dogs and find that a spray bottle with water works fine...but some dogs really arent bothered by having water sprayed in their face. The key is to get him to associate chewing your things with a negative feeling, then he wont want to do it anymore.