Hi all,
I am currently having a battle with myself.. and I hope you can help
Recently I posted in the behaviour and training session about the issues I have with my 10 month old spaniel. (See adolescence or aggression?)
As you will see in the post, my main cause for concern was Leo's attention seeking behaviour, I work from home and as I result I have bred a spaniel that has no idea how to occupy himself for any length of time. Leading to trouble behaviours such as biting.
I've been doing A LOT of work on teaching him to settle when we are about, I've began putting him down for sleeps when he is overtired etc and all is going beautifully so far. However, one way that I have found really helps him learn to chill in the lounge with us is by giving him rawhide.
I have never given him one in the past because I have heard bad things about choking etc and therefore have been extremely careful with introducing them to him. But my concern is.. are they ok?!?! I can't seem to find anything else that occupies him for any length of time, he defeats frozen kongs, smart bones, bully sticks etc within a matter of minutes... trust me I've tried a lot. But are raw hides safe?
I make sure he never has a rawhide unsupervised, if he ever takes of a large chunk, I take it away and I ensure he has plenty of water available when he has one.
I'm lucky in that he takes a lot of care over chewing it, he has never taken off more than he can chew at once and just seems to love knawing it to death!
I just can't help be worried about the horror stories you read.
Many thanks from an overworried, overcautious first time doggy mummy!