DIY Teething Toys for Puppies and Baby Wolves

23 January, 2015 - by Dagmara Mach - 1 Comment

Sticks

Pros: Free, Fragrant, Teeth Cleansing, Breath Freshening, Available in Many Varieties
Cons: Messy

Our cutest of flesh eating leeches with fur is teething and we’re shoving whatever we can fit into her busy mouth because if you know anything about puppies, then you know that their biting, like depression on pills, only gets worse before it gets better.

If they aren’t sleeping, puppies are tearing shit up, and unless you procure a great variety of somethings to satisfy their achy jowls, your limbs, shoes, and phone chargers are likely to become the objects of their unremitting oral explorations.

To avoid becoming Dinah’s deliciously fleshy teething toys, we keep bones and stuffed animals within arms reach of everywhere.

Using these to escape her sharp advances only goes so far, however, because when it comes to teething, bones are too hard, stuffies are too soft, and the chemi plastic teething toys from stores make my inner hypochondriac flare up. I need a natural teething toy that isn’t going to leach toxins into Dinah’s developing dog body.

We were at my parents in 8 degree Fahrenheit Cleveland (it was cold) at the time of my first teething toy search, and more than anything, I really didn’t feel like driving to Pet People. I thus asked myself what wolf pups would do in the wild and concluded that they must obviously chew sticks. Right? Unlike many of my theories, I have yet to research this one, so educate me if I’m wrong, but what could be more natural and perfectly textured than sticks and branches from the great outdoors? Nothing.

So, here we are with a house of shredded branch parts, because trying to cordon Dinah’s stick play to a single area has proven futile. My mom was not so stoked at this failure to keep the wood under control, but having finally returned to Missoula, the wood chips around our home have become a relative non-issue (free mulch?). Plus, Dinah’s breath smells like fresh pine.