Scratching? Suggestions to Help Your Dog Stop.

Scratching can be caused by a number of variables including age, breed, and size but the most common cause is boredom. If a dog is bored than he will find something to entertain himself and scratching a sofa just might be the cure to boredom.

When customers would come into my store with similar bad habits I would first ask them what kind of toys do they have for their dog. And just about every time they would say, "Oh, he has plenty of toys he just doesn't play with them." With that answer I would have something to work with.

Dogs can be picky, they might have twenty toys sitting in front of them but there is usually one or two that are their favorites and they'll go right for those before going after any of the others. The key isn't quantity it's quality.

Try introducing two or three different toys one at a time. Let your dog play with it for a week or so and then introduce one of the other toys while taking the original one away. After another couple of weeks reintroduce of the the old toys again. This will give you dog the feeling he's receiving a new toy every couple of weeks. This should really help him avoid getting bored.

If it's not the toys it could be that he's just cooped up too much. Many of my customers had the problem of working all day while their dogs are at home. Then, when they come home, they will play with their dogs for a while and then it's off to making dinner, watching television, surfing the web, etc. So during the entire day their dogs would be at home all alone then their owners would come home spend about 30 minutes playing and it's off to sleep for the night. Next day comes around, same routine. So in reality their dogs would only be getting about 30 minutes of exercise and activity with their owners. If this is a routine your find yourself in with your pup try to dedicate more time to interact with him.

One more thing that could be causing the problem could be a scent that is on the sofa itself. If juice or something else you dog finds tantalizing that could be the reason for the scratching. You might want to try having the sofa deep cleaned and once that is done think about applying a repellent to a paper towel and setting it on the spot. That will train your dog to avoid that part of the sofa altogether.