Not long after we got Coco — she was about two or three months old — I found her fast asleep in the garden, wrapped around a shredded succulent, a plant pot on its side next to her, dirt everywhere. She wasn't being naughty. She'd just worked herself into a stupor demolishing a plant, decided that was enough excitement for one afternoon, and fallen asleep in the wreckage.
If you've just brought a puppy home and you're standing in a similar scene wondering if this is normal, it is. Nobody really tells you how much of the first year is just this.
The bit nobody mentions before you get a puppy
You hear about toilet training. You hear about the 3am cries the first few nights. What you don't hear enough about is that most puppies go through a proper chewing phase, usually starting around 3–4 months as their adult teeth come through, and it can rumble on until 7–8 months. During that stretch they'll chew whatever's soft, available, and slightly yielding to a sore mouth — which, in a house, is most things.
Coco went through plant pots, a corner of the crate blanket, several toys, and — predictably — beds. It wasn't because she was a difficult puppy. She was a completely normal Rottweiler puppy with a mouth that hurt and no real understanding of what was and wasn't hers.
What it actually looked like, week to week
The crate became the safe base early on — toys in, blanket in, something to chew that wasn't furniture. That part worked well. What we didn't expect was how much she'd want to chew right next to us rather than off on her own. Most evenings she'd drag a toy over, flop down against a leg, and go to work on it while we tried to watch TV.
Coco as a puppy, working through the toy rotation in her crate.
Christmas that first year was a write-off in the "keeping things intact" sense. She was about three months old and worked her way through the low-hanging baubles, the tinsel, and — with real ambition — had a go at the tree itself and the lights wrapped around it. She was still small enough then to sit next to Peanut, our Pomeranian, and look roughly the same size. That didn't last long.
Coco's first Christmas as a puppy, about three months old — the tree didn't stand a chance.
Coco as a puppy next to Mr Peanut — briefly, almost the same size.
The plant pot was the big one. Full-grown succulent, terracotta pot, gone in about twenty minutes while we were inside making dinner. That's the pattern with this phase — it's not constant, it's sudden and specific, and it's usually over something you didn't think twice about leaving within reach.
What actually helped
Being honest about what worked and what didn't:
A proper chew toy rotation. Not one toy left out permanently — a few toys swapped in and out so they stayed interesting. Bored puppies chew more, not less.
Crate time that wasn't punishment. Used well, it gave her somewhere to settle and chew without us needing to supervise every second of the day.
Not leaving anything out we weren't prepared to lose. This sounds obvious. It is obvious. We still lost a plant pot, half a Christmas tree, and some tinsel.
Accepting that bedding would take a hit during this phase. This is the one most first-time owners don't plan for financially. A determined teething puppy can go through several beds in a few months, and there was no version of "puppy-proofing" that changed that.
The part that's easy to miss
Nothing about this phase means your puppy is going to be a lifelong destroyer of everything soft. Some grow out of it almost entirely by eight or nine months. Some — like Coco — keep a taste for demolition well past puppyhood, and that's just who they are. She's almost two now and still finds the odd sock, her current blanket, the occasional empty yoghurt container fished out of the recycling, and — memorably — a full bed of new potatoes her nana was growing, dug up and demolished in one sitting.
The socks are a running bit at this point. She'll pinch one off whichever one of us she's decided is her favourite hooman that day, march off with it, and chew it right in front of us like she's daring us to notice. She's even worked out that Mr Peanut will do the actual stealing for her — he trots off, grabs the sock, and somehow Coco still gets the blame. He seems to enjoy that part enormously.
You won't know which one you've got until you're through it. Which is exactly why we're building a bed that won't punish you for not knowing yet. Coco's about to turn two and still finds things to destroy — including the old woolly blanket she actually sleeps on right now, which she's already chewed and shredded more than once. We haven't swapped her onto a finished InDOGstructible bed, because it doesn't exist yet. That's the whole reason we're building one: something that can take what she's currently doing to that blanket without the whole thing needing to be replaced.
If you're in the thick of the puppy stage right now: it gets better, it's not a reflection of anything you're doing wrong, and it's worth thinking about what happens to your money the first time your puppy decides your bed looks exactly like a chew toy.
If you'd like to know when ours is available, join the waitlist. Waitlist members get 48 hours' early access before anyone else, and we'll only email you when there's something worth saying.