Eating all of my clothes!!!

[Alessandra131]

I am so frustrated because my baby Cairo loves eating my clothes. He has ate (put holes in) like 9 of my socks, ruined 5 bras, 1 shirt, thousandssss of my clean underwear, and 1 stretchy pants. It is so horrible because I am so careful of hiding my clothes from him, but then he sneaks in and grabs them out of the hamper or if i leave my drawer open. He hasn't ruined ANY of my husbands clothes. I don't understand it because sometimes the clothes are clean and does not have my scent. JEEZ!! How do I fix this behavior?

[CrazySenji]

Many pairs of underwear had fallen prey to my first basenji..
The only thing we could do was put a gate up in front of the laundry room because he was persistent. I don't have any traning advice other than avoiding the situation all together.

Your B is a puppy yes? Puppies get into things so hiding things until he is trained is a must!

[Love my Senjis]

I know it is so frustrating - but since I have had basenji's 1. all my clothes are picked up and put away 2. no garbage can is on the floor 3. all TP is on the counter not in the holder 4. nothing is within paw reach on the kitchen counters lol I am sure there is more but those are the top four I live by. I also tend to 'forget' to pick up all the newspaper so they think they are one up on me. Also toys toys and more toys and lots of things just for them to chew. Good luck

[Chealsie508]

Welcome to owning a basenji, they will teach you real quick to pick up after yourself and keep unwanted items high enough so they can't reach them or behind doors that can't be opened

[tanza]

Amen….. cure is to ALWAYS CLOSE DRAWS AND CLOSET DOORS... And please be careful to do so... fabric can and does cause blockage issues that are many times only cured by surgery to remove the offending item(s)....

[Shaye's Mom]

Pay heed to everyone's suggestion to just make it impossible for your pup to get into your clothes - my 5 year old never stopped teaching me to take proper care of laundry, prior and post wash! Finally learned to keep everything totally inaccessible. Even visitors have been told right away to keep their clothes in drawers or hampers, and have paid the price of not believing me, resulting in me having to replace underwear, slacks, shorts, socks, etc.

[eeeefarm]

I've been lucky. None of mine have particularly liked to eat clothes, exception being the crotch out of dirty underwear! My current boy has spoiled me, as he doesn't get into anything, even tissues. One of my girls ate a sock once, and barfed it up a day later, but other than that I haven't had many incidents. Yes, keep things out of harms way when you aren't around to supervise, but a pup will never learn what is off limits unless they have the opportunity to make mistakes…....under your watchful eye, and with quick intervention!

[Chealsie508]

What pat says is true,Oakley had to have emergency life saving surgery to removes a leash he ate that unraveled and the strings wrapped around his intestines and bruised them to the point that if we waited, we wouldn't have been able to save that portion… That wasn't even his first time eating a leash but you can't get lucky every time!!

[stash]

Too true, give them one chance by forgetting to put something out of their reach and it becomes a chew toy, Kaiser is a sneaky cunning little thief and swoops in for the kill as soon as I get distracted, luckily he destroys and doesn't eat, only way to stop is as everyone says don't give them the chance, we have a toy box readily available for him when he gets in the mood for destruction and we recycle our old socks in it for him, I knot them together and throw out any bits that may cause a problem, but as I said he doesn't eat them so we are lucky. One giveaway for us is how happy and bouncy he is when he has a stolen item and it is quickly claimed back as OURS and we get the sad puppy face.
We changed to a zip up hamper for our dirty clothes and if he can reach he will steal clean clothes.

Jolanda and Kaiser

[Timesthemyth]

How crazy am I that I'm envious of your puppy eating clothes? Getting starry eyed for puppyhood again.

Anyways, this behavior will get better over time. But, it's unlikely to stop 100% as everyone here is pointing out.

….you may want to try decoy items? Just a suggestion. I've done that with tissues/toys and it worked pretty well...never tried it with clothing or shoes so I have no idea if it would make things worse, or not, as far as training them goes. If it were me though....I'd get an old pair of dirty sneakers or something from the salvation army stores and 'leave them out' that way at least he wouldn't get into the 500 dollar shoes/jeans/undies.

I used to put out decoy tissues and stuffed animals when Beo was a puppy....I would let him watch me put them somewhere 'out of reach' and of course he would go straight for those items as soon as my back was turned.

Or....the best suggestion already mentioned is just to pick up your stuff If you live in a multifamily household sometimes that's a hard pill to swallow though. I used the decoy items when I used lived with my family because I got tired of having to replace my sister's expensive items he would chew up. My family never learned to pick up their things.