Chewing is normal for all Dalmatian puppies. It is their hereditary way of communicating within the litter. You should have some chew toys for the puppy to use in order to replace undesirable chewing tendencies. If your Dalmatian puppy goes for the TV knobs, give him a 1/4in diameter composite chewing log. Any Dalmatian is incredibly efficient at destroying chew toys. The only one that is apparently indestructible is the beehive-shaped rubber toy, which lasts for years around both pups and adults, and they enjoy chewing them. An inexpensive thing that puppies will play with for days before they start to wear it out is a plastic pop bottle. If you keep the cap on, the container is too large to get a good grip on and the puppies will use it as a giant hockey puck whenever they see it.
Another caution with regard to chewing has to do with house, yard, and garden plants. Identify the vegetation you have and call your vet, a plant expert, or maybe even do your own research and find out whether your plants are toxic to dogs. They will chew on rocks, too, especially ones about as big as your thumb that are fun to toss around in their mouths. If you catch them doing this, take the rock from them and get rid of it, telling them “No!” Some Dalmatians will get carried away with sloshing them around in their mouths and before they know it, they swallow them.
There are also foods that are toxic to dogs. Teaching a Dalmatian what is and is not permissible to chew is generally a process that lasts the lifetime of the dog. They are constantly discovering new things to chew. As a final note on chewing, though it is cute to have the puppy untie your shoelaces or clamp surprisingly sharp puppy teeth on your fingers, it is not cute for a sixty-pound adult to do the same things.
If you want a well-behaved adult Dalmatian, do not allow your puppy to continue his “chewing communication” with you. When he comes up and puts his mouth on anything that you would not allow an adult to bite or chew, catch him in the act of starting to bite the object and snap him on the end of the nose with your index finger, and tell him clearly out yelling “No!” This kind of correction will startle the puppy more than anything else, and you will find that he will direct his attention somewhere else almost immediately. Be generous with your praise when he changes his focus of activity. If you are consistent with this form of correction at an early age, you will wind up with a very well-mannered Dalmatian.
