To chew or not to chew. I would prefer not, but he doesn't listen...

As most of you know, we adopted a chocolate lab pointer mixed puppy back in May. Jake is now 9 months old, and as big as a small horse. We love him dearly, but we have a major chewing problem on our hands.

My nightly routine includes walking around the house, and making sure that anything and everything that could be miss-identified as a chew toy is put up as far as I can reach. Well, last night I must have been half asleep, because when we awoke this morning, right there in the middle of the living room floor, laid one of Dave's most prized possessions... his Nebraska Husker's hat. It was chewed into a thousand little pieces, completely beyond repair. As I'm typing this, Dave, although vaguely aware of the destruction, is still asleep, so the realization has yet to set in.

This dog chews everything. He has chewed several of the lattice boards on our deck, chewed a hole in Dawson's carpet, chewed countless shoes, sometimes when we were still in them, chewed up a dining room chair, tried to chew our brand new braided rug we purchased at the auction over the weekend, chewed Dawson's Thomas the Train sheets, chewed Dawson's huge Cars pillow his grandma made for him, clothes, plastic bowls, toys, etc. etc. I am at my wits end with this dog. Rocket chewed a lot when he was a small puppy, but he outgrew it at 6 months old. Jake doesn't seem to have any non-chewing ambition. We can't even leave him out of his kennel when we leave for a few minutes, because he will chew up everything he can get his mouth on while we are gone.

We have tried to redirect his attention, scolding, even hot pepper sauce. NOTHING WORKS!!! If anyone has any other suggestions, I'm all ears. It's just funny. We can teach him commands like sit, lay down, play dead, and shake, and he learns them in 5 minutes, but we can't teach him to not chew.