Editor’s Note: We get a lot of questions from dog parents in our Slack community about how to get their dogs to stop biting and playing with household items like toilet paper and paper towel rolls. In order to get help, we turned to our friend and professional dog trainer, Juliana Willems, to write the special guest blog below.

It’s very common for dogs to steal, destroy, chew on, and play with household items like paper towel rolls and toilet paper. Though this behavior can be hilarious at first, it eventually becomes incredibly frustrating. I’m going to help you with an easy way to tackle it.

Step One: Restrict Your Dog’s Access to the Household Items in Question

Focus on restricting your dog’s access to the items in your house that you don’t want him to steal. Every time he steals, plays with, chews on, or even destroys a paper towel roll, he’s getting something out of it and becoming really good at doing that bad behavior. This step is all about management, which often goes hand in hand with training.  

Step Two: Search for the ‘Why’

The second thing you need to think about here is why your dog is stealing this stuff in the first place. Why is he chewing these items? What is he getting out of them? Does he have a need to chew that you may not be fulfilling? Does he have a need to play that you might not be satisfying? Think about why your dog is stealing these items and how you can help fulfill his needs in other more appropriate ways that work for both of you.

Step Three: Train Your Dog to Stop Stealing and Biting Household Items

While step one was focused on managing the situation in real-time, step three is all about teaching your dog a new, better behavior. In order to train your dog to stop stealing and biting these items, first think about what you want him to do around them and reinforce that behavior in a series of short training sessions. While teaching the “leave it cue” is definitely worthwhile, you’re not going to use a cue in these sessions. Instead capture the behavior you like (e.g. ignoring the paper towel roll), since you want that to become your dog’s default behavior. In this way you are teaching your dog to make the choice you like around the paper towel roll, even if you are not there to say “leave it.”

Follow these steps below to practice training this with your dog in a fun, game setting:

• Start your dog in a sit.

• Hold the paper towel roll behind your back and then bring it out in front of your dog so he can see it. Mark and reward the moment he notices the paper towel roll and doesn’t try going for it.

• You can make this game more challenging by bringing the paper towel roll increasingly closer to your dog or moving it around when you present it.

• Remember to take baby steps here, so your dog enjoys the game and is successful.

• If your dog starts going for the item, simply don’t mark and reward. Take a step back to make the game a little easier before progressing again (in other words, make that item less tempting by holding the paper towel roll further away or by moving it less).

Keep these sessions nice and short (just a few minutes at a time). Feel free to play multiple times a day!

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