How to stop dogs from making noise?

Question

I have two 80 lb tamaskan puppies who sleep in their crates at night. I don't know if all crates come with the same type of tray, but mine are not smooth on the bottom (they have a kind of bumpy relief). Every time the dogs move, their nails make a horrible loud scratching noise and wake me up at night. I can't put anything on the tray like a blanket or a dog pillow because they destroy and eat everything.

Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with this? I'm trying to avoid spending $100 on new trays.

Look at this lazy dog sleeping after thrashing around his crate all night and keeping me up ......

Answer 1

Cut an old yoga mat to size of the floor of the crate, adding an additional inch on each side as to match the curve. Add strips of Velcro across the bottom width of the mat and the crate floor every 5 inches. Attach mat to floor of crate and seal all edges of mat at crate curve with duct tape as to alleviate the puppies from pulling up the mat and chewing it. The mat can be removed and washed in a washing machine on the gentle cycle and remounted.

Answer 2

Take a look at this place: k9ballistics.com/ This place advertises as having a chew proof bed. You could look into it and see if there is a guarantee. You can also look up ballistic or high denier nylon and make a slip cover for you bed. You can order the raw material. I can attest to the strength of this type of material. I have water proof horse blankets that are either 1200 or 1600 denier and they run through the woods and hit stubs with them, lay on them, and they pull on each others. These have held up extremely well with little damage. I think it's really worth a try.

Like another poster said, though, your dogs nails are probably too long. This can happen even trimming them every week if you aren't aggressive enough. It's a fine line, but as the nail grow out, so does the quick. If you trim the nails back to near the quick, it'll die back and you can trim it back further. I have a Jack Russell and she used to be so active I only had to trim her nails a couple of times a year. Almost a year ago, I noticed that they'd grown out, because she was slowing with age and were actually turning her toes slightly. I started right away, trimming them back to near the quick every week. It took several months, but I finally got them to where she's silent when she walks across the floors. I would have noticed sooner, but she's mostly an outside dog so I don't hear it. You have to get near the quick without hitting it. Like I said, it's a slow process. It took me months to work the quick back less than a quarter of an inch.

It's worth it, though. If your dogs nails are long enough that you hear them walk, then they're putting stress on the toes. This causes the dog to rock back on their heels, stressing the leg and causing discomfort, pain, and arthritis. I noticed a definite change in how she runs around from when they were too long to when I got them cut back to a reasonable length. Now that they're where I want them, I use a dremel sander to keep them there. That is more comfortable for her as well as rounding them nicely so that they don't scratch the floors. Good luck.

Answer 3

If you are willing to spend a little money, you could look into rubber mats for the crates. They're generally easy to clean and you won't get the scratching sound.