Why Do Dogs Bite the Wall?

One of the great mysteries for anyone who has a dog for the first time is figuring out why the dog licks the walls or even eats them, creating big holes in them.

At SoyUnPerro we'll explain how to identify why dogs have this curious behavior and what the simplest, most effective solutions are.

Licking Walls From Nutritional Deficiencies

It may sound strange at first, but this is one of the main reasons dogs have this kind of strange behavior. When its body detects a deficiency in certain nutrients, such as certain minerals, the dog instinctively tends to look for them elsewhere.

Believe it or not, the kibble sold at large stores is, generally speaking, very low-quality kibble. It's made with raw materials of low nutritional value that end up triggering major deficiencies in our dog's body.

Using good-quality kibble will fix the problem in the medium term, since the dog will need a few weeks to make up for the deficiencies. Don't think that changing the kibble will change its behavior within two days... you should expect to wait at least three or four weeks.

Anxiety or Stress

This is another of the most common reasons when it comes to understanding the source of a dog's bad behavior. When a dog eats a wall, it can also be from boredom, anxiety, or stress.

It's very common to leave dogs alone at home for long periods, because we have to go to work, take the kids to school, go grocery shopping, or simply because we want to go out to dinner with our partner.

It's very common for a dog to develop separation anxiety when we leave it alone at home, since it will feel abandoned and won't know if we'll come back. That's why it's important to teach them to stay alone from puppyhood, starting with very short periods of time and progressively increasing them as they grow.

Dogs that don't go out for walks or exercise, and so don't burn off their energy, will also lick and destroy walls, since they need to release that excess energy to be able to stay calm. Unspent excess energy ends up generating stress in the dog.