A chewed chair leg or a gutted sofa cushion feels personal, but it almost never is. Chewing is how Labs explore, self-soothe, and burn off energy, and VCA’s behaviourists put it plainly: working out why a dog is chewing is the first real step in fixing it, since the right response depends entirely on the cause.
What’s actually driving it
Teething, roughly 3 to 6 months old, produces some of the most determined chewing you’ll see — incoming adult teeth genuinely hurt, and chewing relieves that. It passes once the adult set is in. Past puppyhood, boredom and under-stimulation are the most common driver by far: a Lab who isn’t getting enough physical or mental exercise will find something to occupy themselves with, and furniture is right there. The ASPCA’s guidance on destructive chewing lists boredom as one of the core causes alongside teething and general exploration.
Anxiety is another common thread — chewing is self-soothing, and a stressed dog left alone will often target exit points specifically: doors, door frames, window sills. If that’s the pattern you’re seeing, separation anxiety is worth investigating rather than treating this as a pure furniture problem; my separation anxiety guide covers that side in depth. Adolescence (6–18 months) adds its own layer — adult-level energy without adult-level impulse control, which is why chewing sometimes escalates even after a genuinely calm puppyhood. And occasionally it’s learned attention-seeking: if grabbing the remote and bolting has reliably triggered a chase in the past, that’s a lesson your Lab won’t forget just because the attention was negative.
Manage access before you try to train it away
You can’t train a behaviour that’s still being rehearsed daily. Cut off access first, not as a permanent fix but to stop the habit deepening while you build the replacement one: baby gates for the rooms with the most tempting furniture, no unsupervised time near anything already chewed (the scent and texture pull them straight back), and a crate or pen for the stretches you genuinely can’t supervise, especially through teething and adolescence. A bitter spray on targeted edges can help as one extra layer, though it’s rarely enough alone — test it somewhere hidden first, since it can stain.
Make the right thing more interesting than the sofa
The common mistake is buying a chew toy, dropping it on the floor, and being surprised it loses to real wood and fabric. A plain rubber toy sitting in the corner just isn’t competing on the same level. Freeze a Kong stuffed with wet food, peanut butter, or broth-soaked kibble and it becomes genuinely engrossing rather than background furniture. Rotate what’s on offer so novelty stays high — a new chew consistently beats a familiar one. For teething puppies specifically, frozen carrots, a chilled wet flannel, or a proper teething ring target the actual discomfort rather than just redirecting it. Bully sticks and other natural dried chews hold attention far longer than most rubber toys, and actively praising your Lab while they’re working on the right thing matters as much as stopping the wrong one — good behaviour that goes unnoticed doesn’t get reinforced.
Fix the cause, not just the symptom
If boredom’s the driver, more exercise and mental work is the actual fix — not another chew toy on top of an already understimulated dog. A Lab who needs two hours of activity a day and gets forty minutes will always find an outlet, and puzzle feeders, training reps, scent games, and social time all count toward that mental load, not just the physical walk. If you catch your Lab mid-chew, a calm interrupt — “leave it” — followed immediately by handing over the right chew works far better than shouting or chasing, which just teaches them that furniture gets a reaction. If they take the swap and settle with it, quiet praise reinforces that they made the right call.
In nearly every case of persistent furniture chewing I’ve seen in Labs past the teething stage, the underlying issue is under-stimulation rather than anything more complicated. The furniture isn’t really the problem — the empty afternoon is. Doubling daily mental enrichment for a couple of weeks — extra training reps, puzzle feeders, scatter feeding, a genuinely new walk route — tends to shrink the chewing noticeably before any deterrent or management tool makes much difference on its own.
A few specifics worth knowing: teething-related chewing usually eases once the adult teeth are fully in around 6–7 months, while boredom and adolescent chewing can run until 18–24 months, generally settling by around age two once exercise and enrichment are adequate. Bitter sprays work well for some Labs and do nothing for others — they’re best treated as one layer of a plan, not the plan itself. It’s genuinely not too late to fix this in an adult dog; established habits just take longer to overwrite than they would have taken to prevent, but the same approach applies at any age. And if the chewing happens only when you’re out, that’s a strong pointer toward anxiety or boredom-while-alone specifically — limit access, leave a frozen Kong or safe chew before you go, and look into separation anxiety training if it doesn’t ease with that alone.
For teething specifically, my teething timeline and chew guide goes deeper on age-appropriate options, and Labrador boredom signs and easy fixes is worth pairing with this if under-stimulation looks like the root cause. Teaching a solid “Drop It” and “Leave It” also gives you the fastest in-the-moment tool for whatever they’ve already picked up.