Consider what happens if you place a small child into a room by themselves.  Typically, they start gravitating towards anything in the room they can play with, or depending upon their age put in their mouth.  The same holds true for a puppy, but unlike children many people do not consider the importance of proper supervision of a puppy while they do consider it a major priority to supervise a child. 

Puppies are very active both physically and mentally.  They are just like a small child who is eagerly exploring their new surroundings, and just as many babies put things in their mouth to chew on, so will your puppy.  The biggest difference is, most babies pick up small objects, while a puppy will happily chew on a table leg, or rug.  Both can be equally dangerous, and with some prevention can be completely avoided.

To keep your puppy safe from boredom you must plan ahead.  There will be times when puppy must be left on their own; there is almost no avoiding that situation.  Work and school typically will not allow pets, and if you have multiple pets, it becomes even more important.  The task to keep some sanity and furniture in one piece quickly becomes how do you keep your puppy entertained even while you are gone.

It is actually quite simple.  Toys, toys and more toys.  However, that does not mean to go wipe out the local pet store in one shopping trip, nor does it mean giving your dog a floor full of toys.  It simply means that you should give your dog numerous toys to play with, and make sure you switch them out frequently.  After all, if your puppy sees the same toys repeatedly, they will eventually get bored with them.

This is not to say, that you should throw them away or give them away.  Keep them, but put them up where your puppy cannot see or reach them, and just switch out the toy supply every couple of weeks.  If you prefer you can switch out one or two toys once a week or so and that way your puppy almost always has something new to look forward to. 

Either way you go, your best option is to switch out the toys often and frequently.  Search at the pet stores for sales on the toys in the appropriate size for your puppy and you will be able to acquire a nice selection at a good price.  Another option that some people choose to use is purchasing some of the hard bones or rubber toys and filling them with peanut butter, treats, kibble, and other goodies and giving this to the pet.  This allows the pet to have a toy that is full of something yummy that they have to work at to get to the treat. 

This will often keep a dog entertained for several hours while they busily work at getting the treats out of the toy.  There is plenty of times when your dog can become bored, but with some planning you can see it is really quite simple to keep puppy well entertained and out of trouble as well as spare the life of your furniture.