Furniture, Wood and Cabinetry Finishing - Labrador modified china hutch

Our lab puppy recently chewed the molding near the base of of our cherry china hutch, at the corner for about an inch on each face. I am considering trying to mix some stain with wood filler, and then fill and sand to match the molding. Then ,of course, there's the question of a finish. The existing finish is not glossy, but has more sheen than a matte finish. It looks like a hand rubbed finish, but I doubt it truly is.

Any suggested materials/techniques? I hate to make the furniture look even worse than the dog did.

how about waiting until the puppy is no longer a pup?

what you have is a touch up repair.

and it is really difficult to try to teach ''touch up '' here.

you sound like you have an active mind, so go ahead and try.

you can always re-do what you try.

what i will say is to do as little damage to the existing finish/colour, around the damaged area.

i would not add colour to the filler, although, it might work.

i use natural filler and then add colour after using toners, or oil based pigments to ''paint'' in the area.
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tape off the area prior to using filler.

can you remove the moulding?

actually you can do a lot of things, that is why its hard to try to ''walk'' someone thru a touch up.

just think of it as being a ''canvas'', and go for it.

Thanks for the reply. Your suggestion not to add the stain to the filler is appreciated. That way, I can work my way up to the color, rather than find out later, when the filler dries, that it doesn't match.

Masking the area off is also a good suggestion..."first, do no harm"

As far as waiting until the pup is grown, I am not convinced that Labradors EVER grow up.