August 15, 2011
My dog has a sock addiction. Our vet recommends that he wears a muzzle when he's at home. What type would you suggest?
Full Question:
Hello! My family and I have two wonderful labs. The oldest is a little over a year and the youngest is just about 6 months old. His name is Hugo and he's the best! Sadly, he has an addiction to socks. He is crated when we are not home (both dogs are) and he's confined to the downstairs when we are (gates).Occationally we have a "jail break" and he sneaks upstairs and digs around for socks (the dirtier the better). We have young children who sometimes forget to lock the gate when they fly upstairs. I can not even tell you how many socks he's either thrown up or passed. Along with several other strange/dangerous objects.
Our vet recommends that Hugo wear a muzzle while he's at home. What type would you suggest?
Cindy's Answer:
The first thing is to MAKE sure that this isn’t a medically induced case of pica. Sometimes the dogs can be lacking something in their diet or have some hidden medical condition that creates an obsession with eating non food items. You can do a google search on pica in dogs for more info.
If the pup comes back with a clean bill of health, then I would use management and training to deal with this.
A muzzle isn’t going to solve this, only will prevent him from actually eating anything else. Before we can help with a muzzleyou will need to get some accurate measurements for us. We have directions on how to measure the dog for a muzzle on this page.
In the meantime, I’d make SURE this pup isn’t allowed access to anything he shouldn’t have. You may need to use a separate kennel or exercise pen so the kids aren’t making mistakes. I just got an email today from someone with a pup that ate a sock and ended up with a $2800 vet bill. It could have been a vet bill AND a dead puppy.
I’d recommend Pack Structure for the Family Pet and Your Puppy 8 weeks to 8 Months.
Hopefully if you can manage this successfully, he’ll outgrow it.
We also have a great question & answer section. Pica has been discussed there as well. You can type in your search terms and get some additional info.
Cindy Rhodes
If the pup comes back with a clean bill of health, then I would use management and training to deal with this.
A muzzle isn’t going to solve this, only will prevent him from actually eating anything else. Before we can help with a muzzleyou will need to get some accurate measurements for us. We have directions on how to measure the dog for a muzzle on this page.
In the meantime, I’d make SURE this pup isn’t allowed access to anything he shouldn’t have. You may need to use a separate kennel or exercise pen so the kids aren’t making mistakes. I just got an email today from someone with a pup that ate a sock and ended up with a $2800 vet bill. It could have been a vet bill AND a dead puppy.
I’d recommend Pack Structure for the Family Pet and Your Puppy 8 weeks to 8 Months.
Hopefully if you can manage this successfully, he’ll outgrow it.
We also have a great question & answer section. Pica has been discussed there as well. You can type in your search terms and get some additional info.
Cindy Rhodes
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