…dirt, rocks, grass, cigarette butts, sticks, twigs, basically ANYTHING on the ground and what can I do about it? She is 10 wks and every time I walk her, she tries to eat anything that she sees on the ground or the street. She is a huge fan of dirt! I pull more stuff out of her mouth than I did with my baby. This morning she threw up a rock that I never noticed her picking up. She is getting quick. I am worried that she is going to eat something dangerous. I try to walk quickly and hold her head up if I see something that she might try to eat, but she tries to eat EVERYTHING. Poor thing-it looks like I am training her for a show.

Any suggestions??

BTW- she is on a natural diet, so she eats well. She tries to eat everything even right after she eats, so obviously she is not hungry or lacking nutrients.

Thanks for any help.
Linda Duhon

Linda, teach your pup the YUCK!! command. Only take this pup out on a leash. When it goies to pick something like this up give a YUCK and a good pop of the leash. If the pup is a hard pup you may even want to use a smallprong collar.

They pic up on this really quick - it wont be long before you can say YUCK and the pup will spit it out without a correction - or better yet you see him start to pick something up and he stops when you say YUCK.

Bottom line is you need to stop this behavior - most dogs outgrow it if it does not kill them with a blockage.

Thanks so much Ed. A bowel obstruction is my biggest fear, and of course, her eating something poisonous. When she threw up the rock, it really scared me-I watch her like a hawk and I never saw her pick it up.

The puppy is ALWAYS on leash unless she is in her crate. However, since she has the eating problem, she is always on a SHORT leash with me holding it. I even play ball, etc. with her while holding the leash.

I tried your suggestion which worked really well just as she was about to put something in her mouth. She just walked away from it. However, she scoped up a rock before I could pop her, and she would not drop it even with a big pop. I did not think that she was a hard puppy, but I popped her HARD and she still would not drop it. She is really persistent. I had to dig it out of her mouth. Do you think the prong would be appropriate now or should I wait a bit longer?

It is important to mention that we live in the country on a gravel road. Additionally, our porch is surrounded by flower beds with rock paths. So you have to go through the rocks to get to the grass. We also have almost 30 oak trees so sticks are everywhere. As soon as I pick up 10 of them, another 50 show up. There is absolutely no way to keep her away from all of these things, so I have to stop her from doing this before she gets hurt.

Thanks again
Linda Duhon

I say get a small prong and use it.. Just becareful how you introduce/use the prong.. The last thing you want if for your pup to get collar wise.

After they have it in their mouth, I would think it is too late for a "pop". Unless they also know the "drop it" command... if it's in their mouth, I reach in and take it out, if it's not, I use "leave it" and a "pop".

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The last thing you want if for your pup to get collar wise.

Do you mean the puppy getting to the point where she will only behave if she has the prong on? I read on Ed's site that you should alternate collars and I planned on doing that. But she is only 10 wks so we have not gotten to that point yet. She only wears a flat collar now.

Yes...

rotate different collars throughout the day. Follow the article you mentioned. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Good Yuck.... I mean luck.. :P

My female GSD did the same thing when we first got her a year ago. So did a neighbor of ours that got a male from the same breeder. It was kind of a pain in the neck but she eventually grew out of it. Pretty much just passed all of the rocks she ate, which wasn't many because she was either in her crate or constantly supervised.

I worked more on getting her interested in lots of different toys at that age rather than prong collar corrections. I don't know about that. When the dog is older maybe, but on a 10 week old pup? At that age it's a lot easier to pick the pup up by the scruff of the neck and shake her a bit until she screams like a banshee is far more effective. That's what the dog's mom would do to a puppy if it did something the mother dog didn't like.

Ed has a good video on raising a puppy. It helped us with Molly. It's one of the better DVDs we purchased from Leerburg. You might want to consider getting that.

Could be worse, she could be eating her own poop. Now that's a really nasty habbit.

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Could be worse, she could be eating her own poop. Now that's a really nasty habbit.

She tries that too (but only if it has been sitting a few days and hard as a rock <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> And I am NOT pulling that out of her mouth!

I have Ed's DVD, but I don't think it mentions rock eating <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

She found a little dead snake in yard. Ate it. Slurped it up like spaghetti. This puppy will eat ANYTHING.

My gsd puppy was eating dirt,sticks,and other things in my yard,too.Discourged the habit by using a micky muzzle whenever she was out in the yard.This helped to get her through the stage of eating everything she could find.If only she would stop eating poop.