It has been about 15 years since I raised my last puppy. I had a fully enclosed back yard at the time and I would let Tasha out in the yard unattended most of the time.

With Starbuck we do not have an enclosed yard at this time. I have the fencing on order and it should be installed in a couple more weeks. Therefore I am out with her 99% of the time she is outside. I might not be right on top of her, but I have eyes on her.

I mentioned in another post that she is eating the rabbit dropping in the back yard. Well she is also eating just about anything else that fits into her mouth: dirt, grass, rocks, wood chips, sticks, leaves, random scraps of paper, bugs, etc.

I try to stop her and take away the rocks, sticks, sod, etc. But she is so fast and constantly sniffing and eating. I have not been too worried about it and she seems fine. I assume most of this happened with Tasha when I wasn’t watching. I don’t think she is hungry, because she will leave food in her dish and run outside to eat some dirt.

I am sure she will grow out of this. Should I just treat this as “normal”?

I could try to stop her, but I don’t think 500 corrections a day will make her a happy puppy.

When my pup was younger he was the same way; I called him a 'Hoover' because he picked up everything he could get. After one of his littermates ended up having emergency surgery to remove a rock that she swallowed, I bought one of the Jafco basket muzzles and used it on my guy when he was out in the fenced yard. It's well-ventilated but still won't allow him to pick up objects on the ground. He adjusted really quickly, and the added bonus is that now he thinks nothing of being muzzled. Someone else may have a better idea, but this worked well for me.

Hi Keith,
Had to laugh when I read the subject of your post! When our pup Nickie was younger, we referred to him as our "urban goat". From the time he was 8 weeks old, he would grab rocks, little sticks, pieces of paper, etc. and would hoard them in one place in our back yard. Of course we thought it was cute at the time (not ever having owned a puppy before).

This advanced to our taking away any foreign objects from him so that very soon he started learning that he had to try to gulp them down before we could get them from him!

Now at 8 1/2 months old, our philosophy is to ignore him when he picks up something (if he is not on leash like on a walk) and to quietly re-direct him to a toy or a treat.

It seems to be just another thing that he is gradually out-growing! Just be patient (we are still working on the "leave it" command along with his other basic obedience work).

LOL

My pup would eat dirt and throw up mud, literally. He will eat anything. I got a muzzle for him, that works quite well to keep him from eating anything, not that he doesn't still try.

The muzzle is now dual purpose, keeps him from eating, keeps him from defeating the self-correcting collar by grabbing the leash, and also controls his nipping at my son.

He doesn't wear it all the time, but he does wear it often.

He doesn't go after the rocks so much anymore, but he does have lots of chew toys ... he is now 6 months old.

I was hoping that she would outgrow that bad habit, but it still continues. She backed way off on the rabbit poop, but still chews on the grass, dirt, wood and rocks.

We have so much ground cover around the yard it is impossible to monitor her.

Last night she threw up these three rocks (all three in her tummy at the same time). I’ve started to use “Drop it” or “Leave it” with the rocks. I’m a little surprised at how well it worked today.

My boy used to have the oddest looking multicolored poop from the dirt. I do try and take stuff out of their mouths when I can but you can't get it 100% of the time.

I like goats, and you have a dog and a goat in one, whats the problem??

She isn't mowing the lawn