Last week I received the muzzle that I ordered for my dog Nickie. It is the wire basket style and is so far just what I needed for walking him every morning. He had been getting worse at picking up any and everything off the sidewalks/streets and swallowing it.

I admit that I inadvertently "trained" him to do this when he was just a puppy. In teaching him to walk outside with me, I would take a handful of treats and toss a couple ahead of us on the ground so that he would take a few steps and we would continue on our way. This became a self-rewarding behavior and has continued to this day!

The last straw was a couple of weeks ago when he grabbed a metal bottle cap and swallowed it - it was vomited up about 24 hours later. Like my hubby said, it is better to pay $50 for a muzzle than thousands of dollars in vet bills to take care of a blockage.

This new muzzle not only keeps him from grabbing things to eat, but also has really helped with him not pulling (for what is the use to dash over to a tasty morsel in the street when you can't eat it!)

Anyway, a big thanks to April in the Leerburg office who assisted me in buying just the right size for Nickie. I watched the little training video and worked with him for a couple of days before I actually buckled it on him. Also the quality of the muzzle is superb! (You can see him wearing it in the link below).

Why not just train the poor dog to not eat/pickup/bite things.

DFrost

David,

Thanks for the suggestion - if only it were that easy! Like I said in my post, I am at fault for throwing treats down on the sidewalk to get him to walk when he was a puppy. Maybe now that I will be home full time (starting in January), I will have time to devote more time to training!