Thanks Everyone for all of your responses! I have already thrown away all of his Raw Hide Bones, after picking out the piece from vomit. It was much larger than the piece that was in it this morning. And yes he had the ones with the knotted ends.

He is crated all night from the time we go to bed (sometime around 9 p.m. typically) until 7 a.m. He usually wakes me at about 4:30 a.m. for a trip outside and then it is right back to bed. Due to the difficulty at first in toileting, he has been restricted to the kitchen only, unless he is on-lease with me. In the kitchen he is either on his outside tie-up, as it comes right in under my door, or we put the gates up to confine him.

When we are at home, I don't crate him during the day, as I take him with me everywhere I go and he is usually crated in my van while I am driving, or whatever. As he gets older, I will leave him home occassionally in his crate, instead of taking with me, but we'll phase that in. Right now I like having him where I can keep an eye on him and taking him with me or in his crate.

I do plan on doing some tethering, but it was more in mind of reminding him of who the boss is, now that toileting is going better. Not only has he found out he is getting taller, he has found his bark and sometimes his own will. Not good things here.

Today's the first time that he has actually gotten into the trash, and I shouldn't have been suprised as he has just discovered that he can now reach table tops and counter tops when jumping.

I wasn't really concerned with the eating of cat poop, dirt or rocks until he started having issues with diahreah, and now vomitting. Has anyone ever muzzled their pup? I'm considering the muzzling, as the dirt he is licking off the ground while we are on walks, or having bathroom breaks. He is much more "sniffy" than I thought he would be. Tonight he wanted to take me through the woods and chase deer at my mom's house. I know that they are out there, but so does he apparently.

I will check out the THK, too. You think that is better than the honest kitchen stuff?

Thanks again.

Sorry!

THK = The Honest Kitchen.

Are Greenies another brand of NutriDent or are they NutriDent.

I just checked on the back of my package and the first ingredient is WHEAT STARCH!

I went to the website and found limited information.

Hi Louanne,

Ed talks about conditioning a dog to wear a muzzle in his dominance DVD. You start by holding the muzzle, showing it to the dog and dropping a treat into it. Dog puts his face into the muzzle to eat the treat.
You repeat this several times per session (without fastening the muzzle!) and after a few days, the dog will eagerly shove its face into the muzzle when you bring it out.

You can then start fastening it for a little bit at a time and it's much less depressing for the dog.

You should've seen poor CJ (Ed's gorgeous stud dog) when Ed demonstrated putting on a muzzle on that DVD without conditioning him to it first. The poor dog looked dejected (the "why me?" look), and when Ed finally removed the muzzle, CJ wanted nothing more to do with the demonstration and went hiding

Hopefully if you start your pup off slowly with the treats in the muzzle method, it'll be much easier on him.

 Quote: Louanne Manter

Are Greenies another brand of NutriDent or are they NutriDent.

I just checked on the back of my package and the first ingredient is WHEAT STARCH!

I went to the website and found limited information.

IMO, you also do not want the old-formula Greenies. Check the ingredients; the new ones are gelatin-based.
http://www.greenies.com/en_US/default.asp?

 Quote: louanne manter

I don't intend for the pup to be muzzled forever, just during his puppy phase until he outgrows eating EVERYTHING while outside the home. He does play "rough" with my son, like my son is a peer instead of above him. So now I'm thinking that the muzzle could be used while my son works with him, during his puppy phase. Like working on commands with him that the pup already knows.

Thoughts? Comments? Experience?

I'm not sure why you don't want to keep the pup in a crate during the day or look at purchasing a outside kennel for him. To me he just sounds bored and then if left to his own devices he will get into anything and everything. If he is in a crate or kennel with an assortment of good strong chew toys ie Kong etc it keeps him contained and then he can still get his chewing ya yas out. To me bottom line a pup needs to chew, and muzzling him is a solution that doesn't fix the problem is just masks it. IMHO-YMMV..

As for nippy stuff with your boy. I agree your pup is trying to 'Rank' him.

First thing is never not supervise them that is a recipe for disaster in my books. To break the ice between my dog and my boys is making sure that my boys always feed my pup that way the pup always associates them with something good. The boy that feeds her always has to make the pup to a basic OB command ie sit /down etc before the food is given.

When the boys and pup are in the same room playing (not neccasarily togehter) I watch like a hawk so that my pup doesn't get away with any 'ranking' type of behaviours, nipping and especially anything that resembles 'rank posturing' while the boys are on the floor are not tolerated. You have to correct within the 1.5 second rule always.(verbal ie Ahhh, shame! etc to a physical correction if the pup is on a lead)

Goes both ways with the boys too, they don't get away with any crap with the dog either as it is a two way street ie no pulling on the dog etc.. To me the level of my boys maturity is the thing that gets in the way, if I can NOT supervise and observe, the dog is in her crate or kennel that's the long and short of it in my experience.

Great Comments in regards to pups and children! Thanks! Good Points!

Good Tip with putting on the muzzle too!

Louanne, hows' your pup doing? Still sick?

He's doing great now, finally. But he still wants to eat everything in sight. I know that is just how he is exploring this world. Yesterday my son and I went snowshoeing and took the pup with us, and he had to taste every pile of deer poop pellets. YUCK. Other than that he was awesome.

The snow was really deep and it was hard to keep him on leash, so once we were into the woods behind my mom's house, we let him off. I had a pocket full of treats, just in case.

My son took the lead and the pup ran back and forth between the two of us. It was quite cute & sweet. He would run back to me and every now and then I would give him a treat (so he knew I had them), but then if he couldn't see my son he would whine. I would call to my son, he would answer, and then I would tell the pup to go get him, and he would.

We need to do more of that as a threesome, so that my son is spending more time with the pup. Well now I am completely off-topic. :-)

So his digestive upset/vomiting is being "controlled". Not too many treats, trying to keep him out of the poop, no more rawhide, trying to limit his dirty snow/dirt licking/eating.

Oh the fun!

Thanks for asking!

Louanne