I am so tired and distressed that my 10 m/o is eating EVERYTHING

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grace302015

New member
Hi everyone !

As some of you may know, we rescued Helios 2 months ago now.
He’s 10/11 months old. He’s a nice dog, a little neurotic at times (barking, chewing on the couch…etc) but he’s getting so much better thanks to never ending training and education.

There’s one issue I’m struggling with and it’s making me more and more upset when it happens : he will eat ANYTHING he finds when we’re on walks. So much so that I can’t have him off leash.

He once disappeared in the bushes for 30 minutes and he was so big and could barely move. We had to induce vomiting and discovered - horrified - that he ate a whole 14 pounds iguana (that probably was dead for a few days).

Then dead mice

Poop from other animals.

Anything that’s on the ground.

I’m working HARD on training him on that but i need to vent cause everytime it happens I get anxious, worried : should I make him throw up or not ? Is there a poison risk ? (I live on an island where dogs - altho not welcome - are left to roam free so some sociopaths sometimes drop poison everywhere and regularly there are « killing spree ». 54 dogs died over the course of 24 hours last year. I can’t wait to leave this place btw)

Today, he grabbed fecal matter from a side walk before I could even react. I have to always be on the look out which makes our long walks always stressful.

He’s up to date on his vaccine including parvo and he’s treated for parasites (completely).
The exercise I do to teach him not to grab food is that I’ll leave food out and when he tries to get it I cover it with my hand. Once he understands he’s not allowed he will not try again and i reward him by handing him one of the treat after a few seconds/minutes. So he’s definitely getting better. But what am I doing wrong for him to jump on dead mice / poop / banana peel like his life depended on it ?

We feed him premium food and we don’t ever give him food from our plate. He has chew bones and treats. Will he ever grow out of it ?

update : I bought him a muzzle designed to prevent dog from eating what they find on the ground. He doesn’t like it too much especially because he tried to eat a dead lizard and couldn’t but that’ll do for now. Until I teach him better :)
 
@grace302015
But what am I doing wrong for him to jump on dead mice / poop / banana peel like his life depended on it ?
Click to expand...

It's their instinct -- it's not your fault. If it smells good or interesting or maybe like food, puppies will investigate it, which often means putting in their mouths to feel, smell, taste, and understand it, which easily turns into eating if their puppy brains decide it's close enough to food or prey to swallow it.

Teach him "leave it" and keep him on a short leash (and maybe muzzled) so you can pull him away from it until he reliably ignores most of the goodies he encounters. Also teach him "drop it" so you can get it out of his mouth if he does pick something up -- another reason to keep him on a short leash. He should not be allowed to roam off-leash until you deal with this.

It will get better and easier -- with training and as he gets older, he'll be less intrigued by some of this stuff because it won't be brand new and exciting.
 
@unsophisticated My dog used to put everything he saw in his mouth so fast and I’d have to pry his mouth open. The worst one was a dead fish (I think he ended up eating that one). I’ve only had him for about 8 months now (he’s about 1.5 years and was also a stray eating garbage off the street so he’s used to it) and he does a lot better. Teaching “leave it” was the best thing for him. I keep him on a long line in my sight and if he starts going to sniff anything really heavily (not just a quick sniff, like a “I found something yummy” sniff) then I ask him to leave it and he usually does now, but if he doesn’t then I have the ability to pull him away from it with the leash. Long lines and “leave it” are a lifesaver in our household!
 
@moflamingo Mine ate a little dead bird that had fallen from a nest once before we really got "leave it" trained. It made me sad, but now we all talk about Bowie's forbidden chicken nugget.

I'm grateful that was the only really bad thing he actually swallowed.

...that I know of. 🥲
 
@unsophisticated Imo, "drop it" and "leave it" are near the top of the list of commands your dog should learn. Can save their life.

I take a lot of meds, and I worked on these two CONSTANTLY, so scared I'd drop one. Now I really don't have to use "drop it" at all. He is a "leave it" pro. But it was work.

Edit- I should reword this. He is a pro when it comes to not picking things up. As far as focusing on people, dogs, etc he is not good at leave it. Lmao
 
@deelo00 My girl dog (not the ACD mix) takes "leave it" so seriously that she can't even be in the kitchen when I'm putting her kibble in her bowl! It cracks me up. She's very good about hearing "leave it" on walks and ignoring whole swaths of goose poop or little tree berries as she walks around it with her head way up in the air.

The cattle dog boy is, well, less good at "leave it," especially on walks, but he does understand it and will listen most of the time. I definitely have to use "drop it" with him more often, and I have zero qualms about sticking my hand in his mouth if necessary.

Neither of them has done a great job of transferring "leave it" to people/other dogs -- we're working on that with other commands/gestures.
 
@unsophisticated Sounds like they do pretty good!

Yeah all the training stuff for that (I very much trained him myself with the internet because small town and covid) is all about applying "leave it" it to all of it. My dog says that just isn't a possibility lol. He does okay with "just watch," but I think he will be a bit reactive his whole life. Sigh
 
@grace302015 Your stress and anxiety is making things worse. Be a confident Cattle Dog owner or the dog will never do what you need it to.

Cattle dogs can be tough, especially if you aren't confident and in charge from the start. You'll never get control until you fix your problems with said activities.

The second you hook that leash up I bet you get stressed. Get YOUR stress and anxiety out of the situation, walk your dog with a powerful in charge attitude and keep working on training. It took my wife 3 dogs to learn that anxiety over the possibilities of disaster on the walk is just an exercise in self fulfilling prophecy.

You also would benefit taking your dog to some obedience classes. You don't seem to have the proper tools to handle the breed. It took me making mistakes with 3 of them to get the 4th one started out right. 😂
 
Watch for the signs, which by the statement, "got to it before I could react", means you aren't in tune to your dogs body language when something is about to happen. It took my wife 15 years to learn the signs and has gotten better.

You need some help from a pro to recognize these signs in your dog before anything bad happens. You need to get ahead of it, now. Hyper focus and constant eye contact and fixation on whatever is the first sign and first opportunity that you have to redirect away from that behavior.. Dogs are very predictable, if you know what to look for.
 
@imagebeastmarkbeast It’s a very nice and long analysis of my relationship with my dog but keep in mind you actually aren’t here so it might be a little irresponsible to do this when you’re not fully aware of all the fact.
My dog spent his first 9 months in the streets so maybe it’s not my stress but the way he used to live that have pushed him to act this way. I know some people love to look at the owner right away to point fingers when it comes to some dogs’ behaviors. But truth is, puppies can have dangerous habits and it takes sometimes a while to educate them on that and it’s not always related to « a stressed owner ». I’m confident and fine. My dog has made tremendous progress on many things. I need actual advice and not something based on what you think is happening in my mind which would cause my dog to eat other animals’ poop.
 
@grace302015 It is always the owner. So then you are going to argue and make qualifications, I don't care... It's obvious your anxiety and pity on your street dog is a problem. I gave you my advice and quantified my mistake about aggression. Take my advice or not. No need to turn into a sensitive redditor at this point. 👋
 
@imagebeastmarkbeast Protecting me around other dogs ? He mostly eats iguana poops. I’m in charge and used to dogs. I just get upset when he eats things that can potentially be dangerous for him. I don’t think that’d be unusual and anyone who’d remain calm or doesn’t seek advice after the eleventh times of a dog getting himself in a potentially dangerous situation is probably not concerned enough.
 
@grace302015 Sorry, I have a couple head injuries, sometimes other thoughts that aren't even relevant pop in when I give advice. Thanks for calling that out. That was a mistake.

11th time. It has become a pattern now. That's going to take work to break. Get some help and learn some new tools with a trainer that works with ACD's.
 
@grace302015 When my dog was younger he had an awful habit of trying to eat wild mushrooms and ended up going to the emergency vet 5-6 times to induce vomiting, it was so exasperating. I was suggested the muzzle too, which is a really good idea if you can manage it, but I ended up having to short leash him on walks and watch him like a hawk, avoiding places I knew he would find a woodland buffet. He still eats mostly twigs and the occasional acorn which while not great is definitely less stressful. I’d look into a little outside training help if possible and do the muzzle if he’s not too opposed. Mine grew out of it, the really bad stuff anyway, maybe yours will too.
 
@grace302015 Having removed from my heelrr/chi’s mouth with my bare hands a mummified/flattened anole lizard that I thought was a piece of plastic and a dead legless lizard that I thought was a twig — shrieking in horror (who knew there were legless lizards living underground?? And then I had to continue the walk with lizard corpse cooties on my fingies) — I can sympathize. It’s a super easy fix, tho. Just carry treats or a toy with you that doggo loves. Swap yuck for yum. No need to muzzle! That’s way overkill.
 
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