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
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