Seren eating stones!

[Lara_Pigletina]

I’m posting for my mum and stepdad about Seren their lovely labradoodle. She is now 7 months old, and a really leggy gangly girl. She is a foxy red colour, and looks mostly Labrador apart from a slightly wavy coat on the back, a slightly poodley pointed snout, and a little beard anyway their main problem at the moment is she eats stones. As in, picks them up, rolls them around her teeth then actually swallows them! Obviously this is a pretty serious health hazard! I would think the way to deal with this is to train a strong “swap” behavior but they say that although she will swap other things for a treat, nothing will induce her to drop her stones, and them approaching with a treat makes her panic and swallow the stone so she doesn’t have to give it back. Any advice?

 

[Lara_Pigletina]

I’ll try to get a photo of her to post as well as she is a slightly odd but lovely creature

 

[Lab_adore]

No advice, but I'm going to stop complaining about Maxx's behaviour! That is seriously worrying

 

[Lara_Pigletina]

I was hoping it was a teething thing as apparently she likes to grid them around her teeth before swallowing them obviously the grinding is not great but the swallowing is the worrying bit

 

[Rosie]

Maybe something to help with teething? Pongo loved frozen lamb ribs (cold, so soothing).

 

[HAH]

Good idea on the teething @Rosie - maybe that’s the key @Lara_Pigletina , something hard but crunchable like ice cubes might be a fair replacement?

I’m a bit stumped, except that one key thing I guess is to remove temptation - ‘don’t let him rehearse the behavior you don’t want’ - so he needs to be closely supervised round stones. I think you’re right with needing a strong ‘swap’, they might want help with that if there’s a decent +R trainer nearby who can get them started? I do sympathize as it must be a concern for them, and people’s reaction is always going to be ‘ooh, that’s worrying’ accompanied by a horror story. The one hope is that puppies do have silly habits they quickly grow out of. It might be if Seren can be stopped from rehearsing the behaviour for a bit then she’ll grow out of it and move on.

 

[snowbunny]

What if your parents were to scatter treats on the floor when she has a stone in her mouth? As always, it should be practiced in easy situations first, give it a "scatter" cue so she understands what's going on. But she should learn the cue pretty quickly. If she tends to eat the stone before she has the treats, try with very high value food.

 

[Boogie]

Spencer is just beginning to lose his deep fascination with stones (why do some pups have this??).
He has a good, strong ‘give’. But this is because I didn’t try to take stones off him until he already knew ‘give’ with toys etc. I just ignored all his mouthing of stones. Now he’ll pick them up but will always give them to me.

I think - now that he’s already ‘keeping’ his stones by swallowing them I’d follow @snowbunny ’s advice.

.

 

[snowbunny]

Spencer is just beginning to lose his deep fascination with stones (why do some pups have this??).
He has a good, strong ‘give’. But this is because I didn’t try to take stones off him until he already knew ‘give’ with toys etc. I just ignored all his mouthing of stones. Now he’ll pick them up but will always give them to me.

I think - now that he’s already ‘keeping’ his stones by swallowing them I’d follow @snowbunny ’s advice.

.

Yep, I should have said alongside this, they should work on a strong "give", but don't try it with stones until it's very well established, and they've practiced it with a stone they give her - there's always far more worth in a found item than in a given one of otherwise the same value.

This is my advice for training dogs to give you stuff - maybe you can point them at it, or print it out? Teaching your dog to give you things in his mouth

 

[Charlie]

Yep Hattie did this as a young puppy/dog but she did not grind or swallow them. As we have a gravel driveway it was very difficult. I worked on a 'drop' as soon as we got to the door and I'm happy to say she did grow out of it. Maybe giving her something to carry, a ball or her favourite toy might distract her. xx

 

[Lara_Pigletina]

Thanks everyone that is really helpful. I’ve passed it all on. I’ll send them the link to the “give” training too. Seren is a bright one and picks things up quickly. The poor Pig still hates her though!