Please tell me the hoovering stops at some point!!! Mole (14weeks) spends his entire time with nose to the ground trying to find something to pick up....leaves, grass, miss, stones, sticks, bird poo, rabbit poo...you name it! Will drop for a treat but it's exhausting monitoring what's going on his mouth (everything!!) both at home and on a walk! Should I be trying clicker training for this - never done clicker training but willing to try! Never had one quite so keen to graze as him - when does this stage end?!?! Thank you! Sam and Mole
I can't comment on when it ends but this is us with 15 week old Daisy too. I think I catch about 20% of items with a 'leave it' but the rest.... she is just too quick!!
Ripple is still a 'hoover' at nearly 10 months old! We are continually working on leave it and keeping his attention on me - slow progress. However, I don't think all puppies are quite as bad as mine.
Boris is the same. One way that has helped with Boris is when he is on the lead and returning from a walk I give him a toy to carry home, this means he keeps his head up and doesn't notice all the tasty morsels on the ground. One walk means walking past a Tescos and you know all the bits of food that are discarded as people munch their way home, giving him his toy to carry home is great help on this walk, also if he is carrying a toy he tends to ignore other dogs.
Juno wasn't interested in picking up everything just sticks and poo. I wish I could say they'll grow out of it very soon, but the truth is they probably won't any time soon. Leave, Drop and vigilance are your friends in the anti-hoover campaign. Juno still picks up sticks on some local walks where there are lots to choose from, especially as the hedges have recently been cut back, but she drops them when asked and walks on
I have no advice.... Just sympathy! We are doing 'drop it' with a food reward, which generally works, but hard to watch them all the time. Jessie is 15 weeks now.. So far I have had to remove a rotting bird from her mouth. She's had an upset tum from eating goodness knows what. And horror of horrors on Friday night she ate a live baby mouse the cat had bought in, which she then vomited up and then ate the vomit!!! She is charming!
Believe it or not there is one bit of hoovering I miss. Oban used to gobble up all the little bits of toenail clippings. It was great, no bending and cleaning up for me. Or hauling out the real vacuum. He did it for several months, then stopped, oh, I guess around six months old or so. Darn.
Thanks for all your funny responses, made me laugh....glad we haven't had a dead bird or live mouse yet!!!
I'm not sure how much more I can add but I feel your pain. We had just finished our garden when our pup arrived and every time she went outside she ate some of the pea shingle. We had to dig it all up and now just have big areas of concrete- I am hoping we can put it back down for the summer but I'm not sure. Our girl is a bit better in the park (at 7 months now), I think it is because she plays fetch with us or is running round with other dogs, not like when she was younger and we were just running around together and sniffing around (her not me). She still eats leaves and sticks all the time though but is pretty susceptible to bribery. Definitely continue with the leave it and drop (I'm still working on drop). One other thing I did early on that does help to manage some of the hoovering is train our pup to leave anything I drop in the kitchen. It starts with putting food in front of them and rewarding them when they don't go for it. Just pop some treats on the floor and cover with your hand. Then move your hand away and either reward if they don't go for it or cover it back up if they do go for it. Once they have established this, you can add distance by kneeling further away, then standing, then drop with you looking then drop with you not looking. Don't forget to reward. I hope this makes sense, it's just something I did myself, I'm sure there is a properly written up method for this somewhere :-/ Lots of luck, Lou and Tatti
