Our 11 week old pup has always enjoyed eating a mouthful of wood chips and bark. I never thought too much of it.... but now she is eating small rocks and gravel from our driveway. Like quite a few. Could this be something lacking in her diet? Like fiber? (she is on a high end grain free right now) Or just fairly normal puppy behavior?
Little monkey ! Sam also did this when he was a puppy , so its a case of not turning your back for long ! It is very normal indeed , but they do need supervising at all times outdoors and to learn the word Leave ! What I used to do, if I spotted Sam helping himself to something , was to offer him something he could have , usually a ball or toy and kept saying the word Leave , they do get it eventually, its just a case of being vigilant and patient too !
Is she swallowing them? Snowie used to play with the gravel in his mouth. At first I was ultra vigilant and taking every piece out of his mouth. When I realized he wasn't swallowing them but just exploring the world through his mouth, I just let him do it. The playing with gravel phase passed quite quickly.
Ash is the same, he's even eaten some small stones and thrown them up during the following night. I have to be quick or he eats them again! We're training a leave but it doesn't always work yet.
Red (13 weeks) is picking up bits of gravel, stones, small pieces of slate. Hate this - find it scary. I have to try to be ultra cool as she would have me chase her. I am saying leave but the more I fuss, the more she wants to run away - she thinks it's a game! She won't be fobbed off with anything else either. I hope too this phase will pass.
Plum did this, anything and everything went in her mouth at that age. She decimated a flower/shrub bed by pulling almost everything out and carrying it around in her mouth whilst running after a ball! If I was concerned about what she was eating I'd make a big song and dance about a treat I had in my hand and she, mostly, exchanged for the treat. Now, at 23 weeks, she does it far less often. In fact, on one of our walks there's a trail of bark chips leading to a back gate and she does a lairy running through it but never puts it in her mouth. A few weeks ago I'd have been frantic that she would swallow it all.
Little monkey indeed! She does swallow the rocks. I have seen a number of them in her poo, a few were larger than I am comfortable with. I've tried to discourage her, but sometimes I wonder if this will just encourage her to eat things when I am not looking. Oh puppy fun!
