Hi everyone! I've had my puppy, Morty, for just about a week now and overall he's been an absolute joy, although very trying at times! This site has been a godsend in reassuring me that his behaviour is very common for labs and that I'm not alone, equally a lot of the tips and advice have worked a treat in curbing some of his naughtier behaviours! However, one thing I am majorly struggling with is when we're out in the garden. I typically use this time as an excuse to practice recall with him and good leash walking in anticipation of taking him out once he's had his final injections. My problem though, is that he's only interested in picking up every stone, pebble, bit of moss, cigarette butt or wrapper that he sees. Naturally, my first instinct is to stop him or get it from his mouth (I try to do this as calmly as possible) but he treats this as a game, gets excited, goes for another item, gets even more excited, you see where I'm going... I've read the page on calming your pup on this site, which recommended walking him away from the situation, however in his wild state he just attacks his leash so walking him continues the hyping up process. Does anyone have any advice? Am I doing anything wrong, or is this just an exercise in extreme patience?
It’s so common I’d say it’s completely normal. I wouldn’t take anything out of his mouth. Have a few pieces of kibble ready and scatter that - then when he drops the stone/stick/whatever say ‘give’. He’ll soon learn to give you anything for a ‘swap’. Here is a good article - https://www.thelabradorsite.com/excited-puppy/ And welcome to you from Mags, Tatze and Keir from Manchester UK Tatze is my pet dog, a black Lab and she's five years old. Tatze means 'paw' in German. Keir is my sixth Guide Dog puppy, a yellow Golden Retriever/Flatcoat cross and he's nine months old.
That seems completely normal as it was the same for us a few months ago. One mistake I made though, was as Boogie mentions, I would take stuff from him as if he was being naughty, which led on to him running away from me on the beach with half a dead seagull in his mouth multiple times. Have turned that around now, but if I was you I would use it as training to drop / give / swap etc. depending on where you want to go with the training eventually.
I agree not to get into the habit of taking stuff from him. Here’s a post (4th in the thread - I can’t direct link on my phone) to teach him to give you stuff: https://thelabradorforum.com/threads/teaching-drop-give-and-leave-it.21345/ My latest pup would pick gravel up a lot. She didn’t eat it, so I didn’t make a big deal of it and she grew out of it. I’d switch it for a treat if I wanted her to drop it, but most of the time ignoring the behaviour meant I wasn’t drawing attention to it, which could be reinforcing for the puppy. Of course, if your puppy is eating the stones, this can be very dangerous and in that case I would restrict access to them. I’d be giving my garden a good going-over to remove all cigarette butts as I wouldn’t want a puppy regularly picking these up.
Thanks all, I'll be sure to try these out! Unfortunately hes had an upset tum the last couple of days and my vet has him on a pretty strict diet which consists of a wet food only, which isn't the most practical to use as a treat so training of this sort hasn't been the easiest. snowbunny, believe me I give my garden a thorough going over at every opportunity to remove as much potential risks as I can, unfortunately I have some pretty disgusting neighbours with no regard for anyone but themselves
If you get hold of some baby food pouches, you can blitz the wet food into a paste (you may need to add a little water) and then squeeze a little out of the nozzle for training treats These are the ones I have used: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0...d=1523535373&sr=8-14&keywords=baby+food+pouch
What a good idea! I've been looking for ways to give him 'high reward' treats and a pouch like that would be great and it looks super convenient too! Incidentally, I've been training him to walk loose leash the last day or two and I've noticed that I seem to have also unintentionally reduced his 'eat everything he sees' habit too by doing this
