Finn is mostly very good and adorable and we are lucky to live in a lovely area where we can go for walks on the beach or through woods. He stays with me, comes (almost!) as soon as I call him. BUT...he often finds things he shouldn't eat. There seem to be a lot of dead fledgelings in the woods at the moment, on the beach it's crabs, usually smelly and rotting. If he finds something I can't get him to leave it. At home I can persuade him to hand over stolen shoes, but a dead bird is a great game. Every time I get close he dances out of reach. I've tried coaxing him with his favourite treats but nothing works. I have to stand by until he devours the whole thing, feathers and all. He has had a few upset tummies already, once requiring antibiotics. I don't want to have to keep him on a lead but we are running out of places we can safely walk.
Personally I would put him on a long line as every time you call him and he doesn’t come it’s reinforcing to him that he doesn’t have too. Total recall is a great book to help this
Hi @PatG , I agree with @Leanne82 get hold of the book Total Recall. As she says, by ignoring your recall signal, Finn is learning that it's a great game, reinforced by the lovely yummy rewards he has found for himself! The book is great, I find that I often do the exercises with Cassie, who is 2, just for the pleasure of working with her. Like many Labradors she too is a great one for finding yummy things to munch, but the more I train her to be near me, the better it gets. If that makes sense.
I have The Labrador Handbook. Maybe I should get Total Recall too, but Finn is actually very good about running to me when I call him. He wasn't running away from me, just dancing around me just out of reach in an infuriating way! He ran straight to me when he'd finished eating his dead bird! I found links on the Labrador site on how to stop your dog eating everything and how to stop him stealing which are useful but even Pippa seems to be saying that if your puppy has his mouth full of (to him) a yummy dead bird it takes a lot of training to persuade him to drop it. I can get him to walk past a little heap of kibble on the floor and not touch it.
Hi Pat, a dead bird is very yummy to a puppy or grown dog so the training is best started at the puppy stage. Imagine someone asking you to give up your favourite cream cake!! I can get my rescue boy Charlie to drop anything dead or alive! He was munching on a dead bird in our garden yesterday so I asked him to "drop" he did so I gave him a treat I happened to have in my pocket but this has taken a lot of training. He has also 'drop' a live pheasant too! Start by exchanging anything Finn picks up, shoes, socks etc. for really good high value treats and give him tons of praise. There are people on the forum currently working on this problem which includes eating all kinds of poo and they are using a long training line to stop self rewarding. Here is the link:- long-line-success-now-what.24292 How old is your puppy? x
In shame I have to admit to still struggling with Molly's tendency to grab and eat anything unspeakably foul and stinky - and she's now 2
Finn is just over 4 months, still a baby really. The long line forum is interesting. I will give it a try. I hate restricting him to a short lead when he is mostly very good and has so much fun running free.
Finn is very young so there's lots of time to do your training. Start as I suggested by exchanging whatever Finn brings to you for a really good treat and lots of praise, do this every single time. Please do not use a long line on a flat collar you must use a back fastening harness to avoid permanent damage to your pups neck. Also practise, practise, practise your recall again with high value treats to start of with. If you haven't already got a copy of Total Recall I highly recommend you buy one as it gives you lots of excersises to work through, recalling your puppy away from people, food, dogs and there's lots of information on proofing this training. Also do fun things with Finn so that he wants to be with you, try running in the opposite direction so that he follows you, play hide 'n seek etc. All fun things will keep your dog interested in you and hopefully not on dead creatures but it takes a lot of training but it's worth it. x
Oh, ok Charlie. I didn't know that about the flat collar, I'm glad you told me. I have a back fastening harness so I'll use that. We do play hide and seek, etc. He runs after me no matter how often I change direction. I realise I'm writing on here about problems, but I know Finn is actually very good for 4 months and his training is going really well. I carry bits of cooked chicken around with me for the times he needs something extra good. I'm working on tipping the balance towards rewarding rather than bribing,. I'm retired and live alone (apart from my lovely Finn) so we are together 24 hours a day and we have loads of fun! He is hilarious and often impossible not to laugh at, especially when he has been naughty. The information and support on this forum has been a great help, thank you!
I can tell you how I overcame the ‘dead seagull’ problem with Molly which might help. Firstly I sounded very pleased and excited when she picked up a dead bird (need to hone acting skills ). This meant she would come to me to show me. Then I put her on lead but didn’t try to take the bird away. With a lead on I was able to stop her sitting or lying down and she won’t eat a bird unless she can put the bird on the ground and use a paw to hold it. I waited and eventually she dropped the bird. I moved her away and rewarded with food. Then I picked up the bird and gave it back to her. Repeated process several times and eventually she was willing to hand me the bird immediately. On the last go when I wasn’t going to give it back, I gave lots of food and made a really big fuss of her. The key thing is not to sound revolted or try to grab.
Joy, that sounds brilliant, though quite hard work to achieve! I wonder could I manage it. It would be a bit of an uphill battle because I have been trying unsuccessfully to get him to leave dead birds. He definitely sees it as a game where I'm trying to get the thing he's making sure I can never reach. I have realised, mostly as a result of reading advice on here, that Finn plays the same game with everything he knows I'm going to take away, from garden trowels to my flipflops.
This is something I will now have to read as our 14 week old puppy ate something dead the other day he would not come to us. Then yesterday he went back to same area and found a dead baby squirrel and thankfully we were able to get him before he ate it but we will need to figure this out too. Our 11 yr old lab has never done that so this was quite a startling to see it's common.
