This is my third post in the last 24 hours! Haha. I am both new to puppyhood and labs AND a worrier. Have patience with me. My 9 week old kind of makes taking her outside discouraging and frustrating. When we go to our backyard, potty comes first. Then I’d like to play with her and she will if we bring a toy and I have someone to help me, but we keep the leash on her because we have to constantly follow her around keeping her away from stuff she wants to eat or taking things she found that we couldn’t see out of her mouth. She will eat ANYthing. Leaves, grass, bark, rocks, flowers, worms (dead or alive), a grasshopper, a grub... sometimes her nose is glued to a spot in the grass, she’ll dig an opening in the grass to the dirt, and eat dirt. Is this a puppy/lab thing or a health or behavior thing or a diet thing orrrrrrrr?
This is pretty normal puppy behaviour and you are doing great by supervising her closely and keeping her on that leash. I recommend a lightweight 2.5m puppy house line or a tag line, which the pup trails around the house and you can grab it when you need to go outside. Choose an area for toileting which doesn't have loads of stuff in it, like gravel or leaves etc etc - a patch of grass which is just grass. Stand still, waiting for her to toilet and encourage her to move on the leash (movement tends to produce poops and pees faster!) but within that small area you are using for the toilet - don't go wandering all over. Second, if you have a pup which likes to pick stuff up like this, be watchful for signs that she doesn't want to give up these things you remove from her - turning her head away, attempts to run off with whatever it is... These are signs you need to be teaching and using a Drop cue and exchanging whatever she has dropped for a tasty treat - or you can easily 'grow' a resource guarding dog who resents repeatedly having valued items taken off them....
Yes, we have a wire exercise pen in the house and when she’s not in that she is on a leash with a human at the other end because we have two kittens that she wants to play too rough with. She is kept in the grass for pottying, but all the way around the grass is a border of plants and bark and with trees all around us there’s no way to keep leaves out of the grass. She’ll probably be in heaven this fall she all the leaves fall!! You nailed it with your second point. She has definitely learned to pick up her leaf/bark/rock/worm and run and not let us have it. Ok, so we really need to work on drop it. Thank you so much!
Right, so have a hold of the end of the tag line so she can't successfully run off and have you chase her everywhere and make sure you always have treats in your pocket for a Drop. I like Chirag's method because it starts without an object involved at all, so avoids all conflict:
Hi, my 5 1/2 also eats anything and everything, rocks, boxers, socks, poop, and especially leaves....We have been working hard on 'leave it' and if she gobbles up something before I can give her the command, I always keeps treats in my pockets to 'trade' with her and use 'sit' to show her what I want to trade. I never chase her as she will just swallow whatever she has. Repetitive positive reinforcement works...sometime quickly.....sometimes slowly....
Hi LKRG,it's a wonderful but very stressful time isn't it having a puppy, our pup was and still is a chewer and will eat EVERYTHING! We even considered a muzzle because we were so worried she would eat something and be ill. In the end we brought some plastic temporary fencing and put it everywhere,lol. Hopefully we can remove it when she stops eating everything. Your puppy will grow out of it so try not to worry and enjoy her,have fun.
