Hi I have a five month old lab who is obsessed with eating sticks, nothing else. He doesn't destroy furniture, he doesn't try to eat litter - just sticks. He is pretty good at spitting the sticks out but I have to constantly tell him to "drop it!". I've tried giving him a treat when he drops the stick but I stopped that pretty quickly because it felt like I was just rewarding him for having the sticks in the first place. He is on a good quality food from tails.com and has plenty of chew toys. I'm at a loss and just hoping someone here can help. Playing fetch is a non-starter because all he cares about is eating stick. He does play with other dogs but after ten minutes, he prefers to just go off and (you guessed it) - eat sticks! Is this just part of the teething stage. I've read that teething carries on until around seven months? I could put one of those mouth cage muzzles on him when we go out but I REALLY don't want to do that. At a loss - any pointers or advice would be HUGELY APPRECIATED! Thanks Phill
This is Sam. He is 4 months. He loves sticks as well and has left the furniture alone. I used to obsess about him not getting any wood bits in his mouth for too long. I gave up. He seems to know how to handle it.
There are lots of reasons for stick eating, including boredom, and most chew toys don't satisfy the urge to gnaw on wood that some puppies seem to have. He may grow out of it, but it's probably a good idea to break the habit at this point if you can. Some ideas: Provide 'chew roots' at home, these may help satisfy the urge to chew on hard stuff. Engage with your dog more closely on walks, so intersperse free running and sniffing with frequent short training exercises to keep your dog interested and busy. Teach the dog to play tug, so that you can use this as a reward. Teach a clicker retrieve at home so that later on you have a way to give your dog hard exercise outdoors under controlled conditions.Try to walk on grassy areas where there are less opportunities to find sticks. Make sure you always have some high value treats and a tug toy with you out on walks, and do continue to offer nice treats in exchange for sticks, then immediately distract the dog with a fun training exercise or a game, and the opportunity to earn more food from you.
Luna is 9 months and LOVES sticks!! She tries to 'drag' massive branches or sticks as of course the bigger the better and she needs to have it so understandably cant leave it behind. Until she realises that its a bit much effort and will get her ball again. Even when we are playing with the ball she will bring it back and if she sees a stick, drop the ball to start gnawing/breaking said stick then when I walk over to pick the ball up to throw she takes the ball and keeps moving ... until the next one. She isn't bored and doesn't destroy anything in the house when alone she just loves sticks when she is out. When she was about 16 weeks she carried a stick home from the park and would not drop it until she was in the house
I am having the same exact problem. Larger sticks he will drop. He will “leave it” with almost everything, including food on counter tops. But he gets sticks and will grind it up and swallow them. It is maddening. I doubt he has pica. He gets sticks and grinds them we are on walks. He is destructive with nothing. He is a wonderful now 7 month old. I hoped this would go away when he got his adult teeth. what possible medical condition could I look at to be a cause. It upsets me when I see small sticks in his stool.
