I think I could cope with a dog with a sensitive stomach OR a dog who eats other dogs' poo, but the combination is doing my head in! Lottie (8 months) loves eating dog poo but she also has a sensitive stomach which flares up if she eats the wrong things. When this happens, she does large amounts of dense dark poo (she's on a raw diet so this is very different to her normal poo), which sometimes progresses to diarrhoea. She usually poos inside overnight during these episodes, so I have a strong incentive to prevent it! I don't know exactly what disagrees with her yet (I think she may be intolerant to wheat etc and possibly high fat food), but if she eats a lot of poo, it does seem to cause the problem. I've tried lots of things (positive and corrective) to stop her eating it but nothing has had a long-lasting effect and most don't work if I'm not right by her to stop her before she starts eating. This means it's difficult to do things like the about-turn walk or play games (she'll chase a ball and then drop it straightaway to hunt out the next bit of poo). It also means that most walks end up with me fuming and Lottie wondering what's wrong when we've had such a good walk! She is a lovely dog and most things are going pretty well, but I'm finding this poo-eating very trying and I'd love to find a way to stop it. I don't want to use a muzzle but I wondered whether anyone has had any success with a citronella collar for this problem and if there are any disadvantages in using one?
Re: At the end of my tether... Oh that must be so annoying, let alone distressing. I would use a muzzle, and I wouldn't hesitate about it. I think that it is more and more common to see muzzles on dogs, for loads of very good reasons. You can get them with smiley faces on now....and introduce it slowly and carefully so she accepts it. The thing about a citronella collar is that it has to be punishing to work. If it doesn't punish her for a behaviour, it just won't work - and you'd have to punish her enough to overcome eating something she really wants to eat. My bet is it wouldn't work but if it did, I'd want to be sure it was my only option left before I used it (there is a high risk of unintended consequences of using punishment, I think). Personally, I'd try a muzzle first and keep training "leave it" and hope the situation improves as she gets older.
Re: At the end of my tether... Hi Allie You have my sympathies on the poo eating as Juno has always had a liking for snacking while walking, preferably cow or horse but not to fussy! All I can really say is that it does get better! We've always used the leave command and drop it and have rewarded with a treat. Only problem is being able to spot when they are going to pick up before they really get a chance to and reward and praise. At one point I used extra special treats to encourage Juno to leave and used a random word, Bingo in fact, to attract her attention and reward when she came to me and left the poo. Felt a bit of an idiot calling Bingo walking around the lake but it worked ;D. Although we've only just started getting out for short walks after her surgery she was leaving poo alone before her surgery, and hasn't shown any interest in the last few days. So try not to get too frustrated, try and distract Lottie before she touches any poo and reward her when she does. Oh, and not to forget it does get better.
Re: At the end of my tether... I'm with Julie. Id put a muzzle on and train like mad. Riley used to snack on horse poo but a leave it stopped him in the end and then he just seemed to stop bothering. Good luck!
Re: At the end of my tether... Thanks for your help everyone. I'm interested that you think a muzzle is the way to go, as I thought that would be a last resort. It seems so hard if she can't pick up balls and sticks, eat grass etc. Julie, do you think a squirt of citronella wouldn't be enough to stop her eating poo? If I use a muzzle, might she just stick it in the poo to get to it? Can you feed treats with a muzzle? How would I know if/when she'd learnt to stop eating poo? Sorry about all the questions but as a newbie dog owner I feeling my way here .
Re: At the end of my tether... I wouldn't use citronella to discourage as Julie T says it can lead to results you didn't want. I think in this situation the use of a muzzle is a personal choice. I've managed to discourage Juno without the use of a muzzle but with training and treats. It may not be the quickest method and means you have to be very aware of what your dog is doing while out walking but for myself and my trainer a muzzles was never even an option. Not to forget as well that even adult dogs will occasionally snack on something they find while out on a walk ......
Re: At the end of my tether... My dogs are four and still eat a wide variety of muck especially Scott who is particularly fond of rabbit and pigeon muck. He's just had an upset stomach. They have improved though as they've got older but I'm afraid I've never found a way to completely stop them other than a leave cue and distraction. I have trained my dogs to wear muzzles at the vets because they don't like strangers touching them. If you are going to use a muzzle to help train Lottie not to eat muck it needs to be a basket muzzle. I have a Baskerville muzzle but you might prefer a Baskerville ultra muzzle which is rubber so softer. With a basket muzzle a dog can pant, drink and take treats. Yes she might well stick it in some muck and might even still be able to lick the muck but it will stop her eating too much while you train leave. Once she will leave a tasty mound of muck with the muzzle on you know you've cracked it. Unfortunately if she's like my two you might always need to keep an eye on her so you can give the cue leave but she won't always need a muzzle. This is a link to an article by Karen Pryor. It explains why muzzles are a good thing to train your dog to wear and how to introduce them to your dog. http://www.clickertraining.com/node/3948
Re: At the end of my tether... [quote author=Allie link=topic=10531.msg155956#msg155956 date=1428827115] Julie, do you think a squirt of citronella wouldn't be enough to stop her eating poo? [/quote] It really depends on the dog, and how punishing she finds a squirt of citronella - if it gets into her eyes or something, it might be painful. That's the thing, you see. It will only work if it's punishing enough to stop a dog eating something delicious. Eating is such a natural thing to do, even if the dog finds it punishing, you would likely have to repeat it. If it doesn't punish the dog, it won't work. I just wouldn't do it, because I think a lot of routine punishments used by pet owners (I'm just taking "normal" things, not a beating or anything) do create problems, and that's why we see a lot of dogs with strange fears and phobias. But lots of people would give it a go, and wouldn't worry too much about it. Not me though. I don't think you'd have to have her muzzled for long. Just long enough to really train a great leave it, and have her stay close, and in the meantime she stops the habit and stops getting upset tummies. She might hate the muzzle, of course, it which case you might rethink. Although Jen has posted a great link to help you with that.
Re: At the end of my tether... Have you seen this article: http://www.thelabradorsite.com/how-to-stop-your-labrador-eating-rubbish/
Re: At the end of my tether... Thanks. Interesting articles on using muzzles. I think I will have to try one to save Lottie's stomach and my sanity!
Re: At the end of my tether... Oh you poor thing. I'm totally with you as Bonnie is a big poo-eater and I'm afraid I haven't tried to tackle it in a big way because we are still working on safety behaviour (ie recall mostly! ???) I think Pippa's article's really good and I've been thinking about using a very high value treat plus a magic word to see if I can get to grips with the issue. It takes me half an hour to get her car harness on so I can't even begin to imagine the trouble we'd have with a muzzle but I have considered it and wouldn't rule it out if things don't improve. I know exactly what you mean about ignoring the ball because as soon as it lands anywhere near a pile of poo the usually highly-coveted ball is forgotten. However, today I accidentally happened upon a game which led to no poo eating but it was only today so I'm not sure how effective it's going to be. We have two balls, because we're rubbish at letting go of the first one!!! Today I threw ball number 1 and she went to retrieve it. As she was bounding away I sneakily threw ball number 2. When she came back with ball 1 I gave her a treat (so she dropped it) and then said, "Go find your other ball". She knows this command already but, today, because she didn't know where I'd thrown it, she went potty trying to find it. Her tail was wagging like it's never wagged before and she loved it! She was so focused on doing the other thing that comes naturally (retrieving) she totally forgot about poo/eating. Whilst she was looking for ball 2, I threw ball 1... and to borrow a phrase from Julie T - "rinse and repeat". I think I'm half-hoping that the zero tolerance on the lead and when I'm near enough to say "leave it" + the two-ball game when I'm not will mean poo starts to fade as the most interesting option. I'll let you know if we have any luck. Meantime, thinking of you - it ain't nice! ???
Re: At the end of my tether... [quote author=Bonnie link=topic=10531.msg156215#msg156215 date=1428877218] Oh you poor thing. I'm totally with you as Bonnie is a big poo-eater and I'm afraid I haven't tried to tackle it in a big way because we are still working on safety behaviour (ie recall mostly! ???) [/quote] That's what I want to do (recall, coming back, staying close etc) but with the poo-eating, I have to follow Lottie rather than the other way round . While I investigate using a muzzle, I've decided to focus instead on 'leave it' (or rather, 'LEAVE IT!!!!'). So now I'm trying to find the poo (not too difficult unfortunately), so I can practice the leave it command and follow up with a high-value treat. Am I mad?? Finding high-value treats is hard at the moment because Lottie is on a chicken-only diet while we try to work out what causes her stomach problems, so even roast chicken is being to lose its wow factor. Thanks to the other thread on using baby pouches, I'm using whizzed up cat food and squirting some of that out, which Lottie thinks is great .
Re: At the end of my tether... If it helps, Juno was trained with "Leave" at 13 weeks. My trainer and I used treats and put them down in front of her and told her leave. At first just one treat and when she left she received the treat with a "Take" command. A normal response is to look everywhere but at the treat until told to take. Once she left one treat a few more were added and told to leave. you need to say Leave as you put the treat down. Juno had it in a few tries and I have regularly reinforced. Once you have a good leave command you can use it on anything
Re: At the end of my tether... Hi there,persevere with your leave it training....I had a dedicated cat poo snacker when he was younger and Dexter had a sensitive tum too ....he doesn't bother so much now and walking alongside me he will reliably leave ..I still struggle if he's a little way away from me ,he'll have a quick smash and grab randomly .....bit that's the story of my life,I'm always 'just nearly there ' ;D It's hard not to get disheartened,irritated and down in the dumps but everything does get better and easier and you will get to enjoy your walks together x
Re: At the end of my tether... Hi, your past really sounds like how Molly was when she was eight months old. Her poo eating was annoying me so much that it was spoiling our walls and she used to suffer the runs if she ate too much of it. I think like others have said the key is perseverance and consistency. There's no one silver bucket to tackle this issue. One thing that I found helpful with molly was to pop her back on a lead for a while and approach some poo and then wait for her to choose to look at me rather than the poo and then click and and treat - with a massive treat. To start with I kept a distance from the poo so she couldn't actually take a bite - I just wanted to capture and reward her for choosing to look at me and get rewarded instead. We then progressed to a training lead for several months before I tried her off lead. We're now about 6 months down the line with this approach and around 98% of the time she will choose to leave a pile of poo without any cue or intervention from me and then comes to me for a tasty reward. I'm still using high value treats to ingrain this new behaviour. I really like that she is offering this behaviour without me having to shout 'leave it' all the time as that was also spoiling our walks. Occasionally I'll intervene if she's hovering over a pile but that is getting less frequent. Stick with it and you'll get there. I'd also think really hard before using a citronella collar or something similar.
Re: At the end of my tether... Sorry just noticed there are loads of typos in that last post - long day and apple auto correct are not good combinations! I meant your post not past - walks not walks and clearly silver bullet rather than bucket! ;D
Re: At the end of my tether... Allie, I just wanted to report back and say that with a week of vigilant "no" and treat replacement therapy, I've got Bonnie's poo-eating down to about 50% of what it was.... hope that offers a bit of light at the end.... By this I mean, by being reminded of the stricter policy, she's choosing not to eat it because she a) knows I don't like it and b) knows she won't get her chicken! xP
Re: At the end of my tether... [quote author=Bonnie link=topic=10531.msg157438#msg157438 date=1429391429] Allie, I just wanted to report back and say that with a week of vigilant "no" and treat replacement therapy, I've got Bonnie's poo-eating down to about 50% of what it was.... hope that offers a bit of light at the end.... By this I mean, by being reminded of the stricter policy, she's choosing not to eat it because she a) knows I don't like it and b) knows she won't get her chicken! xP [/quote] Well done Philippa, that's are a really good improvement. Carry on with the new regime and you'll soon have to really think as to when Bonnie last picked up any poo. Oh and don't be too surprised if Bonnie regresses at some point, you just have to change the treats.
Re: At the end of my tether... Thanks Rosemary, it's good to know we're heading in the right, sweet-smelling direction! She's definitely getting the picture judging by today's walk - hurrah!
Re: At the end of my tether... Juno's quite funny sometimes about poo. When she sees some she approaches slowly and looks at me as if to say "Are you going to call me and treat me to leave" and then comes towards for a reward all pleased with herself for not touching ;D Generally now she will approach poo and have a cursory sniff and then look at me and leave it.
