Hi All, This is a quick question. Barney Boy is obsessed with chewing stones. We have dry stone walls around the garden and stone fireplaces etc. He chews on them all the time and picks up little stones from the garden and grinds them around and around his mouth. Is this okay ??
Others will have more expert comments, but my pup does the same thing. I assume it's not ok if they swallow a stone, so I always try to get the stone out of her mouth - ideally by getting her to take a toy or a treat, but if I don't have one handy I just take the stone out of her mouth. It's difficult though, because she now knows that I usually want to take what she's eating (snails and sticks are her other favourites) and so either tries to dodge me or brings it up to me for a treat, depending on how much she wants to keep hold of it. I'd like to know what to do too!
That could be potentially dangerous and I wouldn't allow it. Can you distract him with something he is allowed to chew, a stuffed Kong, for example?
It's definitely not ok - terrible for teeth, even if they don't swallow, and yes, those puppy teeth matter. I have slate chippings in my back garden. Every single time my pup has picked one up, I just distract her with something (come, sit, let's run, let's play, how about you chase this twig...) that ends up in me being able to put a treat on her nose for doing something I wanted her to do. I never chase her, never take the stone out of her mouth, but I've distracted her endless times now. It's only been 10 days (seems like longer!) but she is no longer picking them up.
Definitely not good. Distraction is the way forward as described above. Both my lab and spaniel did this but both gave up eventually
My boy does this too - I have to exchange it for a treat, if its a particularly lovely stone it can be a bit of a bartering to get him to drop it! He also picks up sticks and just to gross me out snails too! All are now dropped at my feet and not being chewed any more!
It does stop. I had a terrible stone chewer, she would even dig for them in the garden. But at 7 months she rarely picks one up. We have quite a good "drop it" trained as a result!
Bramble was awful for picking up stones. Like JulieT we never took them out of her mouth, however I always has a toy or treats in my pocket when on our driveway (lots of gravel..). She did get used to this and try to slink off with bits in her mouth to her crate, so I would have to carefully check her before she got to her crate and play a game to distract her. She grew out of this by about 4 months old, although every now and then she will find something intensely exciting and try and take it bed. Last night it was something from the bottom of the pond...UGH!
Willow was terrible for this as a young pup, and we developed good "drop it" and "leave it" cues. She wasn't interested in pebbles, just big rocks - the bigger the better, and preferably from the bottom of a stream, puddle or pond, having dug all the mud up from the bottom first... She did grow out of it. But she also seems to have grown back into it, and has been picking up rocks for chewing again recently. So we're back at the "leave it" stage, which is a bit tiresome, but I'm sure it's just a phase which will pass again.
My dog was a nitemare for this.....we had to change parts of the garden he was so bad.Distraction,supervision, substitution with toys ,food, Ice cubes ,training 'drop' and 'leave' all helped with it.It putmy own teeth on edge knowing he could potentially damage his own.....he can still be a little monkey and go hunting for one now but he tends to toss it up in the air rather than chew down on it x
Thanks for the advice. This is turning into a nightmare. He is obsessed with stones. The second he goes out he grabs a stone, I get a toy to swap. 5 seconds later he gets bored with the toy and gets another stone. On and on and on ........... I have to micro manage him every second we go outside. The second I stop playing or training he grabs a stone. Im really finding this tough. I can't change the garden ? I don't think I am enjoying this at the moment. My Wife and daughter see him for an hour in the morning and after school work etc. So they get all the good stuff and can't see why I am struggling. Although I am at home with him I still have to work, so can't give him 100% round the clock attention.
Oh they can test you for sure....we got Dexter at 5 months and every night he would keep going to the back door ...he was young enough and new enough to us for us to not be confident it wasn't a request for the toilet....no,it was stone hunting and wanting to pull up the irrigation pegs....it drove us mad.I live in Dubai and we have a lot of visitors.....and we had a lot around this time so the garden was available to him a lot....if we couldn't occupy him then he went on his lead and someone held him......by occupying you have to get inventive ....frozen kongs have always been our friend ,and they are easy and really the ice cubes made a difference....try them and see if they work for you.Toilet rolls hidden all round the garden in easy to find places with little pieces of food in were a big hit too.....what he is doing is absolutely normal although it's so annoying ,he's only little now and it will get better when he's got his teeth through........
It is annoying, because you do want a young puppy to be able to scamper round a garden, doing their own thing for a bit, but you can't really have him chewing on stones. I do agree with Angela, that finding way to engage your puppy in things that will take his mind off the stones is the way to go. Also, you can train default behaviours in the garden too - eg lie on a mat etc. it's helpful for later, but it does mean the puppy doesn't get much free play exercise unfortunately.
Hi All, That sounds like good advice, but I cannot suppervise him every second he is in the garden. Like wise in my study or the living room I cannot get rid of every wire or stone fireplace. Unless he is asleep, or being played with he is obsessed with doing things that might injure him. Like I mentioned its okay when the rest of my family are around but during the day I cannot be offering him alternatives every second. He ripped atart a rhodadendron this afternoon. I had every toy and distration possible but each time after 2 seconds he just sprinted back to the plant. In the end I had to pick him up and take him inside as my daughter and I just couldnt control him. I started to feel my frustration rising. I feel like this is a losing battle and I am going to be the one that means he has to go back. I tried to do as much preping for this as I could ver the last few weeks but at the moment I cant feel any joy.......................
Well, in your living room you can get rid of every wire and the stone fireplace - or at least you can put them out of reach of the puppy. You can use dog pen panels or other barricades, you can put wiring inside plastic pipes, you can put your dog on a lead, or train him to lie on a mat. Or, you don't have to have the dog in the living room. I know it sounds a faff, but my older dog was also the type of puppy that would kill himself left to his own devices, once I had put in the effort to make two rooms completely 'puppy safe' it was a lot more relaxing having him around. There really isn't an alternative but to supervise your puppy while in the garden and have him on a long line if necessary - just restrict his choices to engaging in more constructive things to do. This doesn't have to involve you just taking away stones. If you can't let a puppy play freely because they will injure themselves on stones, then try laying kibble trails all around the garden, building piles of interesting things with toys and food hidden inside and use these activities as rewards for bits of training and so on. Again, I know this sounds like a faff, but it's not an unusual thing to have to do, and your dog will benefit from this early training for the rest of his life.
It's a really hard time at the start and you have to be as patient as you possibly can because I assure you it does get so much better. My Mole was a terror in the garden - stones, twigs, clumps of lawn, flowers. I just worked really hard at swapping for a treat or toy. It felt relentless at the time but all if s sudden he just stopped. He dies puck up the odd shoe or sock to bring to me (for a treat swap) but the garden picking up has stopped and did a while ago. I suggest you have some chews if he is mouthy (mine was and still needs to chew) - rope toys, nylabones, rawhide was fantastic (supervised) in providing a distraction. We tied a rope from a tree with big knots in the end. He loves to play "tuggy" with it to this day and will happily trot over and tug at the rope. I think you need to accept that puppies explore with their mouths (plus teething) and the more you can do to distract or offer alternatives the quicker you will get there. Cardboard boxes are great. Empty plastic bottles (minus the top are also great. Don't despair - it really doesn't go on for long in the scheme of things and then you will have this wonderful pup that you couldn't imagine being without. Sam and Mole (8mo.)
Also in our living room we just blocked off certain areas with pieces of the puppy pen so we didn't have to worry all the time about wires. He still punches coal out of the coal scuttle when I'm not looking as he thinks it's a great game but does now bring it to me!
I put my dogs in a large child's playpen in the garden. It's about 2m x 2m. You can make a temporary pen with plastic fencing and posts like they'd use to fence off an area for workmen on the road or buy a puppy playpen.
I have baby-gated off the kitchen for mine - but my partner bought a great puppy pen for his house. https://www.doghealth.co.uk/collections/puppy-pens (We got the K900 and the extra height is I think worth it). Obviously there are loads of options for puppy pens but I think this is a really good design. It gives the pup a lot more room than a crate, and it has a floor which means that any toilet accidents are easily cleaned up. And it's easy to put up/take down if you want to move it around. This might be worth getting if you want to have the puppy primarily in your study or the living room but can't supervise it all the time. It's quite expensive as puppy pens go but much less expensive than a new sofa/rug/curtains/computer.....
I feel your pain. I really, really struggled with tiny puppyhood too. It is demanding and stressful and hard to get anything done. From personal experience it is wise to supervise garden time as for us stone chewing moved on to plant eating and we are now enjoying hole digging the minute I turn my back (our lawn looks like a war zone). It does get better, however as once they are house trained they 'need' to be outside less, so sadly at the moment time outside is supervised and we play games and train to steer her off any naughtiness! At other times when I need to be getting on with things she is inside and has a Kong or a plastic bottle of treats to play with. This used to be in her crate, but now she seems fine in the kitchen unsupervised, although I do leave her in her crate still if we go out! If you can gate off one safe area in your house I highly recommend it. It just means you can get on with life without worrying about them getting into trouble. For us this is still the kitchen and she still doesn't have unsupervised access to the rest of the house at 7 months, this was far longer than anticipated, but it works for us. She is however able to leave the kitchen when I can watch her. It honestly does get better, as you start to train her you will be able to get her to drop offending items and get her to return to you. I really hope things get better.
