Opinions/experiences on muzzling to prevent scavenging

My 4.5-month whippet puppy picks up everything and anything she sees/smells on a walk. I'd say every 10-15 secs she is eating something or chewing it, and this will be anything from poo, to plastic, to plantlife.

I know this is normal behaviour for a pup, however there are obvious risks with letting her do this and reasons that I have to prevent her. She's already had one bout of diarrhoea which the vet said was from 'indiscriminate eating'.

I have done a lot of research about 'leave it' training etc, so I'm not looking for advice on that. To be honest, it's quite aggravating reading about leave it training because sometimes it seems like every dog owner/trainer in the world assumes that all dogs will do anything for treats. My puppy hardly cares about treats at all. Sure, in a home environment with no distractions she'll do basic commands for a treat. But if there is a single thing going on (so basically everything on walks) then that will be ten times more tempting to her than a treat and the treat is no distraction or incentive whatsoever. She simply doesn't care about food or treats that much, it's a job just getting her to eat her normal food, so the leave it training techniques I've read about are next to useless.

My question is does anyone have experience with muzzling (using a basket muzzle) to prevent indiscriminate eating on walks? Or does anyone know of what the potential downsides are? (Apart from other people thinking your dog is aggressive which I don't mind about.) I definitely don't want to resort to that if it means she'll have to wear it forever. But I'm wondering if this is just a phase?

It's incredibly frustrating because I have to walk her on the lead all the time, apart from at the enclosed dog park and my garden, meaning that I sometimes use a long lead when in an open area so that she can have a proper sprint around, which she really enjoys. But this makes preventing her from picking things up impossible. It's only if she's on the short lead that I can stop it. But then you get people saying that dogs need to run around etc. Gah! So many contradictions.

Sorry for depressed rant. Bad walk this morning... scooping poo out of her mouth with my fingers, and when I'd finished she bent down and ate the exact pile of poo I'd just taken out of her mouth.

 

Hi Joanne - Thanks for the response. With the poo eating, are you saying I should just let her eat it, if she gets some in her mouth? (I am as vigilant as possible with trying to spot what is on the ground before she does, but this is really really hard, and also results in ME stepping in poo because I'm not looking where I'm going). So far I have been taking the poo out of her mouth if she eats it. This is obviously negative reinforcement which you say is bad. Should I let her eat it? I've read that dogs can get very ill from eating certain types of poo.

Thanks

 

Joanne - Ah great okay, yes that's good advice I will try do it as calmly as possible.

I am thinking of embarking on the leave it training. But you know how, when you know your dog really well and you just know that it's not going to go well? That's how I feel. I've taught her 'drop' already but again, this goes out the window as soon as she has something she wants to eat in her mouth.

I'll try training leave it at home with high value treats but I've read that even with food-orientated dogs leave it training is very difficult, especially when you try and bring what they've learned indoors to the outside environment, so I just think that when she inevitably turns her nose up at the treat reward outside all it's going to do is create more angst between us and make me disappointed and depressed which I don't want to then affect her as it's not her fault after all. Sigh!

 

Thanks for your response Judy. Haha yes I read that about the potato-masher effect too But the poo that she eats tends to be mostly very dry stuff. She also picks up bits of plastic which would be difficult with, say, a fabric muzzle. I've tried doing the 'look at me' thing and she responds okay at home but not at all outside. Sometimes I can't even get her to sit outside which is the most basic of all. Perhaps I just need to persevere. Sometimes I wish I could just turn myself into a robot for the moments when she's misbehaving so I could calmly repeat things a million times without getting annoyed

 

Yes sorry I meant a fabric basket muzzle, not the ones that prevent them opening their mouths. I've heard fabric ones exist which allow room for panting etc but could be wrong, I haven't looked into it.

 

That's what I'm afraid of heh! I'm not sure whether I've just been lucky so far or what, but I know that the diarrhoea was caused by something she ate and even that was a pretty big deal, getting up 4 times per night etc, so I dread to think of surgery etc!

Shizicles haha!

On a related note, I now have THREE reasons that I can't let her off the lead yet, 1) because she's a whippet and they are more likely than other dogs to run off very fast, 2) because she jumps at passing cyclists, runners, pedestrians, and dogs (I know she'll grow out of this but for the time being it's dangerous), and now 3) because she'll be able to eat all manner of things. I'm not sure how one is ever supposed to be able to let a dog off the lead.... And all the while people are saying things like 'you should let them off as early as possible'. I don't understand this perfect world others are living in sometimes

 

Her favourite toy is unfortunately a flirt-pole which is a bit huge to carry on walks, especially when I'm juggling her lead and a bum bag to keep poo bags etc in. I could try with one of the smaller toys but I think what will happen is she will simply desensitize to it pretty quickly once she gets used to hearing a squeak on a walk.

RE the natural yoghurt, she has recently starting having a bit of this every day so I'll persist with that and see if it helps.

Sorry I meant repeating the whole training task, the command,-action-treat cycle, not the command-word itself. Doing something over and over again, without getting annoyed when they're not doing it is just difficult sometimes especially when they've already wound you up by doing other things and if you're already stressed etc.

I've read about the not-repeating a command thing, and wondered - what do you do if you're not supposed to repeat a command? Because after I read that I try to make sure I ask once e.g. I ask her to sit and she completely ignores me even though she can do this very easily. So I just wait. And wait. And wait. Until minutes pass. She is never going to sit. So what do you do then if you can't repeat yourself but you're trying to get her to obey you?

There are no enclosed spaces nearby me unfortunately, there are some 25 mins drive away but she is also unable to travel in the car yet, which is another thing I'm tackling by re-conditioning her to it. You're right, I'm just going to have to keep on trying, and then introduce it slowly in new environments. I don't hold out much hope though. Probably because I'm just very depressed right now!

This is encouraging - I hope so!

And thanks for the muzzle recommendation. I'll have another go at the leave it training and perhaps resort to that if we don't get anywhere.

Thanks all

 

Thanks! A few questions. Mine is 19 weeks old (4.5 months) and you said your pup is 22 weeks and has grown out of it. Can mine really change that much in 3 weeks?

It's nice to know that your adult dogs wear muzzles.

How much yoghurt do you give them each per day?

Thanks