Dog eating stones

eeyore2502

We have a 7 month old springer who seems to think eating stones is a good idea. Everytime he does he ends up getting sick.

Anyone else had similar problems and how did you manage to stop him from eating things he shouldn't??

Thanks

gud4u

My dog used to do this, I stopped him by teaching him the 'leave it' command and watching him. also giving him other chew toys.

Is he getting stones at home, if so, you can remove them.

We have gravel in the back yard so I had to teach him to stop. He's 22months now and almost grown out of it. Now he just drops them at my feet. I say nothing and bin it so there's no fun in it for him

It's important you stop him as if he gets a bowel obstruction/chokes it would be very,very serious with big vet bills.....or none at all iykwim.

Everytime he picks up a stone, say leave it and when he drops it, give him a treat. You can start inside, getting him to leave toys down. then outside, it'll take time but it's the only way.

Hope that helps.

Vince32

I had a dog who used to grind his teeth on small stones, and would happily fetch them if you were inclined to throw them.

But swallowing them ! eek watch the leave it command on YT and practice practice practice, can't imagine the pain of actually trying to pass one of them.

You need to get to work buddy

gregers85

Might be worth checking the diet or even going to Vets! Have seen dogs with an iron deficiency do this!!

Qui

I had a springer who did this! It resulted in one very very sick dog with a bowel obstruction. Thankfully it was removed in time and he recovered well but there was a massive vets bill.

He was 9 at the time so it was hard to break the habit with stones, he saw them as a toy. We always made sure he had loads of tennis balls etc as alternatives and other chewy things and many a time had to stick the handy in to retrieve one he had in his mouth.

Seen as he is so young a drop it command would be quite easy to teach I'd imagine..

eeyore2502

So far when he eats them he seems to get sick and bring them back up later that night.

He has tonnes of toys, more toys then our other dogs ever had.

We don't think he is getting them in our garden as our garden is decked and all paved. We think he is getting them from a neighbours garden, when we come back from our walk we let him run in the green at the front of the house and when we are coming in home he charges for our neighbours garden and seems to eat something but have never seen what it is. The last few days we have been letting him carry his tennis ball in home to distract him from the garden and so far he hasn't been sick on another one since.

We have him on Royal Canin puppy food and seems to be doing well on that and putting on a little bit of weight. We had him on another brand and he was very skinny so seems to be doing well since the change over.

Thanks for the help guys.