6 month old eating ROCKS! Help..ideas ?

[Louies Mom]

my 6 month old OEM loves rocks! I follow him around now and teaching "leave it", but he's still grabbing and eating them! He's pooped rocks and has vomited up rocks. Worried he'll get an obstruction.

 

[jcook]

Easy fix, just remove all rocks from your yard. Ha j/k
Not sure what you can do besides teach leave it and replace the rock with an appropriate toy. I really would be on top of making sure he doesn't ingest anymore rocks though. Do you leave him outside unattended often?

 

[Louies Mom]

He's never outside alone, but hadn't realized he was eating rocks. We worked on it a lot and went through a TON of treats..but hopefully it work. Scares me to think he's eating them! We've got an acre..so I follow him all over. Almost comical now..he'll go so far and stop and look at me...like "well, cmon!"

 

[Combat]

I used to have a dog that ate rocks, it can mean the dog is lacking in iron.

 

[DennasMom]

Denna loved mouthing rocks when she was younger, but she grew out of it by the time she was 6 months...
That was about when we started her on raw feeding. So, she gets lots of iron in her beef now... but decided her poop was tasty...

We tried DE (diatomaceous earth), and it seems to be helping!! Might work for a dirt/rock affinity, too? Worth a shot, anyway. Yuppie pet stores will carry "food grade DE" - and some human supplement stores might, too. We only give Denna 1/2+ Tablespoon with ~1cup of water in with her breakfast. I think that might be 25-50% of the recommended dose, but it seems to be doing the trick for us.

 

[trollnorsk]

Zoe our 4 month old EM is doing this too! loves rocks. She actually stops on walks to pick out the crumbling concrete from the crosswalks... I try to stop her, pull her leash, say leave it, treat as a replacement, but she still LOVES them! let me know if anything works!

 

[dsmith91163]

jcook funny you say remove the rocks we did one better then that we concreted over our whole back yard and left the side yard for the dogs to do there business and covered it with out door carpet so there is hardly any dirt or rocks ... so out of site out of mind..good luck

 

[CeeCee]

Is she chewing, mouthing, other things as well? If so, it might be that his jaw is growing and it hurts. Have you tried soaking and freezing a towel and letting him chew on that?

 

[sonya]

Hi I'm new to the group. I hasn't an EM. He was kinda a rescue baby, I catch him chewing on rocks but have never seen him swallow one.

 

[Louies Mom]

good idea about the frozen towel, I will try that. He's a mouthy puppy anyway..but has his fixation with those rocks! I feel bad following him around the yard constantly! Poor guy can't even poop in peace! And my yard is 3/4 acre.............dsmith..you put concrete in your whole back yard??? I have too many rocky areas to remove them..and there'll always be rocks somewhere we go. So i'm hoping to find an alternative to rocks! Thank you all for your input. I will look into the DE as well.

 

[riffy]

Loki still does that! Drives me crazy! He'll walk around all proud till I notice it's a rock he's found in the yard. If I don't take it away from him he'll eventually swallow it after mouthing it for a long time. I've never figured that one out. Of course he eats cloth too if he could get to any. Laundry is always in the closet, cuz of him. They have toys & bones and all sorts of stuff but, he loves rocks for whatever reason. The good part is... he's running out of rocks in the yard after 2 years. LOL

 

[evilfeline007]

My pup did that!!! gravel mostly and I had the same struggle. He actually started guarding the gravel driveway at one point. I used leave it though I had little success. He grew out of it eventually but by spring time I found all these piles of pepples in my grass. I worried about the same thing so I went and bought vet insurance just in case. :S

 

[Louies Mom]

well, at least i'm not alone in the rock eating! He now knows he shouldn't... he'll pick one up and look at me! We're still working on the leave it, but it's exhausting! So worried he'll get a belly full of them! Vet suggested baiting him with nasty tasting rocks..bitter apple or tabasco sauce on some and let him pick them up. We'll try that next! Thanks for all the comments!

 

[M & M]

I had two EM rock hoovers, eating & crapping piles of them out...... I put them on their leashes in back yard, if they tried to pick one up, said "leave it" or "NO" & distracted them with a toy & lots of praise.... It eventually worked......

 

[Hawk Eye Tom]

My English Mastiff "ate" rocks too . He would never swallow them , just rattled them in his mouth . He grew out of this and does not do it anymore . Keep an eye out and hope he grows out of it .

 

[Louies Mom]

M & M, they never became "blocked" from the rocks? Thats my biggest worry! Louie definately swallows them and has been pooping them out, but sometimes I pull very large ones out of his mouth It seems to be getting better slowly - but my yard is full of toys and empty milk jugs now ....trying to give him an alternative. Thought he might be bored.