# rock eating



## jasperblubber (Aug 7, 2015)

got a 5 month old puppy who likes to eat rocks, in the middle of the night he will throw up the rocks with some bile, was looking for the rescue but all they could come up with was things like muzzles and such, to me, thats cruel, i notice that when he has other dogs to wrestle or play with for more than an hour he doesn't eat the rocks, at some point he will get one stuck in his intestines and there goes a chunk out or the bank account, don't really want to lose him but don't have the finances to just wait for surgery, anyone have this issue, i talked to 8 breeders and they all said they had never been given that problem, can't give the dog back to breeder as she will just sell the pup again, any ideas out there, please no muzzle solutions, thats too cruel for a vizsla


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## Bowie628 (Oct 30, 2014)

When Bowie was that age he was always trying to get ahold of wood chips, and occasionally pebbles, to chew on. We worked on 'leave it' and had him wear a check cord in case he tried anyway. Also 'drop it' or 'give' if he got to it first. Then replace the stick/pebble with an acceptable chew toy. He got alot better with this after he stopped teething around 7/8 months.


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## Vizsla_Luka (Sep 8, 2015)

Our 4 month old Luka also eats pebbles - I'm upping the ante with the "leave it" and "Gimme" (drop it) commands by working at home on them every day. I was getting lazy and was only sometimes practicing it, which meant he wasn't doing these commands reliably. I realise how important these commands are, along with recall and "stop", "stay" etc
What's weird is that he seems to want to eat some pebbles and not others. 
Hope your pup grows out of it soon jasperblubber, as Bowie628 mentions, I suspect it's related to teething and therefore don't feel like it would be a life long issue if our pups don't make themselves sick in the mean time.


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## dextersmom (Oct 29, 2013)

Our weim loves rocks. Luckily I don't think she's ever eaten one/would eat one - she just likes to chew on them and carry them around. I'm not comfortable with that either though so I trade her for treats. She's very food motivated so a lot of times she will bring me rocks right away. She's also always supervised. She's grown out of it a lot at a year old, but she'll still do it in the yard. She likes to excavate them for some reason. Definitely a great reason to teach "leave it" and "drop it."

You might look into an Outfox Field Guard. It would look silly, but wouldn't be cruel to the dog at all. It would keep him from swallowing anything outside.


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