# Stop stick chewing and eating



## CCoopz (Jun 2, 2020)

Sorry Cani ask what do you mean ‘trauma to her gums’? 
I never throw sticks for my golden as know it’s dangerous. Also I redirect him from chewing sticks when on walks. 
But similar issues with twigs in the garden. To be honest I had thought I would have to live with the twig chewing as yeah otherwise I’d have to rake the garden every day!


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## kanneno (Jan 23, 2016)

You can always try redirecting her with a bully stick or a raw bone. Something that she can eat that might be equally as interesting as a stick. Killian, my Golden, does the same thing when we are camping. So I always take some extra yummy treats that take time to eat with us. Keeping them mentally stimulated as well can help too. I just purchased a Snuffle Map from Amazon that Killian loves! He seems fairly exhausted after that.


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## 136497 (Apr 23, 2016)

CCoopz said:


> Sorry Cani ask what do you mean ‘trauma to her gums’?
> I never throw sticks for my golden as know it’s dangerous. Also I redirect him from chewing sticks when on walks.
> But similar issues with twigs in the garden. To be honest I had thought I would have to live with the twig chewing as yeah otherwise I’d have to rake the garden every day!


what I mean by trauma to the gums is that there are indents on the side of her gums, looks like it's scraped by sticks when she chews them.


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## 136497 (Apr 23, 2016)

hi y'all, 

so I'm still having trouble with my dog eating sticks in the backyard. I've tried bully sticks but found they are not safe, at least in my case. They are super sharp and too small and barely last. 

I give her enough activity (physical and mental) and she does this everytime i take her out in the backyard.

Anybody, please give some tips!


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## Ontariodogsitter (Feb 23, 2020)

I was hoping somebody was going to come up with a magical solution for that one, I have exactly the same problem.
Our environment is open field and forest and no way to limit access to sticks branches and tree bark and they all seem to be an irresistible invitation to our 8 month old girl.

Loves to carry branches, no problem there, but I have yet to figure out a way to distinguish carrying, which is fine and starting to chew, not so fine and eating, not good at all.

She knows "leave It" , "drop it" and "give", but all these only work when I am standing beside her, the moment she is out of sight it's party time !!!

I have even tried spraying her favorite trees with soapy water, apparently it just adds a bit of an interesting flavor, didn't even slow her down. 

Addy in search of the next stick


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## Tagrenine (Aug 20, 2019)

pt3407 said:


> hi y'all,
> 
> so I'm still having trouble with my dog eating sticks in the backyard. I've tried bully sticks but found they are not safe, at least in my case. They are super sharp and too small and barely last.
> 
> ...


I understand this may not be super helpful, but perhaps instead of letting her in the back and to play mindlessly with sticks, you could try to encourage an auto fetch when she finds a stick? 

Maybe give a good reward every time she brings a stick to you and work on reinforcing the behavior for every stick she finds?


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## Ontariodogsitter (Feb 23, 2020)

Any input is appreciated, it's not easy to explain the actual mechanics of what happens here 
there is no mindless playing with sticks, just carrying happily while walking thru the forest and in a blink of an eye, chewing....
At this point I feel like I am forcing her to chew as fast as she can, because she knows I will ask for it and offer a lovely treat, you would think piece of bacon would trump a rotten pice of wood, but not necessarily so.


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## LZL (Feb 2, 2020)

I have a 14 month old golden retriever girl, who ate sticks since the day I got her (at 8 weeks). I couldn’t stop her. When she was around 6 months old it turned into a real obsession. Her whole life was about eating sticks. Maybe people think this is exaggerated, but believe me, it’s not, lol. I tried EVERYTHING to stop her. The last couple of weeks it finally looks like we are getting over this problem. I believe that if my dog can get over this, any dog can, if you work hard enough. A combination of things is what is contributing to our succes.
1. Teaching her a solid “leave it”. You have to train this everyday. Not just with sticks (that’s university level), try it out with easier stuff first. This “leave it” doesn’t work on it’s own when you have a dog that is actually obsessed with stick eating. But it’s still important that your dog understands what this command means (even if they choose to disobey). 
2. 100% not letting them eat another stick for a long period of time. You have to break the habit. I used a muzzle on my dog. It’s important to habituate them to the muzzle before you are gonna use it on walks.
3. After a couple weeks of muzzle wearing, the stick eating habit is a bit less. With my dog, I could sometimes walk her without a muzzle. BUT, I had to watch her like a hawk. When she even looked at a stick, or sniffed at a stick, I would correct her with a loud “ehhhh!!”. It’s important that you correct BEFORE the stick chewing happens, because the chewing itself is rewarding. You have to avoid this self reward. Now my dog had the choice to listen to my correction (leaving the stick alone), or keep chewing. If she left the stick alone I would reward her a jackpot and a lot of praise and playing tug. If she chose to keep chewing I would literally open her mouth with my hands, pick every little bit of wood out of it (to not give her the self reward), and muzzle her immediately. The muzzle wouldn’t come of for the rest of the walk. They will learn really quick that “leaving it” is rewarding, and keep chewing is a punishment with nothing positive about it at all.
4. If I couldn’t watch her for 100% or if I just was too lazy to pay that much attention, I would put the muzzle on. The whole point of this training is to stop self rewarding, stick chewing. So I had to be 100% consistent in not letting her eat more sticks.
5. While doing all this muzzle and “leave it” training, I taught her to carry a food dummy in her mouth too. In the dummy I put a bully stick (smelly and delicious). At the end of my walk, 1 minute away from my house, I would give her the food dummy and she would be extremely focused to carry it home. Every walk, I made the carry time a bit longer. From 1 min to 1,5 minute, to 2 min... the carrying time needs some training. It doesn’t come out of the blue that your dog is motivated enough to carry a dummy for a whole walk haha. It’s important to have big rewards in the dummy that they will receive at home. A working dog with a dummy in the mouth doesn’t have time for eating, lol  

After a couple weeks with this method my dog is almost done with chewing sticks. Once in a while she will still take a stick in her mouth (out of habit), but when I say “eh!!” she will immediately drop the stick. Before the muzzle training she would just ignore my correction. My loud “ehh’s!!!” are now slowly turning into softer “leave it’s”.
I know muzzle training sounds kinda drastic, but it’s the only thing that worked for us. And we tried a whole lot of other stuff. Because of her stick eating obsession we came close to surgery once. So drastic measures were necessary.

I hope I can help someone with my solution. Just wanted to add that this behavior is trainable if you just keep working on it. Don’t be discouraged. A well trained dog is a dog that you can give a lot of freedom.


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## Ontariodogsitter (Feb 23, 2020)

Thank you for taking the time to post incredibly helpful hints.
I think I will have to resort to a muzzle if I want to let her off leash, your post just brought in to focus the fact that as long as she gets one stick chew, it will always be a favorite.

So far out of desperation I have started to give her a marrow bone to chew for 20 minutes before every walk, it seems to have diminished the usual stick hunt, but for us to be able to just have her hang around with us in the back yard without constant yelling orders at her I think muzzle is the answer.
I may just have to repeat that to myself several times over  Thank you.


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## LZL (Feb 2, 2020)

Ontariodogsitter said:


> Thank you for taking the time to post incredibly helpful hints.
> I think I will have to resort to a muzzle if I want to let her off leash, your post just brought in to focus the fact that as long as she gets one stick chew, it will always be a favorite.
> 
> So far out of desperation I have started to give her a marrow bone to chew for 20 minutes before every walk, it seems to have diminished the usual stick hunt, but for us to be able to just have her hang around with us in the back yard without constant yelling orders at her I think muzzle is the answer.
> I may just have to repeat that to myself several times over  Thank you.


Good luck. The pro to the muzzle is not only that they can’t eat sticks, but it’s extremely calming for the dog and for YOU, that you don’t have to correct all the time. Correcting over and over is just really frustrating and has negative effects on your bonding. My dogs recall got worse because I was a never ending correction machine, before I brought in the muzzle.. At first I was hesitant with the muzzle. In the beginning my dog was a bit frustrated for having to wear it. And people gave me weird looks on walks. Now we are both used to it (she doesn’t really mind the muzzle anymore, and I don’t really mind the stigma anymore haha). Because she is comfortable with the muzzle I don’t have to hesitate to put it on when relaxing in the backyard. She almost doesn’t need it anymore and I could have never imagined that. And if she goes in the wrong, I just put it on again like some sort of “time out”. I wonder how good she will do in another couple of months


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## DevWind (Nov 7, 2016)

If you ever find the answer, let me know! I have 4 dogs, which equals lots of chewed up sticks! My patio sometimes looks like someone used a wood chipper!


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## Ontariodogsitter (Feb 23, 2020)

I have used muzzle before on a Samoyed who loved people and hated dogs, when I purchased the muzzle my husband said "he will never get used to it" !!!
By third walk Sami would go and get his muzzle because in his mind it meant going for a walk


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## Ontariodogsitter (Feb 23, 2020)

LZL said:


> Correcting over and over is just really frustrating and has negative effects on your bonding. My dogs recall got worse because I was a never ending correction machine, before I brought in the muzzle..Because she is comfortable with the muzzle I don’t have to hesitate to put it on when relaxing in the backyard. She almost doesn’t need it anymore and I could have never imagined that. And if she goes in the wrong, I just put it on again like some sort of “time out”. I wonder how good she will do in another couple of months


I think the constant correcting is what bothers me most, it felt like I was making her life miserable, and still not getting to her 100% of the time.

I realized I was tarting to stress about spring/summer, with baby porcupines "hatching" mushrooms growing and in the fenced back yard apples falling from several apple trees, there was going to be no lazy summer around here.... we will think of you @LZL this summer when we can have a lunch on the patio without trying to wrench small trees out of Addy's mouth


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## 136497 (Apr 23, 2016)

LZL said:


> I have a 14 month old golden retriever girl, who ate sticks since the day I got her (at 8 weeks). I couldn’t stop her. When she was around 6 months old it turned into a real obsession. Her whole life was about eating sticks. Maybe people think this is exaggerated, but believe me, it’s not, lol. I tried EVERYTHING to stop her. The last couple of weeks it finally looks like we are getting over this problem. I believe that if my dog can get over this, any dog can, if you work hard enough. A combination of things is what is contributing to our succes.
> 1. Teaching her a solid “leave it”. You have to train this everyday. Not just with sticks (that’s university level), try it out with easier stuff first. This “leave it” doesn’t work on it’s own when you have a dog that is actually obsessed with stick eating. But it’s still important that your dog understands what this command means (even if they choose to disobey).
> 2. 100% not letting them eat another stick for a long period of time. You have to break the habit. I used a muzzle on my dog. It’s important to habituate them to the muzzle before you are gonna use it on walks.
> 3. After a couple weeks of muzzle wearing, the stick eating habit is a bit less. With my dog, I could sometimes walk her without a muzzle. BUT, I had to watch her like a hawk. When she even looked at a stick, or sniffed at a stick, I would correct her with a loud “ehhhh!!”. It’s important that you correct BEFORE the stick chewing happens, because the chewing itself is rewarding. You have to avoid this self reward. Now my dog had the choice to listen to my correction (leaving the stick alone), or keep chewing. If she left the stick alone I would reward her a jackpot and a lot of praise and playing tug. If she chose to keep chewing I would literally open her mouth with my hands, pick every little bit of wood out of it (to not give her the self reward), and muzzle her immediately. The muzzle wouldn’t come of for the rest of the walk. They will learn really quick that “leaving it” is rewarding, and keep chewing is a punishment with nothing positive about it at all.
> ...


wow, thank you so much for posting and sharing this. What kind of muzzle did you use on your dog?


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## LZL (Feb 2, 2020)

pt3407 said:


> wow, thank you so much for posting and sharing this. What kind of muzzle did you use on your dog?


I used the Baskerville Ultra, but I am not 100% happy with it. A nice fitting muzzle has enough space left for your dog to fully pant. The Baskerville Ultra has a bit room for panting, but not enough. It’s alright for a short period of time though. The positive thing about this muzzle is that it has a strap between the eyes, over the head. It becomes almost impossible for your dog to take it off. In the beginning thats nice because they will try haha.
For now I can recommend Wire baskets from the brand Chopo. I haven’t used it myself yet, but heard good stories about it. From the looks of it it has plenty of panting space. It’s a bit heavier than the baskerville though.


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## LZL (Feb 2, 2020)

Ontariodogsitter said:


> I think the constant correcting is what bothers me most, it felt like I was making her life miserable, and still not getting to her 100% of the time.
> 
> I realized I was tarting to stress about spring/summer, with baby porcupines "hatching" mushrooms growing and in the fenced back yard apples falling from several apple trees, there was going to be no lazy summer around here.... we will think of you @LZL this summer when we can have a lunch on the patio without trying to wrench small trees out of Addy's mouth


Haha good luck


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## Ontariodogsitter (Feb 23, 2020)

OK, so here we are training  on the muzzle actually staying on face, copious treats fed thru the muzzle, we are up to about 2 -3 minutes inside the house......


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## LZL (Feb 2, 2020)

Ontariodogsitter said:


> OK, so here we are training  on the muzzle actually staying on face, copious treats fed thru the muzzle, we are up to about 2 -3 minutes inside the house......
> View attachment 881134


haha good job. 
I did what you are doing for a couple of weeks. After a while I felt like we were not making more progress. So I just took the jump, took her outside and put the muzzle on for a longer time. In my experience the hard part is when you have to go from wearing the muzzle as a “trick”, to actually wearing the muzzle when going on a walk or sit in your garden. When they sense it’s gonna be the real deal, they will get a bit frustrated. I didn’t took it off when my dog got annoyed by it. I decided to keep walking until she was relaxed, then I put it off. I wanted to let her have this relaxed association with the muzzle. If I took it off during frustration that would be her only feeling about it, and that’s not a good thing. She still isn’t comfortable with it for 100%, but that wasn’t my goal. She accepts it, but looks a bit timid. The good thing is that for her it’s a big motivation to NOT EAT STICKS! haha. So a bit of disliking the muzzle is okay in our case. She can walk without a muzzle now, like I wrote before. I have it always with me though. If she decides to eat a stick I will put the muzzle on for the rest of the walk. But we are almost past it, only on really bad days she goes in the wrong. If you really want your dog to 100% like the muzzle I would advice you to go slooooooow, slower than me.


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## Ontariodogsitter (Feb 23, 2020)

I am struggling a bit with the part that there are times when she doesn't need the muzzle, when on leash, or off leash in the fenced area where we train and play, she will "LEAVE It" 

It's off the leash run in the forest that she will need it, when she is too far from me to see what she has snatched. Just a bit more determined after reading the post of somebody's pup finding a dead bird and eating it.

I will start her on a very long lead in the forest, but I must say Addy can tell if I am hanging on to the 50' lead, or if she is just dragging it and is more or less free


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