I was told not to be over protective, but how can i control this
 

Hello everyone,

Zeus has been doing great his 1 and a half weeks at home with us. He is very bright puppy and at 9 weeks we have basic commands down!!! and potty/crate training. We are also proud of his dad who got his IPO3x3 this weekend!

Zeus is recovering from geordia and we can tell how crazy he really is now =) Trying to get biting under control, the yelping does not work, redirecting fails as well. He starts AKC puppy classes after second shots and we hope playing with other puppies will help his bite-inhibition. My brothers puppy went twice and biting stopped.

Anyways here is what I am concerned about.

Like any other puppy Zeus LOVEs to play in the yard. The problem is that it has been so long since we had a puppy that we have no idea if any of this is ok or how to prevent it.
It seams impossible to have him outside without him doing these things:

1. Attacking grass/eating (heard this is ok, cat's eat grass too...)

2. Eating dirt

3. Pine-cones........

4. Sticks

5. Mulch =(

6. Small rocks...

I feel like instead of having fun with my puppy outside I am constantly grabbing something from his vacume cleaner mouth. I don't want him to get reinfected (he does not eat poo, I pick it up) or get hurt. Brother in law told me that this is how they establish their pallet. I don't know, any feedback?

I think puppies should be trained not to eat anything in the yard especially the stuff you've mentioned. Smokey would find and eat cr@p while on walks. I always feared those devilish people who leave nails in meat or poison meat and leave it out for dogs. So I trained him out of it. He once ate a mouthful of some other dogs dried up poo. I literally stuck my hand down his throat to take it out; so gross. I would try redirecting and continue to dig stuff out of his mouth...

Good luck!

I would train him with the leave it command for sure, but until he has that down...yes, there's a lot of pulling stuff out of the mouth. I was a little more relaxed about if he ate grass and dirt...he is a dog after all. But I was crazy about rocks since those can cause a blockage.

Grass is personal preference, really, but consider that they're getting the pesticides and herbicides that have been sprayed on it. Eating dirt is a good way to pick up parasites. Sticks and pine cones are sharp and can tear or puncture his intestinal tract. Mulch, depending on type, can be poisonous to dogs and if he eats enough can cause a blockage. Stones can also cause blockages, or just sit in his stomach and cause an upset.

Personally, I don't let mine eat any of those things. I will let him carry sticks and mulch, but he is not allowed to try and eat them. When he was a puppy it was about a week's worth of saying "Out!" and digging whatever he'd picked up out of his mouth before he started dropping it as soon as I said "Out!". It would go even faster if you have a treat to give him as soon as he complies. It was quite a bit longer before he gave up on trying to eat that kind of thing entirely, but he did. Now I use "out" to get him to drop toys when we play fetch and such.

Pinecones and sticks are like candy and he gets so crazy when I take a huge mulch chunk away from him. We are working on leave it, but he is 9 weeks, he spits on my leave it. hehe

This is helpful, I will try treats and I think it's time for a bully stick...