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Discussion Starter · #1 ·
My 17 week old GSD puppy has recently started looking for mushrooms during our walks. I try my best to remove every mushroom I see before I take him out but he has the ability to sniff out ones that have barely come up yet that are hard to see. I am aware of the dangers of him eating mushrooms; how can I get him to stop this?
 

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I wouldn't worry about the "fun shrooms," worry about the ones that can and DO kill. Have you taught a very strong "leave it" command? The way we do it in class is to have a yummy thing where the dog can get it, walk up to it, then when the dog goes for it, give a good "LEAVE IT," then quickly move away, praise profusely when the dog moves away and give some really good treats to enforce that leaving whatever it was alone yields much better goodies. If I see my dog go for something potentially bad, my voice is full of the urgency that says "LEAVE IT ALONE- IT CAN HURT YOU" and he does immediately spring back, more from the tone of voice.

I wonder if you could set up a scene outside with some good. safe mushrooms from the store, then teach "leave it" that way? I haven't done it, but I wonder if a safe set-up like this would go a long way to teaching him that anything that looks like a mushroom is a big no-no?
 

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Discussion Starter · #4 ·
I dont good mushrooms from bad ones so I am considering all of them bad for my pup. Thanks Diana for the suggesting the "LEAVE IT" training with safe mushrooms. I will give this a try.
 

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Is there a way to rid a backyard off mushrooms? We have quite a few in ours. Wolfie seems to avoid them now but who knows what will get into his head as he gets older? FYI, our backyard is almost 0.38 acres, so it is difficult to individually weed out the mushrooms especially if they grow back again. It is fenced in and we do enjoy giving Wolfie off-leash time in the safety of the backyard. But the mushrooms are worrysome...
 
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