1yo small dog - think I need a muzzle/similar?

[yasle]

My dog is 1yo and a fully grown small breed (maltese). He loves walking but he is so little (4kg) that his mouth is very near the ground. He tries to eat anything he sees, although he does know that he is not supposed to. Because he is low and we are high, he is very quick to grab things up into his mouth and then we have to open his mouth and get them out. He is always on a lead because he's tiny and there are lots of out of control dogs round here but even with us watching him really carefully and having a perfect fit harness so we can control him well without pulling him hard, he is still going for stuff.

There always seems to be some junk on the ground that he will go for. Cigarette ends, cotton buds, plastic takeaway cutlery, small food wrappers, pieces of food, basically a huge assortment of random crap.

Can anyone recommend a strap type muzzle thing that goes round the mouth or is this the wrong approach? He knows not to do it but can't resist and has swallowed stuff before.

Thanks for any help.

[GrowThroughWhatYouGoThrough]

I recently met a dog in a muzzle for the same reason he was wearing a baskerville muzzle which you can try at pets at home.

[Coffeeandchocolate10]

I recently adopted a 5kg dog, I know the feeling!

Mine now responds to ,"leave it" so definitely get on with training that.

Can I strongly recommend a basket type not strap mouth shut type of muzzle if they're going to be in it come spring/summer? I think the mouth shut ones are terribly cruel if they need to pant they can't.

[yasle]

Can a dog stick their tongue through the basket ones and get stuff off the pavement/park do you think?

[Nettleskeins]

my dog used to be like this as a puppy (small breed 7 kg) I found that when there was other interesting stuff, (running playing investigating, meeting other dogs) to do in the park his obsession with eating things decreased - could you work on training her to go off lead and sniff around on her own. To start with I found some puppy aged dogs for my dog to play with in a range of sizes not all small (Ie my dog played with cocker spaniels and larger poodle sizes)I suspect the lack of stimulation from always being on lead is contributing to her interest in everything she finds on the ground. given a wider range you might find her more blase.

You can build up off lead confidence by using a long trailing lead for recall activities, before you try her with other dogs. So fetch, find it with smelly stuff, chasing games all worked for us to stop him eating scraps.

[Nettleskeins]

my dog is a terrier cross (a maltese is a terrier I think) and really had the snap shut on items approach, so we channelled this into soft squeaky toys when out, balls, anything he could find and "Snap". Terriers are dogs which sniff out and snap up rats and vermin, rather than retriever/spaniels who are into bringing back things, so you have to work with their love of smells and interesting small squeaky moving items!