Poo eating!

[howsyourluck]

7 month old cross breed rescue dog still eats Poo! Her own we can deal with as we clean up immediately so she rarely manages. But out and about is a nightmare. When off lead she will seek it out and eat as much as possible before we get to her.

We are clicker training and she knows 'leave'. When training she will reliably leave treats and we have now moved up to other food items to practise with. But she will literally pick up anything when out and try to eat it.

Some Poo she just sniffs and walks away, and when she does we click and treat, but others she just scoffs! She has a very sensitive stomach and this is really not helping. I am goin. To spend a few days just doing on lead walks to let her stomach settle but really need to crack this.

Any ideas on how to improve her 'leave' so that she will literally leave anything?

Until her leave is more reliable, you may have to think about muzzling her on walks so she can't eat anything. Hopefully it would only be a temporary measure while you build up the strength of her response to the 'leave' cue with more and more tempting foods in environments with gradually increasing distracting.

Thinking about it though. If the leave command isn't working with poo and you can't get the cue in before she eats when out and about, it might be worth trying a different tack. Rather than cueing 'leave' and rewarding, really you want her to ignore anything she finds on the floor unless you give her permission to eat it. So you'd need to be clicking her for choosing not to approach the poo, iyswim. Starting off with click/treating her for just looking away from it and building up from there. Just a thought, but may be worth considering, as it's a pain having to constantly say 'leave' all the way on every walk.

Forgot to say, if you are wanting to continue with the 'leave' cue. You are going about it the right way, you just need to make sure you start off in somewhere non-distracting and gradually build up to doing it on walks, having gone through gradually more and more distracting environments. For example, house to garden, garden to somewhere controlled like perhaps tennis courts in a park, then when she's bombproof everywhere else, you can try out on walks/in the park etc.

It needs to be done very slowly and only move up a level when she is 100% reliable in the previous, less distracting environment. Hence the need for the muzzle in the meantime.

Good luck.

Hadn't thought about a muzzle. Seems a bit mean but hopefully it will only be short term.

I was hoping to build up from the leave command so that in the end she would just leave anyway, without the command. I wonder if i am doing it wrong?

I have worked up to food items at home that i am putting on the floor and clicking and treating every time she looks away or doesn't approach. In a controlled environment where she knows we are training she is pretty good, but as soon as its not a training session she is less reliable. I have moved onto practising in the garden today and got her to leave bread and a biscuit.

Maybe i just need to be patient and muzzle her in the meantime

No, you're right, she probably would eventually stop bothering with it if she gets a 'leave' cue every time she approaches, but it will most likely take quite a lot of time to reach that point.

Sounds like you are doing everything right, it just takes time and in the meantime walks will be a problem if she constantly giving herself stomach problems from eating poo.

I know a muzzle does seem mean, but if you really need to stop her eating poo before she's fully trained, it might be the only way.

Have you done any clicker work on getting her to focus on you at all. That might help as well. Someone on here recently introduced me to she does one on as well.