How do I stop my puppy picking things up on walks?

[listsandbudgets]

Especially banana skins and tissues. I've been trying "leave it" and giving her a treat when she does and this is starting to work with tissues... but she's utterly obsessed with banana skins. I'd never realised there were so many on the road before but now seem to spend a lot of my life extracting them from her mouth - and she makes serious efforts to hang onto them.

If it affects the answer, she's a nearly 6 month old cocker spaniel. She's good on recall, almost walking at heel and can understand sit, lie down and gently.

But how do I curb her banana skin obsession? I'm scared she'll choke or get an intestinal obstruction.

she also found a large piece of fried chicken a couple of days ago but I can hardly blame her for grabbing that!!

Teach her “no” command so that as she goes for something, you say say “no”. Leave it is two words and it will be in her mouth before you’ve finished saying leave.

Also work on “drop” so that if she does get something, she drops it on command.

Our lab did once grab a mouthful of chips that someone had dropped, she ever so slowly let them drop out of her mouth when we told her to, it was almost pitiful watch!

You need super high value treats and to start at home, then move the training onto walks. She won't give up a high value goody for a boring piece of kibble - you need something like cheese or hot dog or steak - something really smelly and tempting.

Start by asking her to "leave" something boring and harmless - a piece of kibble is a good place to start. Put it in your enclosed fist and hold it out to your dog - they will paw and sniff and try and get it. As soon as she moves away from your hand and stops trying to get at the kibble, click and give her a higher value reward from your other hand.

Eventually you'll be able to progress to having a reasonably high value treat on the palm of your hand (or on a table in front of them) and they'll leave it on command. Once she's doing this reliably indoors, you can transfer it to more distracting environments - the garden and out on walks, for example. Good luck!

My beagle is a real scavenger and once found half a sandwich under a bench - that was three years ago and he still checks it when we walk past in case finds the other half

Thank you.. I guess its a trip to the butchers for steak then .. it's going to take something seriously high quality to outweigh banana skins!!

I was going to ask if your puppy was a Cocker haha. They're notorious for this - they just love having stuff in their little mischievous gobs.

Other people have given great advice, so I won't repeat the steps.

Basically you need to just work on it, work on it, work on it, and keep working on it until she reliably leaves things 99.9999% of the time. Also make sure you work on out/drop it just as much as you work on leave it. And obviously work up to actual banana skins and tissues in your actual home - you can use them in your training once she's mastered easier stuff. It's always easier for them to learn something indoors with fewer distractions than it is outdoors on the street - so work your way up to that.

I have a Cocker too and it took him until around 1.5-2 years old to learn a reliable "leave it", and to just ignore most stuff on the ground. But we didn't adopt him until he was 8 months old, so you may get there sooner. I'm also a dog walker and honestly, all of the puppies I've walked were like this until about the 1yr old mark. One of them is now 3yrs old and still hunts the ground for things - but it's because his owners haven't trained him properly. Instead, they just keep him on a super short lead and scan the pavements for stuff. It's much less stressful in the long-run if you just get in there and keep working on the training. You will get there!

Another thing we did with our Spaniel was teach him to carry things home from walks. For instance, carrying his ball or a stick from the park. We also taught him to carry his lead to the car / to the front door. Now he automatically waits to be handed a stick/ball to carry, then automatically drops that to ask for his lead when we are close to the front door / car (whichever we're heading towards).

You'll get there! Main thing to remember is keep working on it as often as you can, give it time, and try to set her up for success as much as you can when out on walks by keeping her on a short lead, checking the pavements as much as you can, and using a muzzle for a while if necessary.

@whataboutsecondbreakfast the sandwich really made me laugh! My golden retriever would be just the same, he loves scoffing things off the floor.

@GenderCriticalTrumpets he's a nightmare 🤣 our house is now beagle-proofed but it's almost impossible outside 🙈

Please stop taking things out of her mouth. It makes it MORE likely they'll swallow them to stop you getting them.

I've never taken anything out of my pups mouth. On a rare occasion it's dangerous (she got a knife once!) we have trained to drip for a ball. The rest of the time just ignore and they carry around and drop when they're ready. Spaniels are hardwired to pick up.

You can teach a default leave too. Longer but more reliable as the dog is choosing to leave. We’ve used this with out 6 month old pup and she’ll now sniff contraband and then look at us for snacks.

With spaniels though you are working against their instinct to carry in their mouth.

i used to run with my last dog. One evening she nabbed a sandwich from near a school. She wouldn’t eat it or drop it. So she ran 5, yes 5, miles with it in her mouth. Once we got home she spat it out 😂😂

Thank you so much.

We've gone through quite a lot of hot dog sausages and she's now known as the puppy who carries the green squeaky toy but finally we're getting there. Four days with nothing being picked up EXCEPT and who can blame her - half a Macdonalds double cheese burger someone had left in the hedge!! She smelt it well before I spotted her picking it up... and she wasn't giving up her prize even for a couple of bits of hot dog sausage Needless to say she's now checking that hedge thoroughly every time we pass.

I have also stopped taking things out of her mouth unless they look to be stuck in there and she is dropping them after a couple of minutes herself.

If you see a black and white cocker spaniel with a long green noisy squeaky toy then it's probably us so stop and say hi

We got so tired of trying to stop our GSD from scavenging, we pop a basket muzzle on her. Really effective and won't hurt the dog or spoil their walk. But make sure it is a basket muzzle and not one of those tight fitting ones that closes the mouth (for biting emergencies).