Do puppies grow out of eating everything

[newusern9999]

Ddog is five month old cavapoo. He eats everything that he chews. If I tell him to drop it or leave it that just seems to make him swallow it. So if he manages to destroy a toy he will swallow the bits he chews off. He swallowed some plastic he chewed off his comb, his hair I brushed off him and pulled off the comb , slugs, flowers, a sock etc etc. obviously we are restricting access and working on drop it and leave it but I’m just wondering if they grow out of swallowing everything they chew or whether he is going to be one of those dogs (already had to go to vets once for eating a sick). He waits for his food but it hasn’t yet translated into needing approval to eat anything. He also swallows down chew sticks whole as soon as they are small enough to swallow (puzzle, chicken and rice stick).

Yes. They do. But it requires work and pretty much round the clock attention on him to stop him before he starts.

So you need to not leave him with toys, or chews, or in the garden - it's not about restricting access, it's about monitoring him. You wouldn't leave a baby or a toddler with toys, or in the garden would you? And a puppy is just as likely - if not more so - to cause chaos or eat something. They're also much faster. So, you need to be with him all the time to watch for this. As soon as you think he's about to do something, you need to divert him away from whatever it is - use a high value reward like chicken or sausage. You can't simply tell him to stop once he's started. You need to get ahead of him and teach him not to chew and eat random things and then work on stopping him from chewing things. Prevention is better than cure. At the moment he probably thinks it's all one big game of you trying to get things away from him.

But IMO you need stop giving him chew sticks immediately - if he is not chewing them properly and swallowing them whole as soon as he can, he could easily choke and die. Half the dogs my DP operates on are there because they ate something they shouldn't - and chew sticks, toy stuffing (which is absorbent so very dangerous tbh) and branches/sticks are the worst offenders.

Some dogs are much worse than others. I've found with mine that stimulation (mental and physical) stops the worst of their chewing desire - mostly because they're too tired to think about being naughty!

Yes I only gave him two pizzle sticks and stopped as it is also frankly a waste of money and smell given he doesn't get much chewing out of them! I'm trying to find something that satisfies his chewing without being dangerous. Carrots is the best I can do so far as he crunches those up nicely! He has a red deer antler as well but I think he wants something softer to chew.
I would say that when DS was a baby/toddler he was left with age appropriate toys with no problem and so a puppy is far worse. There seem to be very few puppy appropriate toys you can leave them with (and if they are he doesn't find them very interesting!). We had a good spell of him not ripping his toys up when all his canines fell out but now I've had to hide all his toys again.