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When I walk through the woods with my 5 month old puppy, she finds deer, rabbit, raccoon and any other kind of droppings from other animals and eats it. I am worried that this may harm her. I have tried to stop her but other than keeping her fenced up I don't know what to do. I want her to be able to run and have fun and not always in her fenced yard. Is there any way that I can stop her from doing this and can it make her sick by eating this stuff? Thank you!

>>When I walk through the woods with my 5 month old puppy, she finds deer, rabbit, raccoon and any other kind of droppings from other animals and eats it. I am worried that this may harm her. I have tried to stop her but other than keeping her fenced up I don't know what to do. I want her to be able to run and have fun and not always in her fenced yard. Is there any way that I can stop her from doing this and can it make her sick by eating this stuff? Thank you!

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I got serious about this after my dog ate bird droppings that made her sick, then another of my dogs, then my third dog, and then me. One emergency hospital visit ($200), and quite a bit more expense, plus a lot of time off from therapy dog visits--and it could have been worse.

What I realized was that this kind of thing didn't happen with my male dogs, because I didn't let them go around lingerly sniffing things so they would not urine-mark. It has happened with two of my females, though. One was eating cigarette butts, rocks and broken glass on walks!

So I started teaching and enforcing "Leave It" on walks. There are various ways to teach this essential cue, and you'll learn in training class with your pup. It's time to get into class before something really bad happens to her.
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Kathy Diamond Davis, author, "Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others," 2nd edition, and the free Canine Behavior Series articles at http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=SRC&S=1&SourceID=47

The puppy could easily get worms from eating that. Also, roaming around outside a fenced area is a good way for a dog to get killed. It happens all the time. Keep her in the fence and take her for walks on leash. If you don't already, put some garlic in her food. It makes her body less desirable to parasites (internal and external). I've also read that brewer's yeast is a good supplement for repelling parasites.
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Kadee Sedtal
home of old lady Lucy (boxer/lab/garbage disposal), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), the rats- Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Pachebel, Fillmore, and Norbert, the mice- Vivaldi, Brahms, Schubert, Bartok, Rasputin, Johann, Chaminade, Dorothy, Glenda, and Em, and the *adorable* winter white dwarf hamster- Feather
"I wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, yahoo! I'd have all my money back." -Jack Handey