Eating rotting dead things

In the woods where I walk my 2 ,they usually find some old bits of dead stuff and eat it ,things were going ok for a while and I was able to swop some biscuts for the dead thing ,but now they have decided they prefer the dead thing and keep out of my reach while they eat it
What can I do to try and stop them doing this as one of these days they are going to get ill eating these things

when you find out let me know LOL -I can usually get a swop for something but a piece of something dead and there's no way ! ..the ranker -the better

Yep let me know too. :smt021

My 2 staffies are disgusting, the things they try to eat have been dead years!!!I now worm them every 3 months because of this..

Thanks for 'brining this up' here (so to speak!!) PJD...lol...You know I have just gone into detail about this at the N.I.Dog website I think I may also copy and paste what I wrote there here also if the topic doesn't get disscussed more indepth than it already has...As many of you know Keena was so poorly over the weekend and it is probably because of the nasties (dead things and things that arn't even food at all!) that she finds to eat and I need to know more about controlling it in the future. I'll be back to paste soon

ever since max was young everytime he picks up something gross i always said 'dirty' in a disgusted voice like i did with the kids actually. it has made max leave things anyway. i suppose he sees it as 'leave' well it works for me but idid it since 8 weeks

...Keena was always a fussy eater with dog food. I have always steered clear of the more rubbishy brands containing additives, preserves and colouring etc and tried brands like James wellbeloved and Autarky, NatureDiet and Nutro Choice...Right now my two are both on Nutro Choice Large Breed...

Now before Takoda was here Keena would snub her food alot and
wouldn't eat it at all if there wasn't some wet food mixed in so I
would mix in a little naturediet. All in all most of the times once
she had cleared the naturediet she would look pained to eat the rest (kibble)...It used to annoy me a bit because she would leave her food but eat the most silly things...A pair of my mums tights, twice! A pair from a hand made toy that she found laying on the beach in the summer, they used tights to fill with stuffing inside the toy thingy...Every single crab she could find on the beach, toilet roll,
kitchen paper towel, sponges, cat shit, she would try to eat her own fur after I had groomed her and had collected a ball of it, she would try to grab it...you name it.

Since then she is just fixated on the bathroom bin...we have learned to be so tidy and don't leave anything that she is likely to devour, now every night she goes upstairs and has learned to lift the lid on the bin and take out the contents to eat and I keep it empty most of the time but she will check several times a day sometimes, now we just arn't going to have a bin in the bathroom anymore, it seems her addiction to any paper towel product of any kind is far to much!...

If you remember reading my post saying that Keena is poorly, you will have seen the amount of stuff she found in the week leading up to her sickness. Deer bones, chicken bones, a deer stomach!!?...and something that was a mistery because she ran off and I went after her and she kept her distance finishing off whatever it was and I couldn't tell...Today out in the farm feild at the back of my house she unearthed something in the snow and took off with it, it was orange and kinda looked like a carrott but looked to big, but still, she downed that, I was trying to get close and entice her with treats but she wasn't having none of it, then on our way back to the house she made a bee line for some trash bags left out tore one open and started gulping down the contents like she had never eaten before in her life, I had to pull really hard to get her to come away. Oh and I forgot to mention yesterday she crapped out large peices of sponge, it was the same colour as the one I had in the bathroom, I looked for it and low and behold there was no trace, so just a day after recovering from her illness she climbed into the bath tub took my sponge and ate the whole thing and it was a large sponge too, she got rid of more of it today. I wish she would understand that was why she probably got ill in the first place!....Grrrr

I don't know if it is getting worse or if I am just noticing it more
being in the country and there being more stuff to find?...Keena's
appetite for her own food now is good, since Takoda arrived she has never left a meal and she eats well at least now...Kody is so food orientated and even slightly food aggressive I have noticed and will fight over one peice of kibble! but when we are out on walks he doesn't seem nearly as intent on scavenging like Keena does. As soon as we get out the door it is nose to the ground and lets see what we can find!...I would think that she is nutrient difficent (sp?) maybe if she was on a crappier food but I would think a food like Nutro Choice covered all bases...

I would really like to eventually feed raw, but am still learning all
I can before I do, plus I need a bigger freezer before I can go that
route. I know she isn't completly satisfied with her own food and
never has been and would much prefer something like the B.A.R.F diet and I have thought maybe that is why she is like she is, but I just don't know. I know dogs will be dogs but it seems to me that Keena may be a bit worse with this than some.

People have suggested a muzzle when I take her out and I so feel
wrong about that, I feel like I would be restricting her natural
behaviour when her and Takoda are playing outside because they use their mouths alot as part of play I am bothered about people thinking she is aggressive with one on too but mostly it is her freedom I am concerned with as that will affect her directly and I most certainly don't want to keep her on the lead because other than this she is mostly well behaved and I don't want to restrict her because of this but at the same time I don't want her getting ill again.

So what do you all think if anything?!

I'm by no means an expert and I don't say this is going to work, I can only tell you what has been good for us and our dogs.

Working on the basis that we don't speak dog and dogs don't understand english well, we've tried to find other simple ways to say 'great - keep doing that' or 'No! stop at once'. Hand signs/body language works when they're looking at you but you need sounds for when they're not.

We just do 'clicker and clacker'. Clicker is good and clacker (training discs I think they're called, or stones in a can etc) is bad. Sure there must be an article somewhere on the web about how you should introduce it. There are Alisons clicker notes here, anyway for the positive - research how to introduce 'no'.

We didn't do any so-called conditioning training with the clackers, just said no and used them (very gently) from the start. They're great to have in your pocket when out walking and you feel less of an idiot giving a shake rather than shouting 'stop eating that horse****' etc

Good luck!

Like Dinasmum I am no expert either so hesitate to comment . I teach my dogs the 'leave' same as DMs 'no' but I use stong smell food to train rather than the clack noise. I can point you in the direction of teaching to leave if you want..or you could PM Shadow Boxer who will I am sure know how to get a dog to leave and the best method to train , or Alison if you are useing clicker I know it is natural for dogs to want to eat smelly things. The leave is useful for lots of things including accidently dropping a dangerious item on the floor like a pill and preventing the from dog eating it

I agree with Mini. When teaching 'leave' you need something far more enticing that whatever the dog has found. It is analogous to someone finding $10 in the street & you saying "if you leave, or give to me, that $10 I will give you $20".

If you wish I can go into detail of teaching the 'leave' from the beginning. Like anything else, the dog really has to understand what 'leave' means and it is best to start off with small steps and build up rather than wait until it has found something disgusting and then try to enforce the command.

Of course, if your dog is out of sight it is almost impossible to prevent scavenging unless the dog has been taught never to eat anything that does not come from your hand.