Just had to wrestle a corn cob from his Jaws

[Jane57]

Seriously this mutt is one greedy so and so.
Coming back from a walk , just in my street he picks up a slim corn on the cob on a stick, Without thinking I grab the stick and pull, Out comes the stick leaving the narrow cob in his mouth
He wouldnt trade for a treat nor anything, I had to prise his jaws open , risking my fingers in the process, He is so strong now , and still has growing to do
A nice guy came out his house as he thought the dog was in trouble (he sure was)

Seriously he is getting worse for this. Its the dangerous things that I now only risk this for.
I have a feeling its not going to bet better anytime soon.

[JulieM]

Poor you- do sympathise! Florence is a real nightmare too for picking things up.

After she swallowed a milk bottle top which took an emergency vet hospital operation/ expensive insurance claim we had a one on one with our dog trainer and learnt how to get her to drop and also how to get her to leave when we are out and about. She's far from perfect but we can now get stuff out of her mouth. Might be worth getting some intense training in before you have one of our nightmare incidents?

[Jane57]

Poor you- do sympathise! Florence is a real nightmare too for picking things up.

After she swallowed a milk bottle top which took an emergency vet hospital operation/ expensive insurance claim we had a one on one with our dog trainer and learnt how to get her to drop and also how to get her to leave when we are out and about. She's far from perfect but we can now get stuff out of her mouth. Might be worth getting some intense training in before you have one of our nightmare incidents?

Thank you Julie, that mustve been scary for you too.
I will speak to our trainer next week at the puppy class.
I have tried the swap in the house and it does work when I have something taste to trade for it. I guess the corn was a "high value" treat for HIM !

[twiceover2]

I sympathise too.  Pippa will leave things if told before she gets them in her mouth.  Once they are in though, it's difficult to get them back out.  She will swap if what I have is better but today she grabbed a half eaten chocolate bar as she was off lead and spotted it before I did.  There was no way she would swap for cheese, so I had to open her mouth and pull it out.  I dropped it back on the path, put her lead on and walked on 100 yards before letting her off.  She raced straight back to the chocolate bar! After fishing it out again, I had to stick it in a poo bag and take it with us.  Pippa stuck by my side until it was safely deposited in the bin.  Good luck with the training, Jane.  Hope you have more success than us.

[JulieM]

Hi

Yes- we were relying on the swapping but it isn't very reliable. We just had a 1 hour one-on-one and I have to say it's really helped. As well as teaching how we should actually train leave/ drop in more difficult situations she also gave us some great advice on things to do to reduce the desire to hunt out smelly/ naughty things on walks. Her perspective was that cockers are breed to sniff for stuff so if we give her sniffing work to do then when we're out she won't have such a pent up need to sniff. Not sure of the science behind this, but we do much more 'find it' and 'fetch' and it does seemed to have helped.

It is a nightmare isn't it- you don't realise how much litter/ left over food there is about until you get a cocker! I obsess about picking up bottle lids now and most days will come home with 2-3 in my pocket. I'm sure I could make a blue peter style mobile or something if I stockpiled them

[Jane57]

Thanks both, definately look at the trainer next week,

[Neon]

I sympathise too.  They really are little so and so's for doing things like this.

Yesterday, I opened a cupboard door and a packet of those little wooden cocktail sticks fell out all over the floor.  Toby was there like a turbo charged Dyson, ready to snaffle what he could.  I told him to "leave" in a very stern voice and he did stop but I had to quickly pick them up out of his way.

I picked them all up, making sure there were none on the floor but a minute later, I saw one sticking out of his mouth.  I knew that without a treat to do a trade, I had no chance at all of getting it off him.  I grabbed one of his tasty treats (but not before in my panic chucking my rubber gloves in the washing up water and filling them up) and gave him the "give" command.  He he did drop the stick in favour of the treat.

I daresay if he had snaffled food, I too would have had to open his jaws.

[LynneB]

OMG poor you, corn cobs are sooo dangerous as is seaweed root. We lost one of our retrievers through snaffling seaweed root. They cannot break it down and it damages their inside so much.

[Bluebell]

OMG poor you, corn cobs are sooo dangerous as is seaweed root. We lost one of our retrievers through snaffling seaweed root. They cannot break it down and it damages their inside so much.

I would have wrestled it out of his mouth too - Lillie had emergency bowel surgery as a young dog due to eating a corn cob. We didn't know the reason until she was operated on, and only given a 50% chance of survival .. Full of life and still gobby now though 

[Jane57]

OMG poor you, corn cobs are sooo dangerous as is seaweed root. We lost one of our retrievers through snaffling seaweed root. They cannot break it down and it damages their inside so much.

I would have wrestled it out of his mouth too - Lillie had emergency bowel surgery as a young dog due to eating a corn cob. We didn't know the reason until she was operated on, and only given a 50% chance of survival .. Full of life and still gobby now though 

Wow that is scary, I didnt know at the time how dangerous it was, thats a blessing really as I might not have been so calm , this one was a mini thin one for a BBQ I presume so wouldnt have been that hard for him to swallow a bit

[Ruby Tuesday]

Wow, another thing I've learnt from COL. I had no idea corn on the cob was so dangerous. Thanks for the info.

[Karma]

Yup - I'd have wrestled a corn-cob too.

The thing with swapping for treats is that it's only the first step... 
Honey can be very possessive of things, and she's not perfect at relinquishing prized items, but we've made a lot of progress.

We started with the swapping for a treat - ideally swapping low value things she had for high value treats! Then we would give a "give" command as she let go of what she had. Meaning we could phase out having the treat there and she would give it up in expectation of a treat.  We also did a lot of work on hand-targetting while holding things, so that she would be happy to come to us while holding things without worrying about having to give them up. 

Also, in our case, I STOPPED using the "give" command for the one thing she really finds it hard to give, which is a tennis ball, as this was just increasing her resistance (she was associating the command with something really difficult for her to do, and was transferring this reluctance back onto other things).

Now, if she picks something up she shouldn't, she's pretty happy to come to me, so I can see what it is.  I fuss her and praise her for it.  If it's something she needs to give up but nothing dangerous (normally children's soft toys), I keep fussing for a while, then ask her to give and I find her one of her toys...  if it's something she can keep (knowing she'll lose interest pretty quickly) I just keep fussing for a while and then carry on with whatever I was doing.  This means that the times I have to immediately take something off her (normally discarded corners of malt-loaf, thanks to my toddler) she is more co-operative.

Other tricks we have used along the way is dropping treats near her, then walking away, so she puts the item down to eat the treat... she normally picks the item back up again, but repeatedly doing this means I can gradually move her away from the item until I can pick it up!!  Also, being super-interested in something else (a blade of grass works)... a nosy cocker can't resist checking it out!!!