Possessive Eating?

[1114]

Need some more great advice from you all. My 5-1/2 month old GSP is in the habit of eating any kind of dead animal in the yard, most recently a bird. By the time I noticed her with it and headed her direction, she swallowed the entire carcass whole. I had a similar issue on a walk a week prior, where she found a squirrel carcass in the road and devoured it before I could get to her (on a 6ft lead!). I'm getting concerned that the first downed bird she gets will be lunch before I could ever reel her in on a CC and I'm pretty sure once she's done it once, it'll be impossible to break.

Training-wise, I'm planning on introducing her to frozen quail/pigeons in the near future (handing her the bird and letting her play with it), followed by a live bird introduction where I let her see/smell/gently mouth a pigeon or quail while holding it and then releasing it and let her have a little chase on the CC. Anything else I should do to try and prevent this behavior? Definitely want to nip this now.

Thanks in advance.

[snips]

Well, if you are worried about her downing a bird I would not hand her birds to mouth and play with. Keep her on a Flexi lead and throw a frozen bird to keep control over what she does with it....

[1114]

Yeah, I probably worded that wrong. As you suggest, I was going to let her play with the frozen bird knowing that she couldn't eat/destroy it but had no intentions of letting her have a live bird at all. Out of curiosity, Is the whole "devour" mentality normal or do I have a problem in the making? Thanks again for the info, Brenda.

[snips]

Yes, normal. I have plenty of times seen a young dog with a mouse in the yd and as I approach see it get swallowed :roll: Just not a good idea to give it a chance with a bird...

[Tall Boy]

Just last week I saw one of my pointers with her head in my dummy bucket, and I thought nothing of it. About five minutes later I look up and see the last few seconds of her swallowing one of my gloves whole. So devouring things is somewhat normal, I write it off as an increased preadator-prey insticint and wanting to eat things. If the dog shows plenty of interest in birds early on, I would consdier reinforcing a soft mouth sooner rather than later. Make it so she just thinks that's the way its suppose to be, rather than correcting her later for a behavior you see coming.

[adogslife]

Think about worming more often.

[1114]

Thanks for the input, guys...

[ArcticRetrievers]

I know this is a little older, but I also wanted to say that I had a dog with that problem, I put Carpet Tacks under the skin and feathers of a Grouse, and froze it, we used that as a training tool (frozen) for a bit until I saw that she was Gingerly picking the bird up, then I started letting the bird thaw and get bloody, she tried it one more time, but those Tacks got her again, and I cant say it has happened again...when I first saw her doig this I dug the feathers Out of her mouth, and put her up so try to catch it...also pulling UP on the collar makes it harder to swallow giving you a little more time to fetch the slimy mess from their mouth.