Sock Eating :(

[Nicole]

Tucker is 5 months old now and seems to have an obsession for socks.  We have 4 kids 9 and under, so there are often kid socks to be found (despite our best efforts to keep them off the floor, etc).  He ate a soft fabric American Girl doll headband a month ago..that came out the other end eventually.  Last week he ate a sock and finally threw it up 4 days later.  Then this afternoon he ate another sock and I got scared about it getting stuck so I gave him some peroxide to make him vomit.  Well... the peroxide worked right away and he threw up the sock... along with 2 others I didn't even know he'd eaten!!!  :(  I'm getting freaked out that one of these times the sock will get stuck and cause a major problem.  Any tips or tricks to get him to STOP this behavior?  It's like he's not even trying to just chew on them... he goes right to swallowing them.  It's so bizarre... how and why do you swallow a dry sock?!  I'd love to hear any ideas....

thanks!

[John and Finn]

Yes, Finn loves socks.  I have gotten to the "if you can't beat em join em" stage.  I give him some of my hiking socks, that are very hard to eat/destroy, and he loves it.  He carries them around like a peacock demanding we play play tug of war with them.  He will destroy pretty much any toy we give in within a few hours but it takes weeks for him to destroy these thick hiking socks.  

[Lindsey & Cocoa]

Cocoa has this problem as well.

i have a 4 month old and if he kicks his socks off and i don't see it in time its gone.  Right now we all have colds and kleenex keeps diapering.    I am more upset about the money she is costing me :( 

She got one of my wool dryer balls last week and ate the top layer off.

[Emily & Wispa]

I've never heard of dogs actually eating and swallowing socks before...  Usually they just love the stench and lick/chew on them.

You could do something borderline cruel and leave a few socks lying around, but put a bit of tabasco on them.  It will deter him even before it goes in his mouth!  Hopefully this will make him think that socks are not for eating.

Otherwise, just be more vigilant about not leaving socks on the ground.  Make sure you tell your children how important it is.  The little girl who lost her doll's headband will probably think twice about leaving doll clothes around in future :)

[Gail and Bailey]

This is a very dangerous habit for your dog to have! I have a friend whose doodle ate socks all the time like Tucker does. The doodle died because one of the socks got stuck inside him and they did not realize in time. These folks knew the dog had an obsession with socks and they were so good about not leaving them around (they had 2 kids). Despite their vigilance the dog somehow got another sock. This is a very serious problem and can be life threatening for a dog. I hope someone has some good ideas for you about how to stop this behavior. The only thing I can suggest is to explain how serious it is to your kids... even though they are pretty young maybe you can help them understand they need to help keep the dog safe. I wonder if some sort of aversion training is in order? Speak with a behavioral trainer. Please take action so you don't have to face expensive surgery to remove a sock from your dogs intestines.... or worse! Also...if you do not have insurance for your dog this may be the time to get it!

[Julie, Boomer, Milo & Casey]

Nicole, I feel your pain. There was a recent discussion about this and I read alot of "LOL" and things of that nature and its upsetting to those of us that have dogs that do this. Boomer has never torn apart a sock - he gulps them down.  Teaching the "drop it" command does nothing for a dog that gulps them without you ever seeing it happen. If my guy had been chewing on these socks before gulping, of course I would have taken the sock from him but I never saw it happen.  He's 3.5 now and hasn't had an opportunity to get to a sock since we are using baby gates, laundry baskets with lids (altho he'd try to steal socks out of the small holes in the baskets so now all laundry baskets are behind closed doors).  All of our rooms have closed doors now too.  Its a constant concern of mine.  We have pet insurance for this reason and fortunately he has always vomited the socks back up (which is how I realized he had swallowed it).  There was one time, I saw him go for a sock (when he was much younger) and as he stretched for the sock, I took a step toward him and he grabbed the sock and gulped it down - just like that!!   I used peroxide that time to bring it up.   I'm sorry that I don't have any training advice for you.  I've had trainers come in to my house and we've lured him toward socks and given corrections etc.  To be honest - I don't know if that worked or not because even after $700 of training, I wasn't confident that he wouldn't do it again so I bought gates etc for peace of mind.  Even boarding him is challenging for me. I toured a few homes that offered boarding and altho every thing was clean enough to eat off the floor, I saw a sock stuffed in to the woman's walking shoes and I knew I could never leave him there.  Its hard.  I'm truly sorry you deal with this.  Boomer is 3.5 and I don't know if he's outgrown this or not - I haven't given him access to any socks to "test it out on."   Good luck!

[John and Finn]

My dog does the gulp down thing also but he mainly just tears socks up.  But he has eaten a ballon, rocks, concrete, pieces of furniture, my base moldings, pieces of my wool rugs, dog toys, covers on tennis balls, parts of his leashes, pieces of towels, and etc.  A day doesn't go by where he isn't trying to eat something he isn't supposed to.  I have talked to many friends with dogs and it is a common thing, maybe not as extreme, but common.  I have a friend whose dog eats men's shoes if they leave them out (imagine that) and dog has never required surgery after years and years of doing this.

To the OP keep in mind for every horror story about a dog having surgery to remove an object there are thousand upon thousands of times where they end up just fine.  Don't let the horror stories make you a wreck.  Just do your best to remove temptation (we use gates/cage/take away objects), use timeouts, redirect their obsession to something similar but won't harm, try your best to exhaust with play when possible, Use "leave it" (doesn't work for me so I say "cage" but Finn is 9 mnths and that works), maybe try electronic correction (some electronic fence companies offer this with the package), and satisfy their chewing need with retriever rolls, pig ears, bully sticks, tennis balls (tear the cover off when he gets it started), puzzle treats, and bones (some of these treats can be harmful so monitor).  When Finn gets chewy I throw him a huge retriever roll (get them at sam's cheap). 

[Ashley, Ronnie and Ruby]

Ruby will eat socks if we leave them around too. She then even moved onto underwear. She is a smart dog but we can not train her out of it. The only advice is to try keep them out of reach. With young kids it must be hard. Maybe restrict her access to certain rooms. Or give the oldest child a job as sock collector. It is a dangerous habit. I feel your pain. :S

[Audra Hicks]

Our Stewie is almost 4 months old (will be on the 28th of this month) and has always wanted to steal our socks, underwear or hand towels to chew on.  Not only does he chew them up, he swallows them as well.  We can't even give him toys that are soft or he will tear them and eat all of the stuffing.  He is a wonderful little boy, curious for sure and easy to train, but you have to put everything "soft" up or he will swallow it.  We have had many times that he either throws up what got swallowed or it comes out in the "end" ... ha!  But, there were a few times that we had to induce vomiting for his safety and hopefully to not have to go in for surgery to remove it.  The breeder let me know that they gave the puppies a towel to chew on when they were just weeks old so I thought, until I read all of these posts, that it was something that he learned from them.  Now I am thinking its a Doodle thing...LOL!

[Traz, Karen & Dale]

Traz will be 6 months old on 11/8/12.  He liked to go after socks too, but never managed to eat one.  We have Traz in puppy training classes and mentioned this to our trainer.  One of the things that you will learn in class is the "leave it" command.  This is a command that you use when you want your dog to leave any item and not go after it anymore.  (Acorns were a big problem)  It takes work though and constant reinforcement in the beginning.  So, if you aren't doing puppy training, I would highly recommend it.  It's done wonders for us and Traz.

Also, another trainer recommended spraying "sour apple spray for dogs" on the item (whatever it might be).  He did it on my husband's shoe laces when we were having problems in that area.  One taste of that nasty stuff stopped the shoelace chewing.  It was quite amazing.  If our sock issue didn't resolve, we would have tried it on the socks too.  Good luck with your little sock eater :-)