How can I stop my cav chewing slugs Training

Oscar is barely 13 weeks old and the last few days he has become fascinated by slugs. He has brought a couple in from the garden ugh!!! However he relinquished them easily enough in return for a treat. But his teeth had pierced them. Will this do him any harm? and if so, how can I stop or prevent it ?

Poppy used to eat slugs and snails. The slugs used to stain her fur if she pierced them. I usually go out on the garden first before I let Poppy out and then have a good look round for anything she might want to pick up. Slugs and snails are usually around first thing in the morning.

Maybe try some more work on "leave it" and hope you spot the little blighters before Oscar does!

all puppies love to pick up slugs n snails ....agree with harry try the leave it command and stay in the garden with him till he has done what he needs to do

Thank you both so much for your helpful advice. I will persevere with the 'leave it', but you know, although he responds to most commands most of the time, I have noticed what seems to be 'selective deafness', but maybe I am judging him too harshly?

he will soon get fed up of them anyway ...its just fun to him YUK

Thanks Inca - that is reassuring. There are loads of these things in our garden - yuk!

puppies love all the yuk stuff....thats more than normal

Poppy isn't so fussed about slugs anymore, I think because she got fed up with me having to clean her mouth every time she bit into one. With snails she likes to crunch the shell and spit the body out - mmmm nice.

puppy thing, Harvey was forever bringing in treats from the garden!

Thank you all - main thing to know is that it won't harm him!

don;t worry it will be your best furniture next ....opps sorry

Bongo prefers snails - crunchy! She used to go totally wild when she found one, mad rolling eyes and everything Seems to have lost interest in them now, she prefers things which offer more of a challenge

Barney used to like snails but he seem to have go of them after being told to drop it about a dozen times every walk---Aileen

Thank you all for your help. It has just been a game to OSCAR right enough. He seems to have lost interest since I stopped trying to stop him !!

My mum has a cavvy, shes 18mths old and she still eats slugs, snails, and worms. She is so daft that she also eats concrete, stones and anything laying around in the garden. Of course my mum doesnt let her actually eat these things, she takes them off her straight away.....and she doesnt listen when she told to leave them!

Well guys, some of you will know my CKCS puppy died earlier this year. He had lungworm directly from eating slugs. He was 7 months old. If you ask your vet they can give you a course of wormer specific for this, your normal wormer either won't touch it or will make things worse.

At least tell your vet about the slug eating as a precaution, please, I wish I had and he'd still be here now, he was fabulous and I miss him terribly. As it was they never worked out what it was....pretty poor as he had textbook symptoms

Oh George I am so sorry to hear this! But thank you so much for warning us. What are the symptoms?

Thanks for the condolences and thanks for replying.

It is seen a lot in young dogs as they are more vulnerable. The symptoms are:

cough
exercise intolerence
bleeding tendency i.e blood in stools or vomit, coughing up blood
panting/heavy breathing
loss of appetite
weight loss
vomiting
diarrhoea

You may just notice the occasional cough to begin with, its so easy to miss. It usually starts with the cough, I noticed it when George was playing, after a few seconds he needed to stop to cough, he then bled in his stools and coughed up blood, he lost a lot of weight and wouldn't eat.

Cavaliers are the most common breed to present at the vets with Lungworm (I think they are more fond of slugs and snails). The type of Lungworm carried by slugs/snails is Angiostrongylus Vasorum, there are other types. I think Milbemax is the only licensed wormer for this species although some vets use Panacur but at a treament dose not the routine dose and it is given for a long period (the routine dose really harmed little George). The use of Panacur is 'off label' which means the comapny making it make no claims that it works but the vets find it does. My advice is always check with your vet before you worm your pup/dog.

Be aware that some vets are treating the tummy/cough symptoms with antiobiotics and the dogs seem to improve (this happened with George and the vet had suggested worming him, I did this when I felt he was better but it made him a lot worse). My vets still didn't realise and eventually anaesthetised him after worrying x-rays, of course he never came through the anaesthetic. The lungworm was found as autopsy. Some dogs die just because of the bleeding, the bleed can happen in the brain, eye etc.

This link explains another cav owners experience. http://www.k9centre.co.uk/heartworm.php?PHPSESSID=f61c8b3a90605a417f6696f8bce982f9

I spoke to this lady, her vet missed it too, it's such a waste:-(

Incidentally the most commonest areas it is seen is Swansea, Surrey, Cornwall and parts of Ireland but it is being seen all over.

Sorry to go on guys but I really would hate anyone else to have this happen.

Look after those precious little ones

Hi Lisa,
So sad to read about your little boy:-( but thank you very much for posting and warning us all... off to read the link on your last post now x

Thank you so much for taking the time to give us the symptoms, so we know what to watch out for. I have to say that since I started this thread, I haven't noticed Oscar bothering so much with slugs, so hopefully it was just a phase. However it is shocking to realise that something that is common in every garden can do so much harm to our wee pets. I cannot begin to imagine how you must have felt at the loss of your wee cav. It is an experience yoiu will never forget but maybe some good will come if the knowledge prevents it happening to others. Thank you so much.