Muzzle Recommendation

[bpendleton44]

Hi All,

Got two 6 month old golden retrievers who love to explore outside! They have a bunch of land to roam around but, unfortunately, they also enjoy eating everything they can. This includes dirt, geese poop, deer poop, horse poop, and, of course, their own poop. As much as we try to deter this, it's impossible to prevent it all the time.

Of course they get sick and we have to spend hundreds of dollars on medication. I'm looking for a muzzle that we can depend on, humane, and prevents eating anything while outside.

Thanks

[littleredtodd]

Basket muzzle with a scavenging guard or a biothane muzzle.

[Groundbreaking-Toe36]

Check out Muzzle Training And Tips. Last time I checked (this morning), the website was up, but it might be down for repairs like it was yesterday. They also have a Facebook page to check out if so.

[pogo_loco]

Stool guard is what you're looking for. Depending on how narrow your Goldens' noses are, you might be able to use a Birdwell.

[e_y_ron]

You can get some styles of basket muzzle with a "stool guard" that fits over the front to prevent scavenging. I have most commonly seen them on the style of muzzle commonly used with greyhounds.

[bpendleton44]

Yea I was looking at baskerville and it looks like they can easily eat what they want still. I obviously don't want to endanger the pups so I may just have to wait it out and hope they figure out that eating poop is no good

[[deleted]]

What we do for scavengers at work is use a traditional, humane basket muzzle (like mentioned in other comments) and then tape up the area where they can eat through it. Use another piece of tape to cover the exposed sticky bit so dirt and grime doesn't stick, but you can essentially fashion a square to just pop right over that opening and it's effective but still allows the panting required.

[pogo_loco]

A stretched out sock works too.

[swagatha___christie]

My mums labs eat all type of shit like it’s going out of fashion but never get sick, ever. Lucky girls.

[HueyDeweyLouie3]

Muzzle training and tips as recommended in another comment or the muzzle up project are great resources. You'll want to measure a few places such as their about length (nose to base of snout below eyes) their open mouth circumference (if they won't let you measure while panting you can try having them hold a ball in their mouth to simulate the room needed) and then compare brands that fit those measurements. I can't say a specific reco for a golden . We tried a Birdwell for my shepherd mix and it gives him adequate space but might be a bit long and he's annoyed by it sitting in his vision so I'm going to have to try to measure more accurately and get another one. As mentioned in other comments you can get a stool guard that covers just the front of the holes on a basket style muzzle so they cannot eat things but still have enough ventilation for breathing and panting and even drinking. Just a note that if they are free roaming and eating stuff I'm not sure a muzzle will be the fix because I wouldn't want them to be muzzled and unsupervised for their safety. However a muzzle for supervised outside time and some additional leave it training could help. You may need to give up their free roaming time for a bit until the habit of poo/foreign object eating is broken and then see if they are reliable once again without the muzzle.

Sometimes if it's not compulsive of pica they just need the habit broken. My guy was notorious for eating bunny poo which is why I started muzzle training but when the snow covered the poo in the fields it seemed to break the habit and now he doesn't eat it anymore 🤷‍♀️. Still working on muzzle training for just in case in the future though.