r/greatdanes

Long time no see!

Things have been going great so it has been a while since I have needed advice, but there is this nagging issue with my 2 year old dane that no matter what training I attempt I just cannot seem to break him from this cycle.

My guy is notorious for eating anything interesting he can find on the ground, both inside and out. When inside we just make sure to never leave anything on the floor. When outside as long as there is a good sniff to be had, he isn't interested in eating anything. However, the moment he gets bored, it is time to grab a plant or eat some leaves! When in the back yard it is easy enough to keep under control. I don't let any plants grow where he can get them and I just rake up the leaves daily or monitor him closely when out there.

I have learned over time though that when we are at the park he thinks this is a fun game, so I have been practicing not reacting when he does it and instead just walking up beside him and shoing him away in the most non-reactionary way I can (basically just stepping over the plant and standing over it but not really telling him no) Most of the time it does work and he eventually grows bored of that and gives up when he notices me not reacting. If I tell him no, this is a part of his game, so I can't do that. Thing is he does know the leave it command and does well with hit with literally everything except for plants/leaves.

Sometimes he gets really overstimilated by something out of my control too and this is where it gets really fustrating. For example, when he sees another dog from a distance or when they come up to the fence at the park, he gets so hyped that it triggers the grabbing the plants and running game to the extreme. This is even when I am not even reacting to it and being calm. I also cannot just let him eat the plants by ignoring the behavior completly because some of them upset his extremely sensitive stomach and I am always worried some of them might be toxic. This is a public dog park, so I cannot control what is grown but I'd like to think they wouldn't let anything toxic grow but you never know.

He is usually very food motivated but when this is happening nothing else matters. I even try to bring high reward toys that he only gets when there but he ignores them too when normally he would be going bonkers for them. I offer his fav treats but nothing is as good at the game of eating the plants!

I have used a muzzle in the past but I simply just hate how uncomfortable he is in it. I live in Texas, so it is hot even when I walk him exclusively at night. He is so uncomfortable in it sometimes he just stands by the gate whining, wanting to leave. Mind you he is muzzle trained and wears it sometimes when going in the backyard and doesn't fuss about it, but just seems to hate it so much when at the park due to it limiting what he can do there. I want a solution to allow him sniffing freedom but still to get this under control. He doesn't do this on leash by the way and is 100% behaved then, always listening when I say drop it even when he tries to bite a plant.
I have thought about hiring a professional trainer as I am running out of options, but I have tried all the professional training suggestions I can find online and nothing seems to be working.

I even bought some of that extremely bitter apple spray to spray on the plants to see if it would teach him they taste bad and he still just chomped away at them without a care! Such a stubborn guy who is determined to become the common name sake of "cow" for those of us who own merles 😂

All the things I have tried: High reward treats, high reward toys to trade, not reacting to it, using a compressed air corrector, using a vibrating collar, trying to do tricks with him to get his mind off it, recalling (he ignores recall only during these plant eating episodes, ugh!) and bitter apple spray on the plants to deter him.

Only thing I haven't tried is a shock collar (which I am SUPER aprehensive to even consider) or a professional trainer stepping in, so I thought I'd check in with my fellow dane parents first to see if there are any tricks I am missing.