[lemonlauren]

OK, I'm wondering if the day will ever come when Nikko (6mo old) stops putting EVERYTHING into his mouth, and if there is a good way to assist in making it stop. He's gotten a lot better, but it's not good enough yet.

The real reason I ask is that someday I want him to be able to hang out in the shop with us while we work. The shop however, constantly has a million leather scraps on the floor, no matter how often we clean it.... we braid leather for a living, and we constantly have to trim scraps, bevel strands, etc. so there's no way to completely eliminate the scraps. The leather is also always "lubricated" for braiding with a mixture of animal fat and soap... which I was hoping would taste bad, but apparently it manages instead to make leather even more enticing than it would be on its own.

Right now, Nikko has stopped trying to actually ingest dumb things like rocks or bits of cardboard, but he'll still swallow pieces of leather, given the chance.

Is it possible that this will end at some point? Is there something we can do to convince him that eating leather is bad? We've tried spraying some pieces with bitter apple spray, and he does ignore them if we do that, but given the opportunity to go after any other leather, he'll happily eat anything that doesn't have bitter apple on it. We also scold him/say "drop-it" when we catch him with a piece, which he usually does, but he just keeps going back for more.

Will our workshop have to be permanently off-limits to him? Or is there hope that if we keep making him "drop-it" and wait for him to mature out of the puppy-vacuum stage more, he will someday get to hang out with us in there? Any other suggestions?

Thanks,

Lauren & Nikko