How Can I Stop My Dog Stealing Socks?

The sock stealer. The tea towel thief. The cardboard chewer. The garbage guarder. What starts out as simple puppy antics can end up as a serious behavioural challenge if your dog becomes a serial swallower. 

The Serious Side of the Sock Stealer

Ask any vet and I’m sure the’ll have some tales to tell of the seemingly random items that get removed from dogs’ insides. In fact, a quick google image search for “dog stomach xrays” can provide you with a visual account of the range of items our dogs sometimes ingest - from stones, to spoons, to carpet gripper rods. I remember hearing one story of how a dog even accidentally let on that his male guardian was having an affair - when the underwear that was removed from its stomach didn’t belong to its female guardian! But humour aside, there is a much darker side to these stories.

Locally to me, I’ve personally heard of three puppies that didn’t make it to 6 months as they’d swallowed items with fatal consequences. Another puppy was rehomed after the family felt at a loss to control the seemingly frantic stealing and swallowing of items - which resulted in 3 surgeries before the dog was 8 months old. And on top of these, I’ve worked - successfully - with countless pet parents who’ve struggled to keep their dog’s thieving behaviour under control. 

So, you’ve bought your dog all the recommended toys. They have chews a-plenty. So why, oh why, do they want to steal (and sometimes eat) our socks? As we’ve said, your dog might consume other items - but the most common culprit does tend to be a nice pair of stinky socks. There’s a few theories to consider, to understand which might be most relevant to your dog.

Puppies: Reinforced Behaviour and Boredom

When our dogs do something that results in a favourable outcome - such as getting our attention, receiving a game of chase, or ingesting something tasty - it becomes a behaviour they’re more likely to repeat. 

In terms of physical reinforcement of taking items, if they haven’t got appropriate things to chew of their own, they’re more likely to find objects we don’t want them to. Chewing itself helps our dogs to feel good. It’s a natural canine behaviour and can help reduce stress or boredom.

When they steal items of clothing, especially when they’ve been worn, these will contain your scent. As we are an important resource in their life, some dogs find interacting with our scent very rewarding. 

If we have a puppy or young adolescent that isn’t getting the right sort of interactions from their human - with a good balance of short calm walks, play, learning and affection - they can start to seek out any sort of attention. Dogs soon learn that one of the best ways to get your human to interact with you, is to pick something up in your mouth. How many times have you run after your dog to get something back from them? Or ended up playing tuggy to try and retrieve a favourite hat or scarf?

Pica and Poor Gut Health

Pica is the medical term for when our adult dogs obsessively consume non-food items. It can be due to gastro-intestinal issues (poor gut health), feeding the wrong food, or infestations such as worms.

Anxious behaviours can also be behind pica, so alongside a full vet check up to rule out anything physical, it’s worth speaking to a force free behaviourist. 

Diet can affect our dogs in many ways - from allergies, to poor stool, to hyperactivity. When the food you are feeding your dog is carb-heavy, it can create a carb crisis - effectively constant hunger - when your dogs are more likely to become bin-raiders. If there’s something in your dog’s food that doesn’t suit them - the most likely suspect being grain - then the consumption of fibrous items (e.g. sticks, tissue, cardboard, or even fabric) can give the dog some feeling of relief as they try to rid their tummy of this food.

Guarding Breed / Nature

Certain breeds of dog are likely to find collecting and guarding items more rewarding than others. This is genetically either through their breed makeup and the internal motivations that brings, or through their individual parentage.

While this may start as a simple pick up and guard behaviour, if pressurised it could potentially expand into swallowing of the items. 

So what do we do if our dog does eat a sock (or other item)?

It’s important to notify your vet as early as possible when your dog has consumed something they shouldn’t have. Some may suggest monitoring larger dogs - watching out for loss of appetite or sickness - but with smaller dogs they would definitely need more urgent attention. Even with a larger dog, complications can arise quickly - so keep your vet informed immediately and be ready to get them into the practice.

Sometimes you may not see your dog eat the item and it may appear in their stool at a later date, or you might see them bring it up a day or two later. If this happens, it’s definitely worth monitoring your dog so that they can’t repeat the same behaviours again.

What can you do to reduce the chances of this happening again?

In the early days, the most important thing you can do is to manage your environment. Make sure all family members are picking up items, leaving nothing around that your dog would potentially swallow. Stair gates can be used to block off areas that might have laundry, such as bathrooms or utility rooms. If your dog is comfortable in one, you can use pens or crates to keep them safe when you can’t monitor them. It’s so important we do everything in our power to prevent repeat swallowing events from occurring.

Visit your vets for a checkup to ensure gastrointestinal issues aren’t a concern. Ask them to check for parasites and get a worm count carried out. It would also be useful to enlist the help of a force free behaviourist to help you through the coming months while you’re teaching your dogs new ways to behave around socks and other items of interest.

If your dog is on a poor quality diet or if you have any inclination that their diet may not be suiting them, now’s the time to make a change. Sometimes just changing their diet can be effective on its own in resolving the challenges you’re having. 

Teach a strong retrieve using items that are either too large for them to swallow or you know they won’t. For example, your dog might be very happy to bring you one of their toys - but they’d guard a tea towel from you. When we work on teaching a “happy” retrieve, where our dogs don’t feel pressured to keep something from us, we can then slowly generalise this retrieve behaviour to them bringing us ANY item that they pick up.

Working on a good “drop” and “leave it” can also be effective if you’ve not worked on these behaviours before. However, if you have used them in the past and your dog has either learned to ignore these cues - or you’ve ended up taking something from them when they failed to do the desired behaviour - your previous cues might have been negatively impacted. Starting from scratch with say an “out” or “give” cue, used purely to mean food is about to fall from the sky, can be a great way to restart building up trust before you work around real items your dog might have in their possession. 

The two most important things to focus on are 1) keeping our dogs safe, and 2) building a relationship based on trust. Effective management combined with gentle training is the ideal combination to achieve this.

If your dog is stealing items and you're struggling to get them back, please do reach out for support. We can offer online consultations to guide you through working on this challenge.

Read our recent case study for more.