Jack Puppy Chewing on Stones

Question
Hi Carol, at 9 weeks (11 days ago) got a Jack shortie now named Buzz.  I spent weeks before hand reading many of your posts and can't thank you enough as in 5 days your advice had him sleeping in crate through night and going outside almost perfect so far.  He is great and loving and as you say often SO SMART!  I have a roommate keeping him busy during day and I take over when home from work.  I am writing as we have one problem scaring us that we don't know how to deal with.  Whenever he goes outside he finds small stones and keeps them in his mouth and sometimes chews on them.  We are terrified he is going to choke or get them stuck in his digestive track, or break his teeth.  As soon as we started removing them from his mouth, he immediately turned it into a game of "try and catch me if you can to take the stone".  Any help or advice on this would be greatly appreciated.  He is almost 5 pounds and eating half cup of the highly rated Blue Buffalo chicken puppy kibbles twice daily.  I mention this in case this might be a nutrition issue.  Thanks again!

Answer
Hi Brett ~
Congrats on your new puppy!
I would advise keeping him on a long training leash while you let him out in the yard, that way when you see him chomping on his rock snack you can quickly pull him back to you and get them out of his mouth. I don't think it's a nutrition issue, just a habit he's picked up that needs to be stopped. When you catch him with a rock, get it out of his mouth and replace it with something better, like a tennis ball or a frisbee, or anything that will distract him from the rocks.  Practice and persistence and a firm "NO!" to the rocks, and he will eventually catch on.
He will lose all his puppy teeth anyway within the next 8 months anyway, so don't worry about the baby teeth - you don't want him doing it when the secondary ones come in though!
You could try going out and spraying the rocks and stones with Grannicks Bitter Apple - a chewing deterrent but this might not be cost effective (if it rains and washes the spray away), plus I have no idea how many little rocks you have out there, but that stuff tastes horrible to the dog and he won't want to chew them anymore. Maybe you could go out and spray as many of them as you can before you send him out and see what happens. He could be turned off of rocks for good! Again, it might not be very cost effective - Grannicks is $8 a bottle - but it works to keep dogs from chewing - (spray it on any surface you don't want him biting or chewing). Otherwise just consistent correction and replacement will teach him too. GOOD LUCK!!!
Buzz sounds awesome, good luck with him!!! Write anytime!
Take care,
Carol