How should I deal with tail chasing when he's close by?

Right after my last post, I had a little mommy-Robby cuddle time. He was in my lap and saw his tail and lunged at it. I immediately grabbed his cheeks and told him to knock it off. He jumped back into my lap, but a few seconds later, he went for his tail again, though not quite so enthusiastic as before. I corrected him the same way. He attempted a third time before he stopped, and lay contently in my lap for a nice rub down.

Did I handle the situation correctly?

Sympathy?
LOL Michele, really a lot of us here, if we don't live for dogs like that, it comes in a close second. We can empathize. We can laugh along with you, knowing something you're going through. Sympathy though? Hahaha. If it means I can convince you the dog is hopeless, I'll come take him off your hands for you.....just because I'm a nice guy. Then you can have my sympathy.
Seriously Michele, these are the days you'll remember fondly some day, hang in there.

In the future, if the dog is laying or playing quietly in his kennel I wouldn't bother him at all until it was time to take him out. I would only go out to interupt his unacceptable behavior, in this case chase/barking at his tail.

Exercise and training. It goes a long way.

If my dog isn't learning, I'm doing something wrong.
Randy

Edited by randy allen (08/02/2008 11:17 PM)
Edit reason: spelling, been reading tooo much bad English of late

I don't know for sure Michele. Because he stopped, I guess. Maybe instead of having to stop it you could spend that time showing him what to play with. Some dogs don't cuddle, relaxing for him may be more tugging and carrying.

 Quote: Michele Hinton

How should I deal with tail chasing when he's close by?

Right after my last post, I had a little mommy-Robby cuddle time. He was in my lap and saw his tail and lunged at it. I immediately grabbed his cheeks and told him to knock it off. He jumped back into my lap, but a few seconds later, he went for his tail again, though not quite so enthusiastic as before. I corrected him the same way. He attempted a third time before he stopped, and lay contently in my lap for a nice rub down.

Did I handle the situation correctly?

Hi Michele, I don't know if this was brought up yet, but is there anywhere you could take your pup swimming?
My pup also went through a monster stage a few months ago when she categorically refused to get tired. Hours of swimming & play in a lake was the only way to really drain all her energy and turn her into a non-annoying house dog. If your pup will chase & fetch balls tossed into a lake or pool, this a perfect and safe way to tire him out.
Swimming is extremely easy on the joints so you don't have to worry about overdoing it nearly as much as you would on solid ground (and no worries of overheating either!).

If swimming isn't an option, finding a stretch of sand to exercise him on can work well too. It absorbs the body's impact much better than firmer ground (less stress on the joints means you can do more) and deep soft sand is also more tiring for a dog to run on than grassy ground.

I've never dealt with an obsessive tail-chaser before, but what I've been told by people who've successfully dealt with similar issues is to interrupt the behaviour as often as you can by touching the dog and telling it to stop - maybe redirect his attention and give him something else to do.
My understanding was to avoid really correcting the dog for it in case he 1) resorts to repeating the behaviour as soon as he thinks no one's watching, or 2) gets frustrated by all the corrections and the extra frustration intensifies the behaviour.

Not sure how helpful that'll be, just thinking out loud. Good luck

 Quote: Yuko Blum

 Quote: Michele Hinton

How should I deal with tail chasing when he's close by?

Right after my last post, I had a little mommy-Robby cuddle time. He was in my lap and saw his tail and lunged at it. I immediately grabbed his cheeks and told him to knock it off. He jumped back into my lap, but a few seconds later, he went for his tail again, though not quite so enthusiastic as before. I corrected him the same way. He attempted a third time before he stopped, and lay contently in my lap for a nice rub down.

Did I handle the situation correctly?

Hi Michele, I don't know if this was brought up yet, but is there anywhere you could take your pup swimming?
My pup also went through a monster stage a few months ago when she categorically refused to get tired. Hours of swimming & play in a lake was the only way to really drain all her energy and turn her into a non-annoying house dog. If your pup will chase & fetch balls tossed into a lake or pool, this a perfect and safe way to tire him out.
Swimming is extremely easy on the joints so you don't have to worry about overdoing it nearly as much as you would on solid ground (and no worries of overheating either!).

If swimming isn't an option, finding a stretch of sand to exercise him on can work well too. It absorbs the body's impact much better than firmer ground (less stress on the joints means you can do more) and deep soft sand is also more tiring for a dog to run on than grassy ground.

I've never dealt with an obsessive tail-chaser before, but what I've been told by people who've successfully dealt with similar issues is to interrupt the behaviour as often as you can by touching the dog and telling it to stop - maybe redirect his attention and give him something else to do.
My understanding was to avoid really correcting the dog for it in case he 1) resorts to repeating the behaviour as soon as he thinks no one's watching, or 2) gets frustrated by all the corrections and the extra frustration intensifies the behaviour.

Not sure how helpful that'll be, just thinking out loud. Good luck

Yuko put it better then me, but this is what I was talking about. Havent seen you on here much Yuko, welcome back.

Well, I got email-yelled-at last night by a fellow club member who said "You know my dog? She is talking about a dog like THAT. Remember that I took him to the beach all the time with
http://leerburg.com/772.htm
because he was an OCD lunatic?"

Ah. I do remember.

He exhausted the dog at the beach with that thing and he did upbeat fun marker training every time the dog moved.

And he didn't have the same compulsion, but redirecting, playing, and training were constant for months.

Edit:
I think he launched into the water along the shore, knee-deep, but not out into the surf.

Edit again:
This was all human-with-dog. Like a second (bigger than the paid one) job. I have to tell the truth; there was no "give him this" fix.

Yeah, I really doubt there are any purchased "time occupiers" that will do it. He needs hands on help.

UPDATE:

Well, so far so good in the new apartment at school. He's in his big boy 48" crate, with plenty of room to spin and bark, but I haven't heard him. He's actually been really quiet in general. Almost everytime I come home, his bark collar only records, at most, 2 barks. I'm thinking he really likes being in a big crate in my quiet bedroom.

Oh, and we went to our first schutzhund training last sunday. Everyone seemed impressed that for Robby's first time being there, he latched on to everything the helpers presented (leather rage, bite tug, sleeve)

Michele, great to hear that he's acclimated so well to your apartment at college; and you must be one smart cookie to be attending Cornell, pre-med! Good luck to both of you...