Doodles with Obsessions

[Frances Pendrous (Horan)]

Hello everyone. Oh dear me...do I need help with this one. My 12 month
old doodle is absolutely OBSESSED with trying to catch lizards and
bunnies.  At first, my hubby and I found it amusing and even encouraged
it by pointing them out on our walks. To our chagrine, she is now so
very obsessed in attempting to catch them that she spends her entire day
in the yard running from wall to wall in a very feeble attempt to
score. She totally exhausts herself and pays no attention to anything
else. I guess exercise is a good thing but this is beyond just playing.
The other evening I took her over the park where a group of us gather
and our dogs all romp and play together which she used to absolutely
adore. This night as I let her off her leash instead of just running
into the group, she just totally ignored her friends and ran to the
other side of the park, going completely deaf to my calls, and went into
the bushes to catch the bunnies or lizards or whatever makes the bushes
rustle.  It took me forever to get her back and the hill she climbed
was so very steep that I thought she would be so incenses with her
quest, that she would either fall and break something or worse get
bitten by a snake. Needless to say, her obsession is such that I can no
longer take her over the park to play off leash and also I just have no
idea how I can break her of this terrible addiction.  Please...anyone
got any suggestions other than a shot collar....

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

Yes, I have one suggestion. It is all in the way you think about this situation. I see it as either annoying ( Spud is OCD ) or a wonderful trait that could be built upon.

My thoughts are that dogs who have this wonderful concentration ( obsession ) would be fantastic tracking dogs if given the training.

Spud is not food motivated. He is object motivated.

Good luck. I feel your pain but I also think with these personality traits --concentration / obsession can be a good thing.

There are others on here that I have seen train dogs to avoid distraction ( I have yet to do this with a trainer ) but that may be another good option.

[Kyoko]

What a great idea!! I never thought of that!!

[Melissa & Porter]

I once saw a Dog whisperer episode with a dog obsessed with flashing lights on the ground, and the problem sounded similar (if less logical) to yours. It also resulted in exhaustion and asocial behavior. It had all started with the owner playing with the puppy with a flashlight on the floor...innocent enough.

I can't remember exactly how Cesar fixed the problem, so you may want to check out the episode. What I do remember was correcting the behavior first on walks, keeping the dog's head up so he could begin the fixation, and keeping momentum to the walk. Then in the house, correcting the behavior with your "no" sound or word...

Wish I could help more--sounds frustrating.

[Jamie Petro]

We have a very similar situation with Wrigley. Around Christmas we were hanging a picture on the wall using a leveler with a laser pointer on the end of it. Wrigley saw the laser and went nuts chasing it on the floor, jumping on the walls, etc. The next day when I was putting my makeup on she saw the reflection of the mirror on the wall and began sniffing around, jumping, biting at it, trying to catch it. I would call her try to redirect her attention to her toys(which she normally loved), and it was as if I wasn't even in the room. Next she moved on to chasing shadows at night when we had the lamps on. When I say she chased shadows, I mean she would chase them back and forth for 3-4 hours. It was as if she were in a transe. She wouldn't respond to me or my husband. We bought her some new toys, that didn't work. Next we extended her nightly walk from 2 miles to 2.5 miles. She still would come home and chase shadows for 3-4 hours. I decided to try the clicker training and the "leave it" command. When I would tell her leave it, she would stop, but she had this confused look on her face b/c she never could catch the darn thing and didn't know exactly what she was leaving. After about a month she had literally worn a path underneath the lamp. So we decided it was time to visit the vet. He diagnosed her with OCD. I thought he was joking at first, but he wasn't. He wanted us to try putting her in her kennel each time she started chasing the shadows for a few minutes if that didn't work, he wanted us to try medication as a last resort. We tried the kennel, and we were putting her in the kennel every 3 or 4 minutes. She just could not make the connection between the shadow chasing and being punished. As much as we hated to do it, we put her on medication. We were so afraid that it was going to make her a zombie, but we were willing to try it b/c the OCD had already taken so much of her personality. The medication helped tremendously! It did not make her a zombie at all. She was just Wrigley again. We've decreased the dosage gradually. We hope to ween her off of it eventually, but she does still chase shadows every now and then. You have no idea how bad this problem is until you are faced with it. We did not want to medicate Wrigley, but we had tried everything else we could think of. Good luck to you!

[Frances Pendrous (Horan)]

Oh dear Jamie...what a terrible situation you went through with Wrigley. At least our OCD moments were outside the house and hopefully, when the season's change slightly, the lizard and bunny thing might ease off. Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to share with me you own situation. Without any vet intervention, I too think that our Frankie girl does have an OCD. Since I put my cry for help out, my hubby and I did give in and purchased a shot collar. Firstly, we had to learn how to use the darn thing, then secondly it is very expensive $200 but truly, we took her over the local park where she would bolt into the bushes for the bunnies or lizards and after just one hit on a very low setting (which, I could not bring myself to do by the way, but my hubby had the controller) she yipped a little, jumped slightly, and then ran back to us and hid between our legs. No mean feat as we are quite small and she is nearly 100lbs..ha ha. Anyway, after that she truly was this angel...oh yes, my husband also yelled "NO" at the same time so the association was there with a NO. We proceeded the walk the entire park and she stayed by our sides, occasionally looking into the rustling bushes, but definitely no venturing to find what was in there again. Now we have to decide if we want to use it for our own yard when she runs from wall to wall hunting lizards...I feel, although that is truly obsessive, she cannot come to any harm and really does exercise herself...Anyway, I will keep you posted but this shot collar, that I was so against, really seemed to work miracles....

[Eva (Lilo and Rocky)]

I also recently had to use a shock collar to break Lilo's potentially very dangerous deer chasing habit. Nothing else worked; her prey drive was just too strong - I tried everything else I could think of first. All the trainers I consulted told me to not let her roam offleash, but that really isn't an option for me and I wanted to stop the behavior completely. I do allow let her to chase rabbits/squirrels/whatever in the yard and also track-train with her to make her use her nose in a productive manner. Having some sort of outlet for the hunting instinct helps redirect the obsessive behavior. You may want to look into a local nose-works or tracking class - I bet she'd love it.

Note that you should ideally break your dog into the shock collar in a safe environment (like your back yard) to prevent her from freaking out and running away from you when she gets zapped.

Does she know "no" from "leave it" or do you use the two commands interchangeably?