Why dogs chase their tails?
Dogs are very interesting animals with quirks, and big personality. When you look at your dogs, I would imagine you would have a couple of " Why does he/she do that?" questions.
Why do dogs put biggest smiles on their face when they roll on stinky things ? Why do dogs adore cat poop? Why dogs twitch their legs,eyes,ears while sleeping,are they dreaming? Why dogs take time to find their perfect spot for potty and do circling dance? Why dogs lick human? Why dogs nose are wet? List goes on.
My some of "Why" questions that remain for our own dog "Palette" are ..
1. When I cook food for family, usually Palette is resting on her bed or playing in other room. Strange thing is that, when food is ready to serve in a min or two, she quits whatever she was doing and lie down like sphinx right behind my legs,staring at pots and pans as if she KNOWS it's almost done and ready to be served. How she knows that when I am not pulling out any plates to serve on?
2. When we pick up telephone, Palette perks up if she were resting on bed,and dash towards her squeaky toys and start squeaking. When we off from phone, she stops squeaking. I have no idea why she does that.I do not remember handing out toys when I am on the phone before, and question remains. She maybe wants to be included in our conversation on the phone?
Now,have you ever wondered "why dogs chase their own tail? "
Palette is Pembroke Welsh Corgi and she has no tail like German shepherd, for example. So, she has nothing to chase for long time, but I have seen dogs chase their own tail for some time without slowing down the speed.
Palette can spin on command and when she spins,she spins pretty fast and she probably can spin faster and more number of spins than I can.
According to petplace website, there are some theories.
1. Environmental stress
ex: crated too long, not enough socialization, not enough ways to out pent-up energy
2. Anxiety,lack of stimulus
From helium website, theories are as followings
1. Tail chasing was formally form of play but,it became habit of behavior
2. dogs chase their tail to entertain themselves because they are bored
3. flea bite near rear area
4. dogs do tail chasing because when they did,human laughed (gave attentions) and dogs felt their behavior was rewarded and continue tail chasing
So, what can you do to help curb the behavior??
According to petplace website, you can try some of the followings to curb the behavior
1. Increase exercise
2. Increase opportunity for dogs to do dog specific behavior such as chasing, catching
ex; fly ball, Frisbee, fetch ball, agility
According to helium website, you can try some of the followings to curb the behavior
1. Never let your dogs feel rewarded. That means, no laughing, no praising, no nothing.
2. Ignore the behavior and leave the room.
Dogs would think that tail chasing causes you to leave and get no attention from you
3. Give dogs mental exercise
Interactive toys, do "find it" game etc..
4.Increase exercise to let out pent-up energy
5. check rear area to make sure no tick or flea is not at presence.
The Helium site mentions about bitter apple spray for stopping tail chasing but,I personally feel it is not good idea. If we must interrupt tail chewing behavior, I would feel more comfortable giving dog soft Elizabeth collar such as Comfy cone, rather than applying anything topical on the dogs' skin to avoid them biting or chewing it
6. Consult behaviorist/vet
I see both website suggests exercise to curb the behavior.
No matter what breed of dogs you have,exercise (mental or physical) is a must. Exercise is not just to curb unwanted behavior. Dogs can learn many things during exercise too such as "nice walk" or "greeting with other dogs or people on walk" etc for walking, "give" for fetch play etc and they can spend quality time with you and your bond with them get stronger, and ultimately, it is fun for both of you. And good for both of your health.
So,what theories above do you think is most "make sense" theories to you?? Do you have any other thoughts on this?
What are your dogs' quirk? Anything they do that makes you think why they do what they do?
Why do dogs put biggest smiles on their face when they roll on stinky things ? Why do dogs adore cat poop? Why dogs twitch their legs,eyes,ears while sleeping,are they dreaming? Why dogs take time to find their perfect spot for potty and do circling dance? Why dogs lick human? Why dogs nose are wet? List goes on.
My some of "Why" questions that remain for our own dog "Palette" are ..
1. When I cook food for family, usually Palette is resting on her bed or playing in other room. Strange thing is that, when food is ready to serve in a min or two, she quits whatever she was doing and lie down like sphinx right behind my legs,staring at pots and pans as if she KNOWS it's almost done and ready to be served. How she knows that when I am not pulling out any plates to serve on?
2. When we pick up telephone, Palette perks up if she were resting on bed,and dash towards her squeaky toys and start squeaking. When we off from phone, she stops squeaking. I have no idea why she does that.I do not remember handing out toys when I am on the phone before, and question remains. She maybe wants to be included in our conversation on the phone?
Now,have you ever wondered "why dogs chase their own tail? "
Palette is Pembroke Welsh Corgi and she has no tail like German shepherd, for example. So, she has nothing to chase for long time, but I have seen dogs chase their own tail for some time without slowing down the speed.
Palette can spin on command and when she spins,she spins pretty fast and she probably can spin faster and more number of spins than I can.
According to petplace website, there are some theories.
1. Environmental stress
ex: crated too long, not enough socialization, not enough ways to out pent-up energy
2. Anxiety,lack of stimulus
From helium website, theories are as followings
1. Tail chasing was formally form of play but,it became habit of behavior
2. dogs chase their tail to entertain themselves because they are bored
3. flea bite near rear area
4. dogs do tail chasing because when they did,human laughed (gave attentions) and dogs felt their behavior was rewarded and continue tail chasing
So, what can you do to help curb the behavior??
According to petplace website, you can try some of the followings to curb the behavior
1. Increase exercise
2. Increase opportunity for dogs to do dog specific behavior such as chasing, catching
ex; fly ball, Frisbee, fetch ball, agility
According to helium website, you can try some of the followings to curb the behavior
1. Never let your dogs feel rewarded. That means, no laughing, no praising, no nothing.
2. Ignore the behavior and leave the room.
Dogs would think that tail chasing causes you to leave and get no attention from you
3. Give dogs mental exercise
Interactive toys, do "find it" game etc..
4.Increase exercise to let out pent-up energy
5. check rear area to make sure no tick or flea is not at presence.
The Helium site mentions about bitter apple spray for stopping tail chasing but,I personally feel it is not good idea. If we must interrupt tail chewing behavior, I would feel more comfortable giving dog soft Elizabeth collar such as Comfy cone, rather than applying anything topical on the dogs' skin to avoid them biting or chewing it
6. Consult behaviorist/vet
I see both website suggests exercise to curb the behavior.
No matter what breed of dogs you have,exercise (mental or physical) is a must. Exercise is not just to curb unwanted behavior. Dogs can learn many things during exercise too such as "nice walk" or "greeting with other dogs or people on walk" etc for walking, "give" for fetch play etc and they can spend quality time with you and your bond with them get stronger, and ultimately, it is fun for both of you. And good for both of your health.
So,what theories above do you think is most "make sense" theories to you?? Do you have any other thoughts on this?
What are your dogs' quirk? Anything they do that makes you think why they do what they do?
I think that there are many reasons, depending on each dog's temperment, and probably ALL of those reasons are applicable to some dogs. The reason they do the behavior would indicate which treatment would be needed to curb the problem behavior.
I know that some dogs are just so observant that they seem to be able to read their person's mind, and that is what Palette is doing. She has noticed some kind of "tell" (that's a card game word that "telegraphs" which move is going to be made) that you have... Maybe washing your hands to get ready to put out things... Maybe putting the rest of the ingredients you've used away... something that gives her a hint that it's just about time.
I remember my husband when he got the first dog he'd ever had. I taught him how to train her. He worked as a night security guard at the time and they spent all night together and he would work with her. One night, he asked me to watch what he was doing because he thought that Sheba was reading his mind.
What was happening, was that he was using both hand and word commands toward her and he had started to give the hand signal a split second before he gave the word command and she was reading the hand signal. It was so close together that he hadn't noticed the difference.
Corgis are well known to be SUPER intelligent AND to bond to one person and when they do, they study that person every minute they are with them until they've figured out even the minutest nuances of that person's movements. They will do anything to make THEIR person happy. They aren't the only breed to do this, but it IS one of their main traits, and what, I feel, makes them such wonderful companions.
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It is interesting to read about Sheba and your husband's story.
I remember one of the dog training books I have read before said that it is beneficial to teach the dogs to be able to react silent command (hand signal without verbal cue). Because as they age, hearing ability could go down. So, When I was training Palette for basic command from sit,stay,come etc as puppy, now and then, I just showed hand signal to her outside the training session and if she reacted to the hand signal correctly,I tossed bits of treats to her. For her, it maybe perceived as fun game that suddenly comes up like pop quiz though.
So,I know Palette reacts to hand signal without verbal cue. She also react verbal cue without hand signal. Because I trained her to react both ways.
But, in general, do you think dogs read hand signal better to react the command or verbal cue?
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