| Author: Jeff K. |
Last week we introduced you to Wrigley “Rigs”, a rescued Springer Spaniel with a frustrating oral dog behavior that started with nail biting, moved to rock eating, and now just about anything might end up in his mouth and be swallowed. (See Rigs’ first post).
I want to begin with a “Thank You” to those individuals who replied to last week’s blog with comments and suggestions. This week I will share the results of tracking Wrigley’s behavior over the last five days. Because I am a big believer in sticking to a regular, daily, routine with any dog, I’ll first begin with Rigs’ typical daily schedule.
Regular schedule of daily events:
Morning Feeding & Potty: 6:00am Noon Feeding: 12:00 noon Afternoon Potty: 2:00pm Evening Feeding: 6:00pm Evening Potty, Sleep/Crate: 9:00pm
Now I’ll share Rigs’ activities between scheduled events. I must first point out that Rigs is an indoor dog, and that my wife is a professional mom. This scenario allows us to monitor Rigs’ activity closely. Also understand that when Rigs ingested an object, it was due to us not getting to him quick enough to avoid the occurrence. Fortunately, none of the objects were large enough or made of a substance to cause immediate concern.
Observed activities: (over a five day period)
Interactive play sessions 25 occurrences Searched for object (non-food / non-toy) 38 occurrences Picked up an object (non-food / non-toy) 22 occurrences Ingested an object (non-food / non-toy) 12 occurrences* Chewed on nails 10 occurrences Motioned to go outside (non-potty) 26 occurrences
* Ingested objects were primarily paper products, plastic, or wooden sticks (outdoors).
Some additional observations were; if he was let outside after motioning to go out, he would not go potty but instead dig through the snow (we currently have about 14” covering the ground) for older, frozen, feces and chew on it. These feces deposits contained foreign materials. He did not display this activity during summer or fall. Search, pick-up, and ingest occurrences increased during or immediately after play sessions. If the opportunity was available, his outdoor object search continued to target rocks and/or dirt.
In my next post, I will let you know what we are doing to try to resolve the problem.
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Dog Behavior Problems
About the author: Jeff K. is the Video Studio Director for Drs. Foster and Smith.
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Fantastic story and its great you are making progress. Springers can be notorious when it comes to obsessive behaviors. Mine is obsessed with Tennis balls, but it is great to hear of the work you are doing here