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Strange and Comical Play Behaviors.



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 28th 11, 08:44 AM posted to rec.pets.dogs.behavior
Jo Wolf
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Posts: 479
Default Strange and Comical Play Behaviors.

I swear that some dogs are frustrated comedians. The other night, I had
all four dogs out on the deck before bedtime. Eugene and Berry were
racing and play-fighting (Gene has a play-fighting "dirty language"
growl/snarl that gets my attention, so I supervise), and apparently this
concerned old Louie. He plodded over to them and stuck his head under
Berry, and kept going, lifting her rear feet off the floor, continuing
on until her rear slid off his back.

Gene and Berry play a lot "Boxer style" with their front feet. This
does not compute; Gene offered to rip the nose off my boss's Boxer when
Slider pawed just once at him. Of course, there's a heckuva size
difference.....

When Gene and Berry are roaring around together, Susie asks to leave the
deck.... either leaning against the baby gate at the top of the steps or
planting her nose..... nothing else..... on the kitchen door. Louie
just plods along, periodically pushing through the younger two like a
silent bulldozer.

Gene's food bowl is stainless steel. When he has finished eating, he
licks the bowl..... and will continue to do this for 10-15 minutes
unless I get the bowl removed sooner (usually). Then he continues to
lick the crate pan (plastic) where the bowl had been sitting, for the
rest of that 10-15 minute period.

Before I figured out a way to anchor the barrier I put between Berry's
crate and Gene's, she managed to move it out of the way and suck his
acrylic fleece bedding over into her crate if even a tiny bit of a
corner stuck through the wires of Gene's crate.

Excitement of any kind is a signal for Gene to grab anything and shake
it as if killing a rat.... bedding, a nicely crushed juice/water bottle,
a toy.... I know which bedding is his, after laundering, because there
are small rips all over it. The wires of his crate on the door, sides
and top are bent crazily from this. The big old towel in his crate in
the van is shredded. If he's carrying a squeak toy at this time, he
barks "through" it at the same time he squeaks it.... not at all muting
his bark.

Louie, who "discovered" toys (which had always been around) at the age
of 12 or 13, has a Cuz in his mouth most of the time he's outdoors,
barks "through" it, squeaks it, and barks again.... and the toy mutes
his bark nicely. He carries his toy up to the kitchen or patio doors,
and usually drops it before coming inside. This doesn't compute clearly
because for the two years after he first started playing with the toys,
he never took one outside.... and played with them only when alone in
the living room. He had several interactive games with the Cuzzes, but
no longer plays them.

Susie, bless her terrified little heart, only plays "soft games" with
the others; mostly racing around the yard. Her one game with me
continues to be the puppy zoomies before coming when called. Tonight
she may have introduced a new one..... darting over to me (sitting in
chair) and touching my left hand with the tip of her tongue, and darting
away. Her barking is still in the piccolo range, sometimes more like a
squeak.... so comical sounding for a breed that usually "sounds larger
than they are". She starts the twice daily "sings" of the Border
Terriers.... a howl-yodel-yip combination that lasts for 1 to 2 minutes,
in a very normal range.

Jo Wolf
Martinez, Georgia

  #2  
Old March 1st 11, 04:44 AM posted to rec.pets.dogs.behavior
William Clodius[_2_]
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Posts: 149
Default Strange and Comical Play Behaviors.

Jo:

Thanks for the fun descriptions.

--
Bill Clodius
los the lost and net the pet to email
  #4  
Old March 1st 11, 08:05 PM posted to rec.pets.dogs.behavior
Jo Wolf
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Posts: 479
Default Strange and Comical Play Behaviors.

Yeh, I had a chem panel and CBC done last winter and again this year.
All is normal. I'm his third home..... puppy placement to a family that
decided they didn't have time for him, then an experienced dog person
who has several Portuguese Water Dogs and had a train-at-home trainer
come in to help her with obedience (Killer recall and a
sit-on-handsignal are all he retained....), for, I think, summer and
fall, then they closed the house up when it started to turn cold, and
her allergies exploded. He was back to his breeder only between the
last home and me.... for 2 weeks, at 18 months of age.... breeder is a
trainer and practical behaviorist, but she missed a lot. And I'm
wondering if the previous owner, maybe both of them, didn't report some
instability, thinking that the breeder would summarily euthanize.

Gene is not all sweetness and light. He makes snap judgements about
other dogs and either likes the dog or detests it, on sight, not on
introduction. The only one so far I've brought him to a change about is
Berry. He is hasty to try to use his teeth to solve his problems.....
then not a bit apologetic. I'm working on the things I know get his
dander up, and am making some progress. But he will never be the
therapy dog I wanted, as he will never be bomb-proof with that necessary
degree of self-control. I'll be happy with a reliable demo dog at this
stage.

The licking and the attacking of bedding and crate are all, I think, his
expressions of frustration when he can't control his world.... but he
damn sure is gonna try. Yet he is not nearly as much of a "take charge
Charlie" as my second Border Terrier, Alvin (15 yo Louie is still "the
dog in charge of dog stuff"). Just more likely to use teeth. Self
control is going to take a long time to develop..... This is confusing
his breeder, as her line tends to be low-drive sweetness. And a big
disappointment for me.

Typical in this breed is high prey, low fight, moderate to high
pack..... low flight. They were expected to be polite overnight in the
open hunt hound pens, run with the pack, then get serious about whatever
was in that tunnel in the ground, and be polite with the humans who
pulled them out or met them as they followed the prey out of the escape
hole. If they couldn't chase the prey out of the den, they were
expected to kill..... something that was not wanted universally by the
various hunts in England, so they were used primarily up along the
Scotch-English borders where the foxes were large and hungry. They also
went out with the shepherds and their collies to do some hunting, to
include Scottish wild cats. We tend to seperate fight and prey drives,
because most of the dogs do! They respond to a clear challenge, full
bore, but are not typically highly reactive except to prey animals.

Gene, I'm afraid, has turned out to be much higher up the fight scale
than desirable and lower in pack. It's possible that he is a bit
obsessive-compulsive....

Jo Wolf
Martinez, Georgia

  #5  
Old March 1st 11, 08:07 PM posted to rec.pets.dogs.behavior
Jo Wolf
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Posts: 479
Default Strange and Comical Play Behaviors.

Added. Yeh, the only time I've seen him licking bowl or crate is after
eating. He doesn't do it to the water bowl, even if he's emptied it, or
to the crate if I've dropped several Charlie Bears or other small
goodies onto the crate floor.

Jo Wolf
Martinez, Georgia

  #6  
Old March 2nd 11, 07:54 AM posted to rec.pets.dogs.behavior
Jo Wolf
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Posts: 479
Default Strange and Comical Play Behaviors.... New Trial

I picked up another Nylabone dinosaur and a new Kong when I picked up
dog food today. He does enjoy gnawing on the dinosaur that's in the van
crate..... and like most terriers, Anything in the Kong will be
appreciated. I'll start by dropping one of the two into his empty dish
after each feeding, then take up the other dogs' dishes and come back
to pull his, leaving the chew toy. Will start with the Kong for maybe a
week, then switch to the dino and see what happens......

Jo Wolf
Martinez, Georgia

 




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