and feet, and tail! does anyone else's dog do this, and is there any way to get her to stop? She doesn't seem to be doing much damage, but the ends of her ears get soaked. Thought she was dipping them in the water bowl at first til we caught her at it! She also chews at her foot when she's cleaning herself, it seems she forgets what she's doing, looks round and goes for it. crazy little thing!

She's a puppy, hence she is mad. Porscha was chasing her tail for ages the other day and is petrified of traffic cones!

So long as she isn't damaging herself and she doesn't have fleas or ticks she should be fine. Give here a Kong filled with goodies, that should distract her.

Ah now Takara will forget she was grooming herself and start nibbling, but that's when she's nibbling on her nails and she gets carried away.
Rowdy, the dog we have staying gets his whole back foot in his mouth and will chew on it for ages. Mental!

You could try a mild aversive to get her to stop it just saying 'aha!' quickly when she starts and rewarding her for doing something else instead but I'd be careful about building the aversive up too much as I wouldn't usually recommend training using aversives.

The Aha works great with 'P'. She's responding really well and isn't needing praise after she realises its a no-no. However she is digging in the garden for England!! OH is getting quite cross with the holes she has made :hihi:

she has a kong type toy, but seems to prefer chewing gravel! she's been fleaed, wormed the lot and we're forever checking in her ears. she chases her tail a lot too, but it's the foot chewing really that's quite odd.. she does it so often i was starting to think she'd been bitten or had an itch or something.

Just distract her, does she continue to do it when shes getting hugs?

Edit: I have a dental kong you can fill with cream cheese/peanut butter and biscuits.. shes busy for hours trying to dig that out.

I think it could be a habit forming so best to try not to let her do it and distract her when she does. A lot of dogs develop habits like this and whilst they're not usually damaging, they can intensify and the dog can hurt itself or they're just really annoying!

I would still give fuss/praise after any aversive even if it doesn't appear necessary. I don't like aversives much anyway but they don't work well without the other side of things - the postive reinforcement because they still need to be told what is acceptable behaviour.

I'd rather use distraction but be careful not to teach her that if she chews her foot she gets to play ball! :lol:

I'd rather use distraction but be careful not to teach her that if she chews her foot she gets to play ball! :lol:

I distract her with a ball, and she got very cocky and barky when I said, "thats enough its been an hour now and my arm hurts"

P tries to jump in whenever me and the OH get within a foot of eachother, she thinks she is the centre of the universe :roll:

we have raw hide bones which i try to distract her with, but sometimes she will just carry on. she has even been doing it on my knee, so i put her on the floor. it's not really worrying as she's so small, but it's when she gets bigger and can do more damage to herself that i'm worried about.
we haven't tried peanut butter yet, but the cream cheese made her sick :(

Shoot me now people, but the best distraction for my girl was a visit to the butchers. He gave her a huge fresh bone (for free) and shes working her baby teeth on that. (and loving it)

White poo does still exist :hihi:

Now that might be a good idea :) this morning she ran about trying to eat snails, so a bone has to be the better option!

My dog and cat does this. It looks like they are biting but they are actually suckling. They dont do any damage and they normally do it when they are tired. so I just leave them too it.

isnt tail chasing a form of self joy for something they have done, be it naughty or good.. its a habit thats hard to break, so ya best off starting asap with distracting her and giving her treats for doing so, eventually you wil be able to distract her without the need to give a treat.