Dr. Emily Levine is a veterinarian who specializes in behavior problems at Animal Emergency & Referral Associates in Fairfield NJ and she will be blogging about pet behavior topics. www.animalerc.com
Dr. Emily Levine of AERA Writes A Pet Behavior Blog!
The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://petbehaviorblog.wordpress.com/2010/07/13/hello-world/trackback/
This is great. I have a cat who has some issues, and it will be great if Dr. Levine is able to provide some advice and recommendations. Looking forward to what she has to say.
I have a shelter dog (spaniel-spaniel mix) that steals things. Then he wants you to chase him to get it. How do I stop him from doing this?
The first thing to ask yourself is why is he stealing items? It sounds as if he wants to play; therefore, first and foremost, don’t chase him. If you do, you are teaching him to do this. Secondly, but just as important, you will need to initate more play with him so he doesn’t feel the need to get you to play. If there are times of the day where he is more likely to steal items to play, you need to be pre-emptive. For example, if he is more inclined to do this around 5pm, you need to initaite a game with him at 4:45pm.
Bottom line: don’t reinforce the stealing behavior by chasing him and meet his behavioral needs by YOU intiating appropriate games/play.
Hope this helps. If not, please comment again.