Obsessive behaviour

Was just wondering if anyone has experience of obsessive behaviour with their dog.
Maxi becomes crazy when there is a squeaky toy around. She can smell it a mile away, through cupboard doors etc, she knows the rubber smell. She will then sit and stare at the door for hours, if we go on a walk she will go back to starring at the door when we get back (she once did this for 3 days). If she can see it she will do anything to get to it (jumps up on tables and me, she is normally pretty well behaved) and there is no way of distracting her, she will not even take food (she is normally extremely food driven).
If I give it to her it then generally takes about 10 minutes max until the toy has stopped squeaking and is in a couple of pieces and then she has no interest in it anymore.
I am not sure if to ever let her have them or just avoid them completely. I was hoping to train this out of her but she is like in trance when they are around and she wont listen to anything and there is nothing else she wants more than that toy. She reacts in a very similar way as she would around cats, possums and other small animals.

She has no interest in other toys at all unless they dispense food. She never touch chew toys etc. I have noticed lately that she likes soccer balls but it is in a similar obsessive way (not as bad as the squeaky toys though) where she wont stop until it's flat.

My worry is that she will run up to a child or another dog if they have a toy and she hears the squeak.
Is there hope to train her out of this or should I just avoid them as much as possible?

Having a dog that's obsessed by a certain toy is actually a real blessing. Many agility or obedience (or similar) trainers work to get their dogs obsessed with a certain toy so they can use it.

If your dog wants something that badly, think of all the things you can train her to do in order to get it!

Galadriel wrote:Having a dog that's obsessed by a certain toy is actually a real blessing. Many agility or obedience (or similar) trainers work to get their dogs obsessed with a certain toy so they can use it.

If your dog wants something that badly, think of all the things you can train her to do in order to get it!

It's unfortunately beyond that, she LOVES her food in a way that I can use it to teach her (almost) everything.
But with the squeaky toy it is way beyond being beneficial. If I use it she will obsess for days sometimes (if i manage to get the toy back) this is not helping training at all or if I let her have it I can only reward her once, get's pretty expensive. Plus I have noticed she gets in a really wierd mood after. Took her for a walk yesterday after she heard my friends toy and she was jumpy, running up to strangers and barking (which she never does otherwise).

Not good for her to be so obsessive about a toy, time to get the jiff lemon out, I used this for distraction when training Molly, fill it with water and a little lemon or vinegar, a quick sharp squirt when she is obsessing should work. As soon as she looks away you should reward with a small treat do this over and over until she learn that she gets goodies for not looking and she should break the habit quickly. The last thing you want is for her to scare a young child with a rubber toy. Good luck. x

It sounds like she's pretty high drive to me and needs an outlet.

Have you thought about doing something like flyball or agility with her?

Galadriel wrote:It sounds like she's pretty high drive to me and needs an outlet.

Have you thought about doing something like flyball or agility with her?

Would love to do something like that but she is still pretty DA, so not an option at the moment unfortunately.

pag wrote:Not good for her to be so obsessive about a toy, time to get the jiff lemon out, I used this for distraction when training Molly, fill it with water and a little lemon or vinegar, a quick sharp squirt when she is obsessing should work. As soon as she looks away you should reward with a small treat do this over and over until she learn that she gets goodies for not looking and she should break the habit quickly. The last thing you want is for her to scare a young child with a rubber toy. Good luck. x

Absolutely not! Do you know how painful that would be if it went in her eyes?

By all means try a water spray (although I don't like them myself), but not with an acidic additive!

Personally, I'd work on other commands such as the "Watch" command & make that really strong. Then if there's a squeeky toy anywhere you can break the obsession with "Watch". Indoors, I'd get rid of squeeky toys completely. Will she play with a big rope tug toy?

Caryll wrote:

pag wrote:Not good for her to be so obsessive about a toy, time to get the jiff lemon out, I used this for distraction when training Molly, fill it with water and a little lemon or vinegar, a quick sharp squirt when she is obsessing should work. As soon as she looks away you should reward with a small treat do this over and over until she learn that she gets goodies for not looking and she should break the habit quickly. The last thing you want is for her to scare a young child with a rubber toy. Good luck. x

Absolutely not! Do you know how painful that would be if it went in her eyes?

By all means try a water spray (although I don't like them myself), but not with an acidic additive!

Personally, I'd work on other commands such as the "Watch" command & make that really strong. Then if there's a squeeky toy anywhere you can break the obsession with "Watch". Indoors, I'd get rid of squeeky toys completely. Will she play with a big rope tug toy?

I will try and further work on her "Watch" and "Leave it", but it's like when there is a squeak there is nothing else she will listen to.
She is not too interested in rope toys now, she used to play with them a little bit but then I tried to use that to teach her "Give"/"Drop" by showing her a treat to get her to drop the toy and now she wont even grab it, just look for the treat when i try to play with it!

But tips on how to teach a good "Watch" since I don't think she got that down properly yet and also a really good "Drop/Give" when she has something in her mouth as well (when food does not work as distraction) would be great!

In order to teach a good watch and drop you need something she really wants above all else, that's why a strong desire for a particular toy is a good thing.

In this article - http://www.clickerdogs.com/createamotivatingtoy.htm it teaches you how to create a motivating toy so you could try that with another toy but I'd see if you could find a trainer that will help you gain control with the squeaky ball, did she come from a rescue centre? Maybe they would be able to help you with a trainer if you can't afford one...

The trouble with just banning an activity/obsession without providing another outlet is the dog will just get more worked up and find something else to do that maybe worse!