"Natural" behaviours..

I've just come back from a walk with Bug, and I feel like such a nag! It was quite windy and spitting with rain, which always sends Bug nuts, but today she was on top form!

I think she probably had a snack of every pile of livestock poo that we came across, tried to stalk all of the other animals, dived head first into a bog, dragged a massive branch out of the river getting stuck in the process but absolutely refusing to give up, and then to top it off rolled in a giant cow pat before ignoring my "stay" command and jumping straight into the car while I was trying to get a towel. Usually she is pretty well behaved - honest! I put her back on her lead in between these incidents in an attempt to settle, but as soon as she's free again off she goes.

All of this is obviously natural for Bug to enjoy - I am strict about consuming poo for parasite risks, rolling in cow pat, and also stalking livestock! Bog diving etc isn't so serious but is still not a behaviour I encourage. Bug knows "leave" and I ask her to every time she attempts to carry out one of the behaviours, without fail, but she just cannot seem to control the impulse to do it anyway. I have tried both rewarding her for the leave (which she seems to think means "do it again, and when I ask you to leave you'll get another treat") and also ignoring afterwards - distraction with toys/food works in the short term, but she's very terrier minded and when she's on a mission she has a one track mind - which I do love about her, when she does it safely!!

What do you allow of things that your dog really enjoys for "doggy" reasons - and what will you not tolerate?

We really try to keep Suki from rolling in poo and from chasing cats.

It can be hard to find the balance, can't it? But at the same time incredibly easy to forget that these (plus other things!) are natural behaviours, pure instinct, even though the reason my sometimes be baffling to us.

The thing I'm struggling with at the moment is chasing wasps. That's Millie, not me! She does love chasing insects, and you then have the quandry over trying to stop her chasing them all (mean mum) or just wasps (how can she tell the difference, she's only a dog!). Maybe a couple more stings and she'll learn anyway.

I've decided not to stress to much about poo eating. It's mostly bunny poo, which is everywhere, and chicken poo in the fields. There's so much around it's a lost cause. I just have to remember to keep the worming up to date. I do try to stop them eating crunchy crunchy crabs on sea walks as so many seem to be rotting and oh my goodness, the farts afterwards!

Other than that, there's not too much I worry about. They are dogs, they don't understand why chasing rats, eating sticks, etc is something that I'd rather they didn't do, and if I start pestering them about it I'd never end.

At the end of the day, they are what they are, and that's what I love them for.

Also dogs have incredibly strong stomach acid and a shorter alimentary canal compared to us humans..ipso facto, they are very resilient to many of the maladies that affect us..My little puppy cannot resist eating sticks, ripping up leaves, stripping bark etc etc..I draw the line at stones for fear of him choking, or damaging his teeth....trying to prize his mouth open is always fun!

Thank you for the replies Bug always looks so happy when rolling in poo, but hates the baths afterwards!

It is indeed Liz! Bug's never done the insect chasing thing, she tends to just watch them/gives them the odd sniff. Can imagine its great fun for Millie though! And painful with the stings!! I suppose the noises/vibrations that they make are different, so she may be able to differentiate?

My reasoning for trying to be consistent with the poo eating is that she will mostly eat cat poo and rather loose ones at that (so gross), aswell as all of the horse/rabbit/cow/sheep poo on the moors. I worm her every 3 months and we haven't had a problem as of yet, but a friend's dog got giardia (they believe) from his cat poo treasures and was ill on and off for a long time, so I'm quite wary. Can't even imagine the crab smell lol!

I love watching her running free and exploring and practising all of her new found doggy behaviours, especially after bring walked on a muzzle and lead at midnight in the city for the first 18 months of having her. She's just wild sometimes lol! I don't tend to allow her to go too far ahead because of her poor social skills (which is another nag - Bug wait,, Bug stay) She does check in on a regular basis and if she's ignoring a recall and I say "bye Bug" she bolts back to me at 100mph lol.

funkyrimpler wrote:Also dogs have incredibly strong stomach acid and a shorter alimentary canal compared to us humans..ipso facto, they are very resilient to many of the maladies that affect us..My little puppy cannot resist eating sticks, ripping up leaves, stripping bark etc etc..I draw the line at stones for fear of him choking, or damaging his teeth....trying to prize his  mouth open is always fun!

Don't get lulled into a false sense of security, Si. Dogs can get all sorts of complaints from eating the wrong things. We had a dog needed emergency surgery to remove a piece of wood blocking his gastric tract. Parasites that live in the gut are, by definition, able to live in that environment (it's not only dogs who have strong stomach acid) and diseases such as giardia are awful and can take ages to clear up.

I love that you do 'bye Bug', Rach! I do that too sometimes. Works a treat, doesn't it? Bless little Bug running free though.

I've just drawn another line - no bloody bones on the bed, even if it is wet outside! Oh mummy, how could you be so mean???

Harley likes rolling in fox poo which stinks  and wallowing in muddy puddles like a hippo. He pulls us to lamp posts to have a wee or a smell which we let him, but last week l had to  pull a dead bird out of his mouth   We always say that he would make a fantastic cadaver dog as he loves anything dead and smelly!

Let her go after rabbits only cause she will never catch one and let her sit on bus seat cause she is scared on bus floor. , always try and stop her nibbling cow pats and sitting on my lap after she has been in water. Looks like I have wet myself when she gets off.

Dnt let mia sniff lamposts .

Mia05 wrote:Dnt let mia sniff lamposts .

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Always thought of that as doggy newspapers ha ha

Really?! Why not Crystal?

This is a hard one for me to answer really as Flo doesn't eat nasty stuff or roll in it or swamp swim

She's very laid back and will happily mooch ahead of us and chase the odd squirrel but I think that's the only prey thing she does, well apart from Sheep & cats ! Strangely, she isn't bothered with horses anymore since we've been to the New Forest so many times and she doesn't bat an eyelid at cows either for some reason... But Sheep, oh yes

Parvo rachel dogs can get parvo from lamposts.

Long as vaccine is up to date Crystal Mia will be fine. Iza stops at every bloody place possible for a sniff

Parvo is passed on through faeces/vomit hun, it's very distinctive in smell/texture. Sadly had lots of strays in kennels with parvo. Mia's vacs will have her covered as Col says

Oh aye getting to the cat vomit before Iza eats it up ends in a race.

On our fell walks I take a deep breath then shout, "Leave it!" every five seconds for the next hour. It makes no difference, Bo still eats so much sheep crap that his output is doubled the next day. He also eats bit of stick but at least when I tell him to leave it he spits them out half the time. Grass, too, because dogs can get lungworm from grass, but he just eats it like a goat and there's no stopping him. He actually runs through fields of long grass with his jaws chomping so he can eat without having the inconvenience of having to stop.

Happily he's learned his lesson with toads, though. It took two episodes of coughing and spluttering and drooling but he knows not to start picking them up in his mouth any more.

My pup caught parvo and he was never around any dog or poo, never had a dog in my garden either and I've lived here for over 3 years, my vet told me you can carry it into the house on your feet

It can be carried in on shoes etc, but large concentrations of the virus are shed in poo - even if you clear that poo up, some of the virus can stay on the pavement where the poo was (unless you spray the area with virkon) but even then, the virus is very hardy. If the concern is parvo it would be best to vaccinate, or if really worried, not allow the dog to sniff anywhere at all (impossible).

We think we brought it in was a terrible time he was only 10 weeks didn't think he'd make it, I new it was parvo straight away! But didn't want to believe it, read loads of horror stories on the net (stupidly)!but I Kept taking him to the vets until they agreed with me but luckily he pulled through he had to have an extra booster jab and one every year now. I've been paranoid ever since with him eating poo etc!