'Shroomy'

[cockerdile]

My dog has this moment which we like to call 'shroomy' because she seems to just lose it between the hours of 6-7, especially if there are lights and reflections with the low sun coming through the kitchen.

She will run about like a nutter, gawping at the reflections and shadows with a big grin, wide eyes and frantically wagging tail.

So, I somewhat liken her to some psychonaut prancing about watching the bright colours all meld together, hence her nickname at this hour... shroomy.

In this hour, she does respond to us if we've got something, or if we leave the room....

but, toilet training becomes a thing of the past and it's like she's having so much fun chasing reflections and shadows in this moment she ignores that she needs a wee and she'll just wee in the moment, on the spot she is standing.

We have somehwat got it under control as now we take her out as soon as she becomes shroomy for a wee, but on the odd occasion we miss our chance!

Is this normal!?

[its.sme]

Sounds a lot like a Zooooomie, it's usual for cockers to burn of energy this way but could also mean that she is over tired.

Do you think she is getting enough rest?

Bea forgot all training when she needed sleep so my life was made easier by making sure she had more.

I do love it when they do zoomies, always made me cry with laughter

[MIN]

Oh yes, Zoomie time. Gemma (4) still does this. we just lift our legs out of the way, protect any fleshy bits and let her do her thing

[cockerdile]

Oh no. She does zooomie too this is different she doesnt race around like a bat out of hell (i love zoomie though its great fun, i think shes a reflection of me somewhat...).

With shroomy she wanders round wagging her tail really fast and stairs at walls with shadows and reflections on them and then paces to the next wall and stairs at that and then does this endlessly for about an hour. (we constantly redirect her during this hour to try and have her play with her toys instead of pace around like shes on drugs)

But yeah, zoomie definitely happens and i enjoy that when she suddenly gets this glint in her eye and runs around like a mad dog crashing into things, jumping over stuff, throwing herself about, etc. Love it in fact shes just done it, after her walk, partly because she must be really itchy because she ran into a pile of nettles hunting for rabbits and would not come out!

Shroomy just seems odd though! Especially when she forgets she needs a wee.

[cockerdile]

Eh... Sorry for the miss spelling of stares... I typed that on my phone and its 'corrected' it for me...

[MIN]

you will have to up load a video then we can add "Shroomy" to the Cockapedia Britannica 

[Emilyoliver]

Not sure that is quite normal behaviour.  What does she do if you crate her when she's like that?  Does it stop?

[cockerdile]

I'll try and video it, but yeah, I didn't think it seemed normal either!

She was kind of 'shroomy' last night, but she was watching and trying to catch a house fly... so I somewhat get the attraction in that - she'll go after anything that moves spiders, flies, daddy long legs. Although we are training her good leave its, stays and waits and she is getting pretty good. Sometimes if I am quick enough I can say leave it and she will leave the spider and of course she gets a treat for being good.

However lights and shadows seems a bit wierd, the problem all started when we noticed her chasing the reflections from our watches and off pans when we are washing up because we get the evening sun in our kitchen. Needless to say we wash up later now when the sun is down and we take our watches off to try and minimise these reflections but she still gets shroomy. It has lessened now though because it's so gloomy outside, we're somewhat hopeful that come next summer she'll have forgotten all about it and will instead be grown up enough to prefer endless games of fetch!

We keep redirecting her onto her toys, or also removing her from the kitchen when she is shroomy - she does stop immediately. I also have cameras up so I can monitor her when I'm working upstairs (because I was curious if she sleeps!) and she doesn't do it in the kitchen when we're not about, even though there are still lights, shadows and reflections dancing about in the kitchen through the trees.

We're working on it by trying to remove the source of the reflections and shadows (roller blind in kitchen) and also continuous redirection.

To be fair she isn't as bad as she used to be, but still a bit odd.

[Emilyoliver]

Sounds like you're dealing with it the right way - particularly if she's improved.  The only thing I'd do differently (but that's only me), is remove her from the area quickly and without any fuss - rather than redirecting behaviour onto toys, etc.  Being smart little dogs, they learn very quickly what's rewarded and what's not.  She may start to associate her 'odd' behaviour with being treated - if that makes sense?  Interesting that you say she doesn't do it with you out of the room...  sounds habitual with you as a 'trigger' (in addition to the light/shadows).

[cockerdile]

Yeah, will try doing that. We haven't been crating her when she does it because I don't want her to think of her crate as punishment but we have a baby gate to the kitchen which is usually always open so we simply lock it and with us in the kitchen and her behind the gate she stops immediately and lies down usually.

It generally happens around 6 o'clock, when both of us are home from work and making dinner, with the sun low in the sky and lots of shadows and reflections from us moving about.

Cheers, I'll still try catch a video of it so I can demonstrate the 'shroomy' behaviour

[Finvarra]

One of my scotties loved to chase shadows. She liked me to make shadows with my hands for her to pounce on, and if the sun came out or the light was on, she would sit and look at me and then at the floor until I made shadows for her. Very useful if she was shown in an outside ring on a sunny day as she was so,alert and lively.

Lesley and Dylan

[cockerdile]

Behold, shroomy!

https://youtu.be/Usq7k0_Vwhk

if we let her, she will do this for hours!

Please note, I didn't shut her behind the baby gate in the hall so I could capture this video... I also shut the dog flap so I could keep it locale to the kitchen which was amusing as she ran into it, silly dog!

But now as soon as she goes shroomy and runs into the hall we close the gate and she stops and just looks at us with her cute puppy dog eyes, and eventually lies down and waits. When we eventually let her back it, it's not long until she goes shroomy again.

Also, for some reason she looks skinny in the video! I assure you she is of a good weight (~11kg @ 7 months age, her mum is ~12kg) and eats at least 180 grams of orijen puppy food each day as well as a duck neck, and a bunch of treats! She eats 'like a horse' and I suppose it could be partly to her being such a livewire.

In the evening, the only way she general settles when we are about is if we somewhat restrain her slightly until she settles down. Otherwise she will just run around continuously or lay down and destroy her toys all evening.

She gets as much exercise outside as we 'are allowed' (5 minutes for every month of age), every day, we play 'find it'  at last 3 times a day. She get's trained morning, lunch and evening for all the standard sit, down, stay, leave it, wait, roll over, so on so forth and she is fantastic at them all. Currently teaching her fetch as she doesn't quite get it and is a bit possessive with her toys so we're training that out of her. She's been to KC puppy foundation, she's now going to KC bronze and she goes to gundog school almost everyweek.... oh, and of course she also has zoomie at least once a day

Also, a shameless plug, but if you've got instagram my girlfriend runs an instagram for our little nutcase here instagram.com/tartufopuppy

[MIN]

am I missing something here. I see nothing out of the ordinary 

[cockerdile]

Ok, that works for me

It just felt weird that she will run around for hours and hours almost every evening chasing nothing but lights shimmering on the walls and ceilings and become relatively unresponsive/deaf to the point that she even forgets to go outside when she needs a wee when usually she's in the habit of taking herself out through the dog flap to go to the loo outside.

Sorry first time dog owner here, perhaps unaware of some of the things dogs do in their spare time to amuse themselves when their daft humans are busy

[Emilyoliver]

Sorry, but that looks a bit OCD to me. I wouldn't encourage it - stick with keeping her out of there. And teach her a settle command so she learns to relax in the evenings. None of my dogs do that despite being energetic young workers.