Hello everybody,
I’ll try to keep this short and clear, though there are many factors….
Daisy, our 9 month old working cocker has developed some annoying habits over the last month when we take her out for her walks.
She has a mad obsession with sticks. Despite throwing them for her when she was younger, she fell ill a few times, our arms were hurting, and she seemed to do more running when doing her own thing. So we decided to ignore them and it worked, occasionally she’d pick one up but it wouldn’t last.
Now, I don’t quite remember how it escalated but now when she finds a stick that is worthy, it becomes the focus of her walk. She loses all interest in socialising/playing and instead she runs over to groups of people sat in the park and encourages them to throw the stick. The only way we get her back is to get the stick ourselves so she’ll follow us away from the group. She has also picked up the habit of running over to groups without a stick, and then finding one near them. She runs over to people kicking a ball or throwing a frisbee and chases whatever they are playing with, but does not attack it. The jist of it is she runs over to groups of people and has a mad obsession with sticks.
We’ve tried throwing balls for her at the park, but she has no interest, although she plays with them at home. My guess is it’s because she can't rip them up like sticks!
Here’s some background info… Training our dogs beyond the basics is not something we’ve ever done, but Daisy can sit, lie down, wait, stay, understands no, leave it, drop it and as of today is being loose lead trained. She was once good at the come command, I think it helped that it was winter and nobody was at the park, but now there are lots of distractions.
I notice when she is going to run off to groups, and when it started I’d tell her no and call her back and it would work most of the time, but now it is not effective, once she wants to go, she’s going.
From today, we are no longer taking her to the park, but we would like to train her to stop this behaviour for future ease and hopefully we can return to the park. Luckily there is a large grass area near, where people do not go and she runs around in a huge circle non stop (her worker instinct I guess, which I find amazing and fascinating!) When I use the come command in this situation it works. Not as sharp as it used to, but she understands it, and does it.
So, how do I stop her running off to every single group of people at the park? What do I do with the stick obsession? I’d prefer to not have to start throwing the stick again, but she absolutely loves them to the point I can’t describe!
Our main concern is she’s not obeying the come command when she’s distracted.
Any help will be much appreciated.
Thanks, Dan.
