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Originally Posted by alaskayorkie  Good for you for getting her checked out at the vet first. I have no idea why the behavior would come on suddenly, especially with no changes in the household. Hold old is she? Maybe it's just something she grew into?
As for hoarding, I have one of those. He started the day I got my second Yorkie. The best advice I received was to take charge of all the toys in the house. Tea needs to know they are your toys, not hers, and you decide when it's playtime.
A behaviorist I met online had me pick up all the toys in the house, and bring them out only for supervised toy time. Since my hoarder was aggressive, he was leashed during toy time.
When toy time was over, all the toys were put away.
It was hard for me to do, but I can honestly say it worked. After a couple weeks, I was seeing a difference. After a month, the problem was effectively under control. He still has issues from time to time, but now I'm able to leave the toys out all the time.
The other main advice I was given was to increase his exercise. A tired dog is a happy dog.
Good luck. Maybe someone else will have some ideas on why the behavior started so suddenly. |
All these dogs have been here. I don't understand why she's suddenly gone so weird. She spends a lot of her time now STARING at me or the DH. Just sitting there STARING. She sits at the foot of one of our chairs and wags her tail and STARES at us. No acknowledgement of the other dogs around her who are trying to play, unless they annoy her enough that she wants to bite them. I didn't think to mention that she's also hoarding treats. She picks up the cushion on one of the dog beds and puts her treats under there.
I so much agree with the exercise thing, but we have a very large property and she runs so much that I don't see how her little legs carry her so far. My DH calls her "Ranger" when we're outside and often says, "Where are you, Ranger?" She's very hard to keep track of in the yard and we often find her in a neighbor's yard. Someone told me years ago that terriers just roam, but none of our other dogs do that. They do roam the yard, and some parts of that are still far enough that we call them back, but Tea just does as she pleases. If I take three minutes to water plants, she's out and about. It's really hard to find her sometimes because she just looks like a little black spot in the yard if she's that far away.
When you leashed the one who had the problem, were others leashed as well? I haven't tried that, but I think Tea would think she was being punished if she had to wear a leash in th house and nobody else was wearing one.
She's around a year and a half old.