[nagdu] Lickers

[Tami Jarvis]

Kaye,

Some dogs are obsessive lickers, and I seem to remember that it's a 
behavior flaw poodles can be prone to. It's worse when the dog is under 
stress, as she would have been at the school and in her new home, but I 
guess they'll keep licking when they're not stressed.

I agree that the best approach is to substitute another behavior by 
redirecting her to, say, a nylabone or rawhide or whatever she likes to 
chew, then give her attention as an added reinforcement. Other types of 
play can also help reduce stress and build positive leisure behaviors. 
If you can manage some sort of run play with her, that seems to do 
wonders for my poodles to let off work stress. I was going to mention 
that a nice sniff 'n stroll is a good way to relax, but it's probably 
not a smart strategy with a new dog. Hm...

You can also simply nudge her nose away from what she's licking to stop 
her without adding the stress of a punitive correction, then give her 
some quick attention and praise for redirecting. As much as you can, 
giving her a substitute behavior to satisfy her oral fixation should 
work faster.

Obsessive behaviors can also have chemical causes and need to be treated 
medically. There are drugs for that now for dogs, I guess, but I prefer 
something like Rescue Remedy or another natural calming formula. The 
only other one I've used is called Happy Camper, but I prefer Rescue 
Remedy. Once it settles the dog down, I can then work on the behavior 
without all the interference from stress hormones and start creating 
happy endorphins for the behavior I want and all that jazz.

Good luck!

Tami



On 05/26/2015 09:54 PM, Kaye Kipp via nagdu wrote:
> Well, that could be, but she's always done it; even at the school.
>
> Kaye
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Debby Phillips [mailto:semisweetdebby at gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2015 8:58 PM
> To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users;
> nagdu at nfbnet.org
> Cc: kkipp123 at gmail.com
> Subject: re: [nagdu] Lickers
>
> Maybe she's bored?    Debby
>
>
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