Wondering if anyone can shed any light on what Sam does and why please ? When we play with tennis balls or his safestix , he will retrieve really nicely and then it changes , he will place the item on the grass and begin to frantically pull up the grass around the item sometimes looking up with loads of grass in his mouth . He then picks up the toy , takes it somewhere else and does the same again with grass , do you think he might be trying to hide it ? He has never done this with his dummy, until today , I stopped him immediately and put the dummy away, he can get quite frantic with this grass pulling at times :
Re: Not really bad behaviour but strange ! That sounds most entertaining Some dogs do try and bury the retrieve, cockers in particular are known for it. But I have never had a lab do it. Sounds as though that might be what is going on though.
Re: Not really bad behaviour but strange ! I can't give you a reason for this, but if it helps, Layla has done this exact same thing since she was a pup,whether it be balls, sticks or plastic bottles ??? ;D I have, somewhere, some great photos of her with a mouthful of grass ;D
Re: Not really bad behaviour but strange ! So pleased that Sam isnt the only one He is still doing this, we are sure he is trying to hide things, silly boy
Re: Not really bad behaviour but strange ! Rusty used to do something similar but he seems to have grown out if it. See now I've said that watch him do it tomorrow!
Re: Not really bad behaviour but strange ! I think it is called displacement behaviour. All sorts of things can trigger it, stress, excitement, boredom etc. My cocker was a frenetic grass snatcher when I first got him. I have been clicker training him, something he really enjoys but during our retrieving training sessions he would sometimes feel under pressure, and he would express that by going into a grass snatching frenzy, ripping out great big lumps of grass.. Once he got more used to increasingly difficult retrieves this behaviour ceased. He will still do it occasionally when he is faced with a new situation he doesn't quite know how to handle.
Re: Not really bad behaviour but strange ! Thanks for this , I think with Sam it is excitement , he has a look of pure exhileration on his face as he is pulling up clumps of grass ironically though , he has done it less over the past few days , since I have been taking a bag with me containing his dummy, he seems to have very quickly grasped that this indicates retrieves , he seems more sure now of what is expected of him , thanks to brilliant advice .
