From: myerse@spot.Colorado.EDU (MYERS ETHELLA ANN)
Subject: Re: Help! Boredom sores caused by licking
Followup-To: rec.pets.dogs
Keywords: licking, boredom sores
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 21:08:29 GMT

In article <2B30D64E.489@ics.uci.edu> tittle@ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle Moore) writes:
>In <1992Dec17.180440.14479@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> myerse@spot.Colorado.EDU (MYERS ETHELLA ANN) writes:
>
>
>
>>Help!!!  My dog is licking his leg into a bloody mess!
>>Late this summer my samoyed starting boredom licking his leg.
>
>A long term solution might be to get him into obedience, running, or
>some additional activity.  It`s not called boredom licking for no
>reason.  And you definitely want to keep him from making it into a
>habit (which may have already happened).  This is what I would try: go
>ahead with the E. collar to give the sore a chance to heal.  In the
>meantime, introduce something new for Shiloh to do: it might be going
>with you on a morning jog, or taking up obedience training, or
>flyball, or whatever you both will enjoy doing together.
>
>--Cindy
>--
>Cindy Tittle Moore
>

 Is there anything else that might be causing this behavior besides
boredom? Stress maybe?  Shiloh gets 3 walks a day - an hour in the
morning, an hour in the late afternoon and ~30 minutes at night.  He
lives for his walks and comes home exhausted. My SO usually comes
home mid-afternoon and spends a significant amount to time playing
with the dogs. Shiloh does have separation anxiety (something he came 
with at 1.5 years), but being with another dog usually calms him down.

 We just moved in June from Virginia to Boulder, CO.  One of the main
reasons we moved was to get away from the ticks, fleas, and heat for
the dogs. Shiloh seems to have adjusted to the move and really loves all
the new great places to walk.

 Shiloh has always been fastidious about his feet and always spends
a long time after walks cleaning before napping, but he just doesn't
know when to quit anymore.  We had a similar problem after he was
neutered around the stitches.  He made himself so sore he had to
sleep on his back because it was painful for him to put his legs
together.

 We've wondered if it could be stress or jealousy. He didn't used
to care about any attention I paid to our other dog, but lately he's
been nosying in whenever I try to pet Pref. Pref is the dominate one,
but he's almost 9 and Shiloh is starting to not give in to Pref
so easily.  We had a couple of spats between them about the time
the licking started, but Pref seems to have reestablished his
dominant position - albeit with different rules from before.

 My vet is baffled about this, and frankly, so am I.  I'm afraid it's
already a habit, and I might have to start taking him to work with
me to avoid leaving him alone at all. It's almost as if the more I
get upset about this, the more he does it. He will lick all around
the spot until he thinks I'm not looking and then go for it.

 Should I start walking him alone occasionally?  He's not interested
in games - Mom is pretty boring when there are prairie dogs to
chase and dig for.  We practice general obedience almost every walk
- should I start getting more intense and do more than basic
commands?  I will try anything that seems reasonable.

Thanks,
-Ann

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Ethella Ann Myers                        eam@woolly.ngdc.noaa.gov
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"If cats could talk, they'd say things like "Hey, I don't see the
   problem here."
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A recent saying has it that while C++ makes it pretty difficult
to shoot yourself in the foot (in contrast to C), when it does
happen, it blows your whole leg off.
                                - Othar Hansson, BYTE magazine
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