Weird Habitual Behaviour During Walks

[samoyedman]

My dog is just over 4 years old and for pretty much his whole life we've walked the same walking route every day.

One thing I am curious about is his habitual behaviour at certain points on the walk. Examples;

• on the same street corner on 90% of his walks he'll stop, roll over and want me to rub his tummy and play. Why always at the same place?
  
• at another spot during the walk, he always stops and scratches himself...no there's nothing on this spot that itches him and he always scratches the same place on his body. He rarely if ever scratches himself at all other than this. It always happens at the same precise place.
  
• when walking through a certain park he will start running around me and nipping at my feet playfully...again only in this particular area.
  

What theories are there to explain this location-based behaviour? Could it be a scent trigger?

I'm not worried about it in any way but curious minds would like to know

[Dory the Doted One]

*tongue firmly in cheek, no offence intended*

He's a Virgo?

[persephone]

My first guess is that at some stage as a baby, you praised him/rubbed his belly/whatever at those spots ??

The scratching could well be a displacement thing- somewhere he was/is a tad anxious, perhaps? Now it's habit?

The park was one where you played with him, or another dog played with him?

[Whippetsmum]

You've stumbled across hot spots for alien communication and he's picking them up via his microchip?

edited for typo

Edited October 2, 2010 by Whippetsmum

[~*Shell*~]

Is he standing behind you laughing right now? Maybe he just wanted you to start a thread on DOL about the weird behaviours he's been exhibiting. Maybe he's actually an evil genius....

It's probably just habit. I could pretty much walk Zero without a leash on our walking route - he knows where he's going!

[Malamum]

I think it's just habit too, especially if you do the same route every day.

We do about 3 or 4 different routes and Kira knows them all. She is such a good walker that I let her walk out in front on a lose leash and she knows exactly where to go and which way to turn at intersections etc.

Both of them also always remember which houses have cats and where we have seen possums in the past. As we go past those houses they instantly go on high alert and start looking for the cat or look up in the trees for the possum.

[Rebanne]

You've stumbled across hot spots for alien communication and he's picking them up via his microchip?

this is winning so far