Sticky Dog Syndrome

[Tassie]

A visual example! My 2 love stalking their Belgian friends. Lots of motionless staring.

Poppy was quite painful when I first started herding. She would get the sheep in a corner and then go in a trance. I had to physically break her line of sight sometimes and she certainly couldn't 'hear' me.

Poppy always greets me with a leaf Sheena but she isn't doing the trance thing when she does that. There is usually lots of squeaking involved. If I yell at one of the other pets Poppy will go get a leaf or stick then too.

Lovely! Mine do the same - such a pain when you actually want them to be exercising, and all they'll do is stand and stare aat each other. Rory is a real stalker - watched him near a hedg where there was a young rabbit one day - better than a cat at silently and ever so slowly lifting a paw and placing it down.

When she was working sheep, Kirra was only sticky on a single - and that was actually helpful in the paddock. :D

[Vickie]

Sounds like an interesting article. Mine show eye on stock, but I cant say I've ever seen even a glimpse of it in agility. Actually I don't think I have seen it in any other agility dogs either.

[canine fun sports]

Sounds like an interesting article. Mine show eye on stock, but I cant say I've ever seen even a glimpse of it in agility. Actually I don't think I have seen it in any other agility dogs either.

Of course, the extreme of "stickiness" is in the pointing breeds, although they respond to scent, rather than movement. Does that make it a "sticky nose"? Many gundog owners know what it is like when their dogs start to only pay attention to their sense of smell, and block out all other senses!

Cheers,

[Vickie]

They can get "stuck" on weave poles or tunnels & just can't hear you when you call them away.

This is different to a dog being distracted by sight, smell, movement etc. when I said I've never seen it, I meant I've never seen a dog fixate (through eye) on an obstacle during a sequence to the point it can't move, although I have seen dogs...including mine, fixate on the wrong obstacle...but they are moving towards it, not stuck on it.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Vickie

[JulesP]

They can get "stuck" on weave poles or tunnels & just can't hear you when you call them away.

This is different to a dog being distracted by sight, smell, movement etc. when I said I've never seen it, I meant I've never seen a dog fixate (through eye) on an obstacle during a sequence to the point it can't move, although I have seen dogs...including mine, fixate on the wrong obstacle...but they are moving towards it, not stuck on it.

I think the agility thing is different from sticky eye on stock. To me the agility thing is more that there is massive value for certain obstacles. Poppy was nuts about contacts and will still, years after doing agility, run and stand on something that looks like a contact. She still offers a nose touches. And agility wasn't a high value thing for her at all so I can imagine what a dog would be like if it did have high value for agility.

It might all be part of the 'over achiever' syndrome though :laugh:

[sheena]

They can get "stuck" on weave poles or tunnels & just can't hear you when you call them away.

This is different to a dog being distracted by sight, smell, movement etc. when I said I've never seen it, I meant I've never seen a dog fixate (through eye) on an obstacle during a sequence to the point it can't move, although I have seen dogs...including mine, fixate on the wrong obstacle...but they are moving towards it, not stuck on it.

I think the agility thing is different from sticky eye on stock. To me the agility thing is more that there is massive value for certain obstacles. Poppy was nuts about contacts and will still, years after doing agility, run and stand on something that looks like a contact. She still offers a nose touches. And agility wasn't a high value thing for her at all so I can imagine what a dog would be like if it did have high value for agility.

It might all be part of the 'over achiever' syndrome though :laugh:

I've never seen a dog get "stuck" badly on an agility obstacle, but Leslie McDevitt in her article on Sticky Dogs refers to this. What I found interesting, was the fact that the dog has switched to a different part of it's brain & cannot hear you. She says that sticky dogs can never be cured, but you can train the dog to control it...the best way (she says) is through shaping with a clicker.

Vickie, the dog does not have to be stationary to be stuck on an obstacle, just fixated on it to the extent that he takes completely no notice of you calling etc. My dog gets "stuck" when stationary, but is at her worse when running around in circles, with a leaf in her mouth, eye fixed on whatever it is she is circling. If I let her do it for too long, she starts to dehydrate & also forgets to breath properly.

Edited October 1, 2012 by sheena

[canine fun sports]

They can get "stuck" on weave poles or tunnels & just can't hear you when you call them away.

This is different to a dog being distracted by sight, smell, movement etc. when I said I've never seen it, I meant I've never seen a dog fixate (through eye) on an obstacle during a sequence to the point it can't move, although I have seen dogs...including mine, fixate on the wrong obstacle...but they are moving towards it, not stuck on it.

I am not talking about gundogs being distracted by scent either. I am talking about the dogs, that once they catch a certain scent, they switch their mode of thinking into "stalking" mode" and they genuinely do not hear or see anything else around them.

One classic example was many years ago when a top notch pigeon landed near the ring. Winnie came over a jump, caught the scent and went into a staunch point and could not be moved until some one chased the pigeon away.

This is the same instinctive (modified prey drive) reaction to the working dog giving the eye to something that moves.

I have never seen, in agility, a dog "giving eye" to a stationary obstacle. Their handler, yes, or something like a leaf that has moved and they want to stare it down so it does not move again. But never an obsatcle on course. And I have seen an awful lot of agility runs.

Cheers,