Tailbitting Issue

SpiritJordanRivers

I have 3 shelties. Karma, Cookie, and Max. Cookie (the 2 year old not-so-much-a-puppy-but-still-kinda-is) has an issue with biting Karma's tail whenever she feels, scared, anxious, happy, excited, sad, depressed, whatever. Karma now has a pathetic tail now and she'll get annoyed and nip Cookie sometimes, but mostly she ignores it and we want it to stop. BTW Cookie is kinda like a special needs dog, all her other littermates died, she was the runt and the mom was REALLY old.

Here are some pics I took of Cookie in the action:

Attached Images

   

pawzaddict

I don't know anything about the breed other than how frickin adorable they are! However I worked with a woman who owned shelties and one of her dogs did the same thing to its brother or even herself... Sorry I can't help more other than could this be a trait in the breed?

Criosphynx

shelties can obsess easily. Can you distract her from doing it AT ALL? Like..can you say her name and she'll pause for a moment before she does it? Or is it full on uninteruptatble obsession?

SpiritJordanRivers

The problem is that Cookie is at my dad and stepmom's house. Whenever I try to train either dog to do anything (they have bad manners :P) no one else in the house ever keeps it up. We thought about bitter apple sprays on Karma's tail, but idk . . .

pawzaddict

I would not do bitter apple...I would tell your parents they need to put more effort into the training with the one who bites the others tail...I have never met a sheltie that was untrained but I cannot imagine its very pretty...they are super hyper as far as I have seen lol. So do you have the one whose tail is getting bitten? I would not take her over there to be honest if she does not live there because she is only going to associate negative feelings toward the house.

Criosphynx

ugh...what a pain... bitter apple might work...but yeah, tell them how much it bothers you and ask them to put more effort into the training

DogLuvr

We used Bitter Apple on our furniture when Lucy did her buisness on it. It worked very well. Try it.

pawzaddict

My only concern is if you are planning on spraying it on the other ones tail. If so what if she has an itch and goes to chew it? Then she is going to be freaked out and wont know how to handle her itch....