New behaviour

[Mutt]

Blaze has just turned 9 months old today and to this point has been an excellent puppy. He is very focused on anything that we play with exspecially the frisbee. he is also very focased on our cat and wants to be around it alot when he is in the house. For a month or so we have noticed that Blaze has been chewing the hair of his tail and then into his flanks. Obviously he is getting bored while crated. I tried the Kong idea which seemed to work well but decieded to let him out of the crate and give him the run of the basement with the cat. That seemed to be working at first as he did not bother a thing.

My wife decieded she wanted her own dog and we got Bandit a couple of weeks back. We continued to leave blaze in the basement but came home to find that he had decieded to chew the stairs. I wasn't sure what to do so I tried putting Molly (5 year old GR) in the basement with him. Again that worked for a couple of days and today he decied to take into the carpet and the stairs again. I put him back into his crate as i don't want him eating all this stuff and making himself sick.

I knew when I got Blaze that a BC puppy was going to be a handful but he has been very good to this point and is excellent when we are home. I also noticed last night that his two front middle teeth have fallen out and am wondering if this may be causing this sudden chewing.

I know BC's are highmaintence dogs which I dont mind and am looking forward to starting agility in the spring but I am concerned if the behavior I am seeing now is a stage or is it something that is going to get worse or better. Do BC's go through simaliar growning steps as most breeds and can I expect him to come out of this or will it get worse.

i realize I am not in the best position for a BC puppy but I had so much luck with Pride and do enjoy Blaze when I am with him. I am not sure if I am looking at a teething problem, abordem problem, seperation anciety or some jelousy with thw new puppy. Any of you who have had simalar problems I would love to hear from you and how things have progressed. Like I say when some one is around you could not ask for a better dog.

[AK dog doc]

As an FYI, dogs are generally done teething at 6 months of age, so if he's missing incisors, I'd be suspicious that those were adult teeth - no idea if they just never came in, or if he's lost them (or broken them below the gum line) as a result of his chewing. The usual order is that the incisors are the first teeth to shed and grow new adult teeth - usually the middle two first, then the two flanking them, then the outwemost two, in that order. So he should be MONTHS past having his two middle adult incisors come in. Occasionally a dog will do things differently, but it would be well outside the norm for him to be teething those two teeth now.

 

I'd start with a checkup to see if there's a physical problem (anything itchy, painful or otherwise "wrong" can increase his stress level and could stimulate displacement behavior such as chewing destructively) and if that turns out all normal, I'd consider a behavioral consult and/or modification.

[Mutt]

Thanks AK dog doc thats what I thought. My wife said she saw some blood on the snow last week so maybe he has run into a tree or something and it has taken me this long to notice the missing teeth. Is it possible if he has knocked them out that this would be bothering him enough to make him chew. Also how is missing his insissors gonna effect him down the road.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Eight to nine months in a Border Collie is what I call the "catastrophic chewing" age. Somewhere around here is when in a working situation, you'd start seriously exposing a young dog to stock on a regular basis, though probably not doing any real training yet. Hence, you see the majority of dogs not only having a new physical need to chew (something about their jaw growth pattern), but they also suddenly find that their environment has mysteriously become disatisfying, not stimulating enough, as those instincts and new mental capacities start to surface. Add to that the drives of adolesence and you've got a virtual destructive force of nature living right in your house, ready to find an outlet any way it can.

 

In short, it's time to get serious about training. Border Collies, good ones anyway, need structured activities. Your dog needs to be able to expect a certain amount of interaction with you on a regular schedule - a sufficient brain workout so that he'll settle the rest of the time. It's different for different dogs but you'll know you've got the right level when he starts settling on his own. You'll still have to crate him when he's not supervised for a while, but if he's had enough stimulation he at least won't chew himself.

 

Activities you can do now, since he's still a growing pup:

*Training on stock (though obviously this is limited to lessons - but it does help)

*Tracking

*Obedience - if you plan to do "herding", limit this to puppy or informal style

*Puppy agility

*Stupid pet tricks - some dog clubs offer classes

*Pretend he's in training to be a service dog and teach him things like fetching sodas from the fridge, picking up dropped objects, locating and fetching a ringing phone, retrieving a tissue, opening doors, turning on lights. There's web pages and books galore that teach you how to shape behaviors like these

*Therapy dog - if you're lucky enough to have classes near you.

 

You CAN survive this period but it takes lots of input from you and a huge dose of consistency. The payoff is that your investment will produce a grownup dog everyone will envy and will want one "just like him"!

[AK dog doc]

The missing incisors will do no harm unless the roots are still there, in which case he MIGHT down the road have a problem and need them extracted (this could be any time from soon to never and anything in between). In that case you'll probably notice something - mouth odor, redness or swelling of the gums, the root emerging from the gums, dropping food or refusing hard food, treats or toys, etc. Some dogs seem to have a problem with a buried root and others don't. You can find out for sure if roots are there by Xraying, but unless your vet has a dental Xray setup, this can be a tricky film to get.

 

Sometimes over time, if there are missing teeth, the "opposing" teeth - the ones which would normally be in wear against the missing ones - will develop problems, because they are not subject to the usual stimulation of wear against the opposite teeth. However, he could lose ALL his incisors and still eat and catch a frisbee and all that as usual, and it would not affect his life span at all. It might impair his ability to grip (as in herding) - not sure about that, will leave that question to the experienced herders here. For the record, Pepper has many missing incisors (mostly lost due to shagging a frisbee off the ground, at which she's fractured a number of incisors which have required extraction), but it has not seemed to harm her ability on sheep. She is, however, a recreational herder, not a professional farm dog.

[Mutt]

Thanks this makes me feel better. Blaze is very serious about his frisbee and there's a good chance that his how he has lost his teeth. I would never imagined that that could happen, live and learn.

I have been spending every possible moment with blaze either playing frisbee, hide and seek or obedience and normally this has kept him stimulated. Also we have some one coming in at 10:00 Am to let the puppy out to pee and Blaze gets excercised then as well as I am home at noon for a half hout then the babysitter is in at 2:00 for the rest of the day till we get home. I will keep working with him and hopefully we can get throught the next few months with out him damaging himself any more. Wish hearding was an option for me as I think Blaze would love it but it isn't as there are no one locally with sheep. I am going to look into going to Moncton in the spring and try him at a farm there that offers herding classes. Thanks again to every one that has replyed to my posts.