Doggy Day Care - problem with Dog

[Fridgedaire]

Hi,
We have a one year old collie/lurcher cross. First dog. Very lively to say the least.
Fully house trained, reasonable recall off lead (if I have treats), good with children, neutered. We attended puppy training with him when we first got him. He is well exercised.

When we are all going to be out of the house during the day he goes to doggy day care - this can be approx. two/three times a week, he has been going for approx 8 months without problem. Although they do mention he is very hyper.

My problem is, today when I collected him the person in charge told me he had been stalking several small black dogs, one in particular about 15 times, he would pin her and try and 'mouth' her neck. The dog handlers kept giving him time out but he just kept repeating the behaviour. They'd said they will keep an eye on him but if it continues he cannot return to doggy day care.

Can anyone give any advice or offer any thoughts on this? I am a bit stressed about it all!

He often 'mouths' cushions at home if that is relevant at all. I thought this was a comfort thing.

Thank you for reading

Could you call a behaviourist to see if they can identify the problem. The day care centre might be a bit happier if they can see you are trying to tackle the problem.

Would DoggyDaycare film it for you if it happens again? Hard to deal with behaviour that you're not witnessing yourself.

This article talks about mouthing in play and says basically bad manners if other dog is not interested.

I suppose the main concern is that the other dogs are much smaller than him, and as a Lurcher/Collie cross he'll have breed tendencies for herding?

Did they say what the other dog was doing?

My pup mouths other dogs necks when she's playing. Trust me, if your dog was hurting the other dog whilst doing this, it would be known!

It happens a lot during playtime. My pup often uses daycare and she does it there too, but like they said, they know the difference between playing and aggressiveness. So perhaps speak to the people again and ask them exactly what happens? And what the situation is.

Maybe it's a herding dog trait.

The only doggy daycare I have come across also offered training classes. Whilst I was there, they seemed to look after the dogs but also train them to get along, have rest periods etc. I would have thought they should be offering you more in insight to your dogs behaviour and help in sorting it. My only other thought, given I have a one year old who tends towards hyper and takes time to settle down is ...is your dogs lifestyle and schedule too hectic. I think a hyper young dog needs more down time , one to one owner time and brain training time than physical exercise and over stimulation at doggy daycare. Would a dog walker be a better bet if it is only two or three days a week.

Thanks for all the advice and ideas given me lots to think about

My doggy daycare has different days for different dogs. They get separated because of their size and because different dogs have different play styles. My whippet puppy has had to be separated from small dogs when I take him to my local off lead dog park but apparently he is fine at daycare. Another daycare I can take him to he can go any day but there are four different areas they can go to depending on the dog.

Maybe your current doggy day care isn't the best fit for him. The day care we use splits all dogs up into groups depending on size and play style, and our energetic young boxer (3 years old this coming Monday) in with the "big boys" at on account of his rough play. He is a typical boxer in that he either throws his front paws around like a crazy thing and climbs all over his play buddies or is running around like a crazy thing. I'm not sure that your dog would understand the concept of time out and if our day care was doing this to our dog I'd be looking elsewhere.

Agree with a previous poster talking about mental stimulus versus physical, our boy did two seasons of obedience with a heavy bias towards and on school nights would come home only to scoff his dinner then crash out in bed dog tired (lol!). It's tough huh.

Sounds like typical lurcher behaviour to me; they play notoriously roughly and noisily and their play style is not often appreciated by the smaller or younger playmate (or perhaps victim). Stalking is also typical.

He's also at the age when dogs hit their version of the terrible twos.

Sounds like he needs to run and play with dogs more his own size and speed; obviously he needs to learn who's ready to play with him and who isn't so he needs some socialising. There are groups set up specifically for this so it's worth asking around.

So I gave the dog a fairly relaxed weekend, nice walks, some brain training. He was back in DDC yesterday. Apparently he was good all morning and then got rough and wild in the afternoon. Today he is back there and it is his last chance - he is going to be booted out if he continues to behave badly!

I am a bit upset, I thought he was a pretty good dog, now they have me worried he has some major problem

I will try and look into some suitable training classes for over the summer months.

My day care only has a hand full of dogs at any one time. I did look at another day care option who had up to 30 dogs and it was very 'full on'. Is the day care a small or large one?

My dogs behaviour will go downhill at home if he is overexcited coupled with tiredness. If your dog was ok in the morning perhaps he is getting over stimulated and needs a calmer environment.

I think it sounds more like an unsuitable day care and and overtired hyped up dog.

Three strikes and you're out with no opportunity to correct the behaviour yourself because you haven't witnessed it sounds very harsh - and if they're not prepared to capture it on camera, and you can't recreate that environment, then what are you expected to do about it? Perhaps this daycare is not well set up for managing behaviour?