[tuffycuddles]

ok...so i posted a while ago about small patches of fur going missing off of Maybe..like the end of her tail and a small bit on her forearm..... some people suggested skin irritation perhaps..but i really don't think thats it....

anyhow...so now to the main purpose of this post....
my sister and rest of my family is gone for the weekend so i'm watching her dog Mozart as well..he is a little poodle mutt. i figured that while i was at work i would just put him in the dogrun with Maybe, i knew i'd have to give him a serious bath when i got home..but oh well....so i got home and he has..well HAD long hair on his ears...half the hair off one of his ears was gone...looked like some one took a pair of scissors to it and gave him a little hair cut......in the middle of the night...Maybe threw up hair ball!?! so i know Maybe is the culprit!

i'm soooo confused?! What would cause this?!? I mean skin irritation would make sense if she was only eating her own fur.....

 

[Marsh Muppet]

I would consider that to be a form of predation. My Golden started to do that to live birds he was sent to retrieve. Only the live ones. The bird's flapping and pecking caused him to get overexcited and he'd begin plucking the feathers. He's begun to do it a time or two when he tried to "retrieve" very small dogs, and the little dog strenuously objected to the game. Retrievers (in particular) are bred to have a high prey drive, but one that is highly modified. Ideally, the prey response does not include killing and eating their prey. However, given enough opportunities, and insufficient human intervention, they will figure it out.


I may be completely wrong, but that's the way I would view the behavior. Keep them separated when you can't closely supervise.

 

[tuffycuddles]

hmm..that is an interesting thought.....but that doesn't explain why she would have chewed her own fur aswell...

and it's not fur being pulled out... if Maybe hadn't coughed up the fur ball i was starting to wonder if perhaps some kid was randomly giving my dogs patchy hair cuts....because it looks like it was cut.

and most of the time the two dogs are not together..Mozart is our house dog and Maybe only comes inside every once in a while when i'm around to watch her.