[SJ071985]

Hi all,

We have an Australian cattle dog/shepherd mix that I have written about a few times on here. We've gotten past some big things and she's generally doing really well.

There's a couple of things that we still can't quite figure out how to help her and wonder if anyone has had experience with this before.

1. Whenever we run with her she jumps up. She doesn't nip at us but she literally hops on her back legs beside us. She is on a leash by the way when she does this. It's usually when we're running to cross a busier road in our neighborhood. Our other dog (he is a Shiba) loves doing this and runs beside us. We have had him for a year and a half now so he may just be more used to this now but I don't ever remember him doing the weird thing that our aussie does. I googled it and some people who have herding dogs have said it's something brought on by their instinct to herd, but I haven't seen much advice on how to change that behavior. She loves to run but not when she's leashed it seems. She ends up chewing on the leash after we've crossed the street too. Any ideas?

2. She is a pretty stinky girl. She turns 1 in a few weeks here so I wonder if it's hormones making her stink? We bathe her once a month but I wonder if we should bathe her more often. She also has stinky breath even though we give her dental chews and plenty of water and toys to help with plaque removal. She eats high quality food too and we don't give her any table scraps at home. She gets the same diet and care that our Shiba does... He smells nice and his breath smells normal. Kind of confused why she smells more all around. She is also very gasey.. could it be an intolerance to something? We give them Blue Buffalo Life source in fish and brown rice with a freeze dried chicken topper. We've found that adding the topper was the only way she would eat all of her food. Adding on the chicken was more recent too and she's been stinking it up since we got her. Are herding dogs more stinky?

Thanks for any advice or knowledge!

 

[Lillith]

1. It could be a herding behavior or simply an undesirable behavior from a young, excited dog. When you ARE NOT crossing a busy road, practice with her by immediately stopping dead in your tracks when she jumps up. Again, you want to practice this before you have to run across a road! When she's calm, try again. Rinse and repeat. You could also use a wooden spoon or something with a dab of peanut butter on it, extended away from you, to teach her to run beside you, much like you might do when teach the dog to walk nicely on a leash. You could also put a treat in your hand, I suppose, but I feel like then she might feel like she's being invited to nip at your hand.

Try a few different things BEFORE you actually NEED to run and see what works best for getting her to run nicely. She'll quickly learn that jumping up doesn't get her much, and it's much more rewarding to run beside you.

2. Stinky dogs and bad gas usually point to some sort of disagreement with food. It's not a herding dog thing (I actually think they're better smelling than most, but perhaps I'm biased). I would run it by your vet first to make sure she doesn't want you to have a checkup just to make sure it's not something else, because it could be anything from an infection to simply environmental allergies. Your vet will know how to proceed.

If you determine that it's food related, your vet might recommend a limited ingredient diet or maybe even a prescription diet. Personally, I would eliminate all the stress of trying different foods to figure out what's wrong and do an allergy test to pinpoint the problem.

And, it could simply be that her body doesn't agree with the food for whatever reason.

 

[parus]

Overfeeding can also result in gas. If you're having to bribe her with toppers to get her to eat the whole meal, maybe she doesn't need the whole meal. It's extremely unusual for healthy dogs to voluntarily go hungry, so it's probable she was just full, but the toppers make it a treat that she's willing to overeat.

If it were me, my first step would be to try a different food, without any extras.

I might be a terrible dog owner but when I had dogs with that type of coat I bathed them twice a year, tops, and just used grooming wipes occasionally if they needed spot cleaning between. Too many baths, particularly with detergent-y shampoos, can cause the skin to overproduce oil to compensate, paradoxically making the dog dirtier than if they weren't being bathed.

 

[SJ071985]

Thanks for the responses.

I have tried running with her without a leash when I'm holding a favorite toy or something else she likes (ex. Tasty treat) and she does run alongside me instead of jumping. I'll have to try this when leashed. I get the impression that she thinks the leash is oppressive to her people haha.

About the diet, I have wondered if she is allergic to something in the food. We don't overfeed her. We struggled to get her to eat anything most days for the first few months. We told our vet about this and they recommended the toppers because she was just not eating. She can be quite anxious although it's gotten noticeably better. Now that she sleeps more and eats all of her food, her temperament and anxiousness has shown an improvement. But now we're just left with stinkiness. I'll have to take a close look at the ingredients list on the Blue Buffalo.

Like I mentioned, our Shiba gets the same care and food and he does not smell at all if anything he smells nice. He doesn't run as much as she does but they do wrestle a lot together and then he lounges in our yard most days enjoying the freedom (he was a puppy mill daddy before we rescued him). I would think if anything he would be stinkier than her because he likes to walk through the bushes and lays in mud and sometimes we catch him rolling in poo... Why do dogs do this? Haha... Anyways this is about Lilly. I can only deduce there is an allergy or intolerance of some kind. I don't want to change her food over and over to find the right food so I will discuss this with the vet and see if they have recommendations.

 

[DaySleepers]

What works for one dog doesn't always work for another. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with the food, just that dogs are individuals and have different needs. It isn't even necessarily an allergy or clinically testable intolerance, just something that doesn't sit well with them, kind of like how some people can eat beans every day and never have an issue, while others struggle with gas and bloating after even a little.

Talking to the vet is a great start, as is trying her on a limited ingredient or sensitive digestion formula. Keep in mind that allergy testing can be long, expensive, and/or difficult (depending on the method), and doesn't always give you all the answers in the end anyway, so you may have to do some trial and error regardless.

 

[SJ071985]

What works for one dog doesn't always work for another. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with the food, just that dogs are individuals and have different needs. It isn't even necessarily an allergy or clinically testable intolerance, just something that doesn't sit well with them, kind of like how some people can eat beans every day and never have an issue, while others struggle with gas and bloating after even a little.

Talking to the vet is a great start, as is trying her on a limited ingredient or sensitive digestion formula. Keep in mind that allergy testing can be long, expensive, and/or difficult (depending on the method), and doesn't always give you all the answers in the end anyway, so you may have to do some trial and error regardless.

This is very true. We decided to try her on some sensitive stomach food by Purina Pro Plan. The vet recommended getting off of the Blue Buffalo for her as sometimes some dogs have issues with it. We thought back and realized that previously she was on the puppy version that was chicken based and she did not have smelly issues for the first month or so until we switched her to the adult version that is fish based. Might be the fish... we will see how this change goes. We are transitioning her slowly of course.

 

[cindidwhat]

Hi all,

We have an Australian cattle dog/shepherd mix that I have written about a few times on here. We've gotten past some big things and she's generally doing really well.

There's a couple of things that we still can't quite figure out how to help her and wonder if anyone has had experience with this before.

1. Whenever we run with her she jumps up. She doesn't nip at us but she literally hops on her back legs beside us. She is on a leash by the way when she does this. It's usually when we're running to cross a busier road in our neighborhood. Our other dog (he is a Shiba) loves doing this and runs beside us. We have had him for a year and a half now so he may just be more used to this now but I don't ever remember him doing the weird thing that our aussie does. I googled it and some people who have herding dogs have said it's something brought on by their instinct to herd, but I haven't seen much advice on how to change that behavior. She loves to run but not when she's leashed it seems. She ends up chewing on the leash after we've crossed the street too. Any ideas?

2. She is a pretty stinky girl. She turns 1 in a few weeks here so I wonder if it's hormones making her stink? We bathe her once a month but I wonder if we should bathe her more often. She also has stinky breath even though we give her dental chews and plenty of water and toys to help with plaque removal. She eats high quality food too and we don't give her any table scraps at home. She gets the same diet and care that our Shiba does... He smells nice and his breath smells normal. Kind of confused why she smells more all around. She is also very gasey.. could it be an intolerance to something? We give them Blue Buffalo Life source in fish and brown rice with a freeze dried chicken topper. We've found that adding the topper was the only way she would eat all of her food. Adding on the chicken was more recent too and she's been stinking it up since we got her. Are herding dogs more stinky?

Thanks for any advice or knowledge!

View attachment 265203

Mine used to do the jumping thing, we couldn't run. It was like he wanted to stop us. It helped to make it a command, a loud come and then start jogging. Also helps if there are 2 of you so the person ahead of the leash holder is someone the puppy wants to catch up to. They like to keep their people together. I never had the smelly thing, this dog hardly passes gas. We feed him the Rachael ray. But if she wouldn't eat it could be she knows it disagrees with her. My dog doesn't rush his food. Put the food out

in the morning and he will eat half the bowl around mid day and the other half at night.

 

[SJ071985]

Mine used to do the jumping thing, we couldn't run. It was like he wanted to stop us. It helped to make it a command, a loud come and then start jogging. Also helps if there are 2 of you so the person ahead of the leash holder is someone the puppy wants to catch up to. They like to keep their people together. I never had the smelly thing, this dog hardly passes gas. We feed him the Rachael ray. But if she wouldn't eat it could be she knows it disagrees with her. My dog doesn't rush his food. Put the food out View attachment 265211 in the morning and he will eat half the bowl around mid day and the other half at night.

This morning we tried what you suggested with running. It worked! I usually walk our Shiba and he's more of a lazy saunterer and my husband walks Lilly who is the hyperactive one haha. They tend to walk ahead a bit so this time we switched while crossing a non-busy street in our neighborhood. I ran with Logan (our Shiba) across the street and she ran behind us without jumping up. I usually tell Logan "let's goo!" really enthusiastically and he trots across all happy. Seems like she wanted to join in this time. Might keep trying this in our inner/non-busy streets and then move on to the busier ones. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[3GSD4IPO]

Your question has been answered for the jumping (it is usually excitement).

As to the food, when dog shows they dislike a food, LISTEN. I had a dog that acted like Pancreatic Insufficiency (years ago). It was not that (and I was feeding Abady granular and it is good and very expensive). She could not tolerate that food.

My vet actually had me buy a bag of Purina Dog chow from the supermarket. ALL the food issues vanished. I did eventually change her over to Canidae all life stages and she had that for most of her 14 year life span.

If your dog does not like the food you are giving, change it.

I now feed a raw diet and have no issues at all.

 

[zakhar18]

Hey! My grandfather wants to have a herding dog on his farm. Can you please tell us what they are, how they behave?
Thank you!

 

[Lillith]

@zakhar18 you will probably have more luck and receive more responses to your question by starting your own thread than asking a separate question on someone else's thread.

 

[SJ071985]

She has been on the new food for a week now and we have definitely seen an improvement. Her breath smells way better and she doesn't have that weird funk about her. It was almost like an old chinese food smell... not pleasant to come down to in the mornings haha. She also is gobbling up her food now. Haven't noticed much passing gas either. Glad we switched her food and also glad it was something that simple.

Also, @zakhar18 I'm sorry I'm not a herding dog expert by any means. I'm still learning about them myself.