[abigail1989]

In the 3 months I've had Josie, I've stepped on her toes about six times. She is in the stage where she is pretty much all limbs, awkward an constantly under foot. As soon as she yelps I obviously fall to my knees and tell her I'm sorry, cuddle her, check her foot... Anyways the severity of the ensuing yelping crying freak out has increased the last few times it happened, and I feel horrible, and she crawls into my lap and holds her paw up and I cuddle her and apologize until she calms down. The last time it happened she was bawling and howling so bad I actually screamed for my boyfriend to start the car, I had seriously her and we needed to go to the vet. He shook a bag of breath busters in the kitchen and she sprung out of my lap and ran to him. What the hell? Is she playing me? Can dogs even DO that?

 

[ChaosIsAWeim]

Yep they most certainly can play you. Yeah sure getting toes stepped on hurts, but your dog seems to be overly dramatic about it, seems like she's learned that if she freaks out you turn into putty and fawn all over her.

 

[ThoseWordsAtBest]

The next time it happens (if it does, you never know) it's more important to not REALLY acknowledge what happened. You can create a monster by babying in this event. If I step on one of the dogs feet (which is impossible not to do sometimes with five of them) I say "Oops, I'm sorry!" and we go about our business.

 

[abigail1989]

Little brat. My boyfriend has been saying over and over "you're both being ridiculous. she is fine and you are spoiling her rotten" one time he even promised me that she was holding up and limping on the foot i didn't even step on. she is a crafty little bugger lol. If and when it ever happens again, I'll check her paw and then ignore her if she keeps bawling.

 

[ThoseWordsAtBest]

Little brat. My boyfriend has been saying over and over "you're both being ridiculous. she is fine and you are spoiling her rotten" one time he even promised me that she was holding up and limping on the foot i didn't even step on. she is a crafty little bugger lol. If and when it ever happens again, I'll check her paw and then ignore her if she keeps bawling.

Best way to go! If she is actually hurt, you'll know it. Jonas is a SCREAMER and it is all dramatics. He screams if rain hits him. He's already a snot so I do not foster it.

 

[alilyinthefield]

hmmm, unless I see blood or they keep limping after quite a few minutes, I don't really worry over it enough to even check their foot, the get over it quicker if you just ignore it and if they don't walk it off then you know for sure it's something serious.

Plus, I've got a screamer too, well I call it squealing because it sounds more like a pig squealing. In fact, my little girl (with multiple 'issues', the squealing only being one of them) will bump into me then immediately start squealing like I'm killing her. I will be standing with my feet firmly planted and she'll run too fast and smack into me then start squealing. I have never made a big deal out of it and I certainly don't even acknowledge it at all now, if it was an attention seeking behavior I'd think it would have faded off by now. She's had this issue for over the 7 years I've had her. She does this if she bumps into anything, other dogs, the door, the couch, the wall, just about anything and everything she could bump into, usually from not slowing down enough before she gets to it. She's even squealed jumping up into my lap, it's just her way. She also grunts when I pick her up. She's just vocal about everything. It often disturbs any new dog that comes into the family until they figured it out that Peaches is a odd duck and all her noises should generally be ignored.

 

[Canaqua]

Both our dogs cry if they get their toes stepped on. I just say "oops" or sometimes "damned dog, get out from under my feet!" . I mean, the reason they got their toes stepped on is because they were under my feet (usually in the kitchen of course). If it hurt THAT much, they'd stop milling around right where I'm walking while I'm cooking dinner. They figure that being there on the chance that I drop something is worth a little toe pain. Babying them would just encourage it more, they'd probably expect a treat for their trouble!

 

[Amaryllis]

Little brat. My boyfriend has been saying over and over "you're both being ridiculous. she is fine and you are spoiling her rotten" one time he even promised me that she was holding up and limping on the foot i didn't even step on. she is a crafty little bugger lol. If and when it ever happens again, I'll check her paw and then ignore her if she keeps bawling.

Muggsy did that once. Refused to walk on his right paw, holding it up all pathetically- only I had stepped on the left paw. After that, I would just apologize and move on when I stepped on him. (He was always right underfoot, you couldn't help but step on him occasionally.) Smart dogs are a bit of a curse, to be honest.

 

[melundie]

My parents' dog and mine have all tried this. They'll whimper and sit down and hold their paw up and just look at you with their saddest puppy eyes they can muster. I might reach down and touch their paw, but I definitely don't fawn. If one of them kept limping I'd look into it a little further, but most of the time I usually just go "oops, sorry pup!" and move on.

 

[LazyGRanch713]

Muggsy did that once. Refused to walk on his right paw, holding it up all pathetically- only I had stepped on the left paw. After that, I would just apologize and move on when I stepped on him. (He was always right underfoot, you couldn't help but step on him occasionally.) Smart dogs are a bit of a curse, to be honest.

Heck, I had a cat leap up and limp away because she noticed that the laser pointer dot had landed on that particular leg. Saw it on her leg and shot away with a dramatic limp for about 2-3 steps xD

 

[lisahi]

I'll say, "oh, sorry babe!" give her a quick pet and move on. But Coco tends to hurt herself more than I accidentally hurt her. She runs into things when she's getting the zoomies; she likes to climb onto high objects and then accidentally falls. She's never really hurt, though (because "high" to her isn't really all that high and I think she's got a very hard head and sturdy body). Whenever that happens I say, "oh, you hurt yourself. Your fault!" and move on.

 

[Amaryllis]

Heck, I had a cat leap up and limp away because she noticed that the laser pointer dot had landed on that particular leg. Saw it on her leg and shot away with a dramatic limp for about 2-3 steps xD

LOL! Smart cats are more than a bit of a curse!

 

[Pawzk9]

In the 3 months I've had Josie, I've stepped on her toes about six times. She is in the stage where she is pretty much all limbs, awkward an constantly under foot. As soon as she yelps I obviously fall to my knees and tell her I'm sorry, cuddle her, check her foot... Anyways the severity of the ensuing yelping crying freak out has increased the last few times it happened, and I feel horrible, and she crawls into my lap and holds her paw up and I cuddle her and apologize until she calms down. The last time it happened she was bawling and howling so bad I actually screamed for my boyfriend to start the car, I had seriously her and we needed to go to the vet. He shook a bag of breath busters in the kitchen and she sprung out of my lap and ran to him. What the hell? Is she playing me? Can dogs even DO that?

My first Aussie (this would have been really early 70s) I thought he was sleeping on a trip from home back to college. I shut his foot in the car door, and he screamed. I'm sure it hurt and I felt awful. There weren't any emergency vets where I was, and he limped for a couple of hours. What I finally noticed was that he was carrying the wrong foot!

 

[hast]

<snip> As soon as she yelps I obviously fall to my knees and tell her I'm sorry, cuddle her, check her foot... <snip>

This is why it gets worse and worse. The more she screams the more you cuddle and tell her that's exactly what you want. A dog doesn't understand 'comfort' they understand that we praise what we want ... so the more you cuddle and baby talk, the more she'll dramatize whatever she does.
It's like with a two year old human ... if your toddler falls you don't rush there and make a big deal out of it, you lift them up, brush the knees off and casually tell them to keep going. Even one "om my GOD ... are you hurt" could set a toddler off for hours, same thing with the dog. Casually insist that she keep doing what you were doing when you stepped on her and don't even check her paw until she's over the whole deal.

I often step on my girl when we heel and back up (Ooops:redface I just stop and make sure she moves back in close and tell her let's try again. After I've stepped on her I make the next heeling backwards really short and give a treat though. LOL

 

[a7dk]

I don't want to minimize your pup's obvious and horrible pain but this thread makes me laugh. I have the opposite kind of dog - I seriously believe Hobbes wouldn't even notice if I amputated one of his feet accidentally.

 

[Red Fraggle]

I've never seen a dog do that, but from what others are saying, it sounds just like with kids. Some parents will gasp and run to them and make a big drama out of making sure they're ok and those kids seem to learn to milk it. When parents are more casual about it, and say "Oops!" and wait for the kid's reaction before really responding or worrying, the kids tend to bounce back to what they're doing without throwing a fit unless they're REALLY hurt.

I honestly didn't know dogs did this too. When I accidentally step on Wembley, I've been making a moderately big deal out of apologizing because I want him to know it was an accident. Maybe I should scale it back a bit

 

[dagwall]

I don't want to minimize your pup's obvious and horrible pain but this thread makes me laugh. I have the opposite kind of dog - I seriously believe Hobbes wouldn't even notice if I amputated one of his feet accidentally.

Haha same for Jubel. He will walk right on your heels in the house often and gets kicked in the head from this frequently. Never a peep from him, rarely even breaks his stride. He knows we didn't do it on purpose so he isn't phased a bit. Occasionally he'll get a foot to the mouth as one of us steps over the gate to the kitchen and you'll hear his teeth click as they hit, he'll still be standing there with tail wagging and a smile on his face. I usually say some form of "sorry pup" and maybe a pat on the head but that's about it.

 

[KBLover]

The next time it happens (if it does, you never know) it's more important to not REALLY acknowledge what happened. You can create a monster by babying in this event. If I step on one of the dogs feet (which is impossible not to do sometimes with five of them) I say "Oops, I'm sorry!" and we go about our business.

Yep, same here.

I've stepped on Wally's paws on occasion. He yelps, I say "oops, sorry" and we keep doing whatever. Half the time, he doesn't care anymore anyway once I moved after the yelp.

Now there was this time he step on a stick or something and held his paw up and he acted like he didn't want to walk on it. I was like "screw that" and started running and he didn't do no 3-legged run LOL. Diva dog.

 

[hanksimon]

My 60 lb dog gets underfoot and gets stepped on. And, I can almost stand on a paw with no complaint ... unless he want to move... They're very tough.