There are various degrees of tail chasing.... If left unchecked virtually all Bullies will chase their tail.... especially when they are young. If you stop them and discourage it, and comfort them you can almost always stop it completely. Some (dumb) people think it's funny and laugh it off, which is definitely not a good idea. If your Bullie chases it's tail the best remedy is to get down on the floor with them, wrap your arms around them and comfort them until they stop, every time..... It will soon go away. I could be wrong, but my belief is that it mostly a sign of insecurity. If you are talking about Bianca, I'd take every opportunity to hug and hug that beauty.
In the beginning God created English Bull Terriers, in the image of EBT's, God created all other breeds.
Thanks so much for the input! She's been doing it a little more often lately and we try to immediately play with her with a ball, rope or whatever toy is handy or take her for a walk. Our other pup just got neutered and a few teeth pulled so he has obviously gotten a bit more attention.we noticed over the last few days also that she's been nipping at us like she did the first couple weeks that we got her. I'm hoping that this is all due to her not being the center of attention (as she has been! )? We still smother her with tons of love and affection,maybe she's just reacting off of not being the absolute center? And thank you she is a beauty, so happy others see the apple of our eyes as we do.she's a joy (and a happy chore!) :x
I have read that the tail chasing is an OCD but I wasn't too sure about dogs having OCD. I thought it was a bit weird. Cyrus has got a bad habit of chasing his tail. I have noticed that he does it when he is either bored or when he wants attention. He comes to work with me as I am scared of leaving him at home since the "trolls" have been stealing pups lately for fighting purposes. Can the tail chasing be stopped? I have tried by getting down and loving him, distracting him with toys, bum and neck scratches ( he loves those ) but he'll just go right back to spinning. I have sprayed him with water once and we ended up with a broken spray bottle and a wet floor.
I have an interesting observation. Hannah also spins and chases her tail, but not very often. We would tell her "no spinning!" and same thing, grab and toy and play fetch with her. It always worked and she wouldn't go back to spinning. She has a white tip on the end of her tail, and she seemed to be trying to get it!! At least, thats what I always thought she was trying to do.
Anyways, since Tea's arrival, Hannah has not spun or chased tail once!!! And so far, neither has Tea'. I thought that was pretty interesting. Now whether Hannah will go back to it once the novelty of Tea' wears off, time will tell.
Thank goodness for this wonderful forum! My first bull terrier did this and I had no idea how much of a problem it is. I didn't think it was cute or funny, or encourage it, but if I had known then what I know now, I would have corrected her the first time and every time afterwards. I always stopped her and distracted her, but in hind sight, it wasn't on my radar like it is now.
Our new puppy discovered his tail and rear paws around 10 weeks and unfortunately, he's still doing this a lot. I keep correcting him and he stops it for a few minutes, then right back at it. It is happening less, but every single time he does it, I stop him...every single time without fail.
I agree with philsergeant that this seems to be something almost ALL Bull Terriers do at some point and to some extend. I can understand people who do not know about the possible severity and laugh about the spinning. It just looks funny when a dog chases her tail.
Djamila did this when little. After interrupting it every time, I now rarely watch her do it at all and then only for a few seconds. With her it seems to happen when she gets bored - which she does pretty quickly. She has the attention span of a gnat.
But knowing that this spinning could develop into a disorder makes me always keep an eye on that behavior. Usually distracting her with a cuddle or a short round of play or even ordering her to calm down helps to stop the behavior.
Another odd behavior of EBT's I know of is trancing. Meaning the dog walking in slo-mo under curtains, hanging apparel or plants touching their back or even WITHOUT anything touching. Did you guys ever watch your dogs do this?
When you look for it on Youtube, you'll actually not find a lot. But most videos include Bull Terriers.
To me it looks insanely strange, even more because during the trancing the dog seems like hypnotized. But once stopping she will walk around at normal speed like nothing just happened. Djamila has not done this yet. But Fancy did it a lot.
I just came to wonder: Is this also some kind of disorder?
Rodney trances under a certain plant on our walks. The people have a pool, and my kids panic sometimes when they hear female voices by the pool because they're afraid a lady will notice them lurking by the fence and think they're peeping at them, when in reality, Rodney is just enjoying some trancing and they can't see the people on the other side of the wooden fence.
Rodney also trances under the mouse and keyboard wires under my computer. He is perfectly fine afterwards, and frankly, very relaxed and happy. It's like he gets a massage or something.
It looks so cute when they do this. My mother in law, who watched Fancy when we were traveling, often "complained" about her curtains being lined with Fancy's hair from trancing.
Somehow she loved those curtains and could walk in slo-mo under them forever. At home the did that under our laundry rack and "lined" our towels and t-shirts. Funny sight, nasty souvenir.
She needed to find something else, because we did not have curtains.
All of our Bullies have tranced, to one degree or another.... The place that they love doing this the most is in my wife's closet where they can tickle the backs of their necks on the bottom of her skirts hanging in there. They can literally stand there for hours (meaning many minutes)... They also like it under the many palms and greenery that we have around here... always a measure of how far off the ground the "ticklers" hang. I can't begin to say what attracts them so much, it must be something instinctive, not disorderly.... They also assume the same pose when approaching other dogs.... a low, slow crouch... like stalking... This gets other dogs owners totally freaked out, like they are going to pounce and kill...Meanwhile, when they get about 10ft from the approaching dogs they just break out with tail wags and excitement... it's hilarious really... It's somewhat like going back to nature. I don't know of any dogs besides Bullies that do trance.. Another one of God's gifts to this special breed. It was really cute on Monday morning, we went for a long walk really early and it was nice and cool and fresh (for Florida) and a deer and her two fawns came out of the green on the side of the road and just froze seeing us walking by.... Both Marco and Isabella immediately froze, crouching low, just watching them intently. Eventually the mom decided it was safe to move ahead, and pranced off in front of us, with her two kids following. Our Bullies just watched, fascinated, still crouching, not moving, until the deer disappeared into another clump of green... then they shook themselves off, as if nothing happened... It was like a Disney movie,
In the beginning God created English Bull Terriers, in the image of EBT's, God created all other breeds.
Quinn showed brief interest in her tail when she was a baby, and naturally I was paranoid that she was going to develop spinning. But really it's just a a puppy thing. Because of their OCD tendencies though, I would still recommend all BT owners to correct their puppies and not let it get into a habit. So keep correcting, and hopefully she'll grow out of it.
Quinn has never tranced! I know she has sensitive skin cause she has lots of tickle spots, but she hasn't ever gone into slo-mo. My bullie is defective!!
Laughing at your bull terriers trancing under skirts because Rodney will do this while I'm at the sink or if I'm sitting on the swing and the hem just happens to be the height that he likes. I love Phil's word for the greenery that they choose, "ticklers" because that's really perfect for how it seems to be for them.
Quinn could still show up one day enjoying a trance and come back to that same spot for a "fix" from her "ticklers".
Wish I had seen the bull terriers watching the real Disney movie in front of them. What a treat!
Quinn has never tranced! I know she has sensitive skin cause she has lots of tickle spots, but she hasn't ever gone into slo-mo. My bullie is defective!!
It may come some day, completely unexpected. Fancy was already a few years old when she started trancing.
Djamila has not shown any signs of it yet. But, she is a wrecking ball anyways. Also has a lot of tickle spots, just as Quinn does. And she does not really love to be touched there, especially NOT softly . She is more of the "hearty rub" type.
So strange to even think of a Bullie that doesn't trance... They all seem to have that special "higher" place, a quiet place where you can swear they are having a special little chat to God, mumbling about how sweet and pathetic humans are....
In the beginning God created English Bull Terriers, in the image of EBT's, God created all other breeds.
So funny my husband actually got to see Bianca trance for the first time (hopefully not the last I want to watch her!) just after going near the petunias in our flower bed. He panicked and thought there was some pesticide or something that she got into. We just realized after reading your comments that she was in fact trancing! I'm now wondering if she was being tickled by them when she was walking by. And thank you all for your comments on the tail chasing. She only seems to do it when she's bored. Her brother will be back to health soon so she will have her playmate back and that should definitely help with her boredom! In the meantime long walks, giving her plenty of loves and playtime with us
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If your Bullie chases it's tail the best remedy is to get down on the floor with them, wrap your arms around them and comfort them until they stop, every time..... It will soon go away. I could be wrong, but my belief is that it mostly a sign of insecurity. If you are talking about Bianca, I'd take every opportunity to hug and hug that beauty.
Our new puppy discovered his tail and rear paws around 10 weeks and unfortunately, he's still doing this a lot. I keep correcting him and he stops it for a few minutes, then right back at it. It is happening less, but every single time he does it, I stop him...every single time without fail.
I can understand people who do not know about the possible severity and laugh about the spinning. It just looks funny when a dog chases her tail.
Djamila did this when little. After interrupting it every time, I now rarely watch her do it at all and then only for a few seconds. With her it seems to happen when she gets bored - which she does pretty quickly. She has the attention span of a gnat.
But knowing that this spinning could develop into a disorder makes me always keep an eye on that behavior. Usually distracting her with a cuddle or a short round of play or even ordering her to calm down helps to stop the behavior.
Another odd behavior of EBT's I know of is trancing. Meaning the dog walking in slo-mo under curtains, hanging apparel or plants touching their back or even WITHOUT anything touching. Did you guys ever watch your dogs do this?
When you look for it on Youtube, you'll actually not find a lot. But most videos include Bull Terriers.
To me it looks insanely strange, even more because during the trancing the dog seems like hypnotized. But once stopping she will walk around at normal speed like nothing just happened.
Djamila has not done this yet. But Fancy did it a lot.
I just came to wonder: Is this also some kind of disorder?
Rodney also trances under the mouse and keyboard wires under my computer. He is perfectly fine afterwards, and frankly, very relaxed and happy. It's like he gets a massage or something.
It was really cute on Monday morning, we went for a long walk really early and it was nice and cool and fresh (for Florida) and a deer and her two fawns came out of the green on the side of the road and just froze seeing us walking by.... Both Marco and Isabella immediately froze, crouching low, just watching them intently. Eventually the mom decided it was safe to move ahead, and pranced off in front of us, with her two kids following. Our Bullies just watched, fascinated, still crouching, not moving, until the deer disappeared into another clump of green... then they shook themselves off, as if nothing happened... It was like a Disney movie,
Quinn has never tranced! I know she has sensitive skin cause she has lots of tickle spots, but she hasn't ever gone into slo-mo. My bullie is defective!!
Quinn could still show up one day enjoying a trance and come back to that same spot for a "fix" from her "ticklers".
Wish I had seen the bull terriers watching the real Disney movie in front of them. What a treat!