Category: Common Problems ¤
  Author: M Shirley Chong ¤
   Title: Cure for Sock Stealing Dogs ¤

Susan Smith (who uses her last name!) wrote:

> He is currently in surgery for what appears to be a soft obstruction and is
> very seriously ill. His bowel stopped functioning and they are trying to
> restart it manually, as medicine has not worked.  All thoughts for him
> welcomed - his name is Jasper and he is a wonderful dog.

I'm hoping for a speedy and complete recovery for him.

> I am determined to get him through this, and now need to take positive steps
> to try and resolve this problem before it does kill him.  We have tried
> aversive manuevers - just harshly saying "Drop it" (which he does) and then
> turning away.  We have tried keeping him out of the more sock filled areas
> of the house (partly successful), and keeping socks away from him (also
> partly successful because I have three stepkids and their friends and it
> seems impossible to keep him from occasionally getting a sock or soft item).
> When we restrict him, then when he does get through a door left open he goes
> on specific foraging trips.

A lot of times when dogs feel conflicted about what they're doing, 
they chomp (for example, in retrieving--dog doesn't want to return 
item, does know s/he should, so chomps dumbell while returning it). 
A few dogs take it a little further and swallow the item they're 
conflicted about. Knowing how emotionally sensitive male Dobes can 
be (second in line only to GSD boys), I suspect he's very 
conflicted--he really wants those socks, he knows that for some 
mysterious reason humans disapprove (and the rules of the game are 
totally puzzling to him), he's oral anyway... so he grabs what he 
wants and >GULP!< down it goes.

> Can anyone think of a way to use the clicker (which he loves) to try and
> resolve this problem?  Is it exacerbating the problem to ask him to fetch
> and carry other things?  He loves to take rubbish items to the bin, and to
> carry things between us (beer cans come to mind).  We try and keep all items
> of a very different texture than soft clothing.  Should we stop carrying
> games altogether?

So he knows that there is something he can do with rubbish that will 
get him approval, he knows there is something he can do with full 
beer cans that can get him approval, but he doesn't know that there 
is something he could do with socks that would get him approval (and 
lots, lots, lots of cookies). This is like trying to teach a child 
to ride a bike by showing them videos and letting them watch other 
kids ride bikes but saying "no, no!" whenever the kid actually 
touches a bicycle! To the parent, the "no, no!" makes sense because 
they know the child could get hurt--but it doesn't make much sense 
to the kid.

Keeping him out of the part of the house where socks are located and 
keeping the socks put away is management. Management alone is 
*always* doomed to fail. How catastrophic the failure is depends on 
how the management is conducted and on luck--but it will always 
fail. It may help for you to silently do sweeps through the house 
and put everything you find out of place in your box--which you give 
the kids access to once a week or once every other week or however 
long it takes them to start missing the stuff you've confiscated. Do 
it silently and don't discuss it, don't discuss the rules, don't 
discuss how they can avoid this. It's not rocket science, they'll 
figure it out (I'm assuming all the kids are over 4 years old or so).

So here's what I would do: I'd start out with a large bundle of 
socks and soft rags tied together. A large enough bundle that he 
can't swallow it instantly (yes, I'm sure given time he could pick 
it all apart and swallow the parts but don't give him that time). 
Plus ask yourself "what would this dog be willing to rent his soul 
to get?" and have that ready as your reinforcer.

Have him pick up the bundle and hand it to you. Click and treat! 
Gradually increase the amount of distance he has to go to get the 
bundle and bring it back. Work for speed, make it a silly game 
atmosphere--you want to promote his thinking "gotta get this to Mom" 
before he even picks it up.

Once he's able to go all over the house at top speed and regards 
trading the bundle with you for the reinforcer as the high point of 
his day, gradually start to reduce the size of the bundle. Each time 
you reduce the size of the bundle, start all over with him just 
picking it up from right in front of you and work up to his 
galloping all over the house to get it.

At some point during this process, he will probably find a sock and 
present it to you for trading. Your job is to jackpot those first 
trades with whatever his little doggy heart might desire! And don't 
stop working on the retrieve game--work on it until he's retrieving 
single socks from all over the house at top speed (if your house 
lasts that long--the thought of an adult male Dobe galumphing 
through a house is rather frightening <G>).

If you aren't doing it already, you might also try feeding him part 
or all of his meals out of a Buster Cube or working for the whole 
thing. Anything to slow him down. You might also look at reducing 
the high-glycemic carb content of his diet--high-glycemic carbs 
cause insulin spikes, which makes the dog feel ravenously hungry for 
quite a while after a meal of them.

Oh, and don't be surprised if one day he punctures a beer can and 
loves the contents! It's the biggest problem with dogs trained to do 
that--they discover what's in that container and start appropriating 
it for themselves. After that, they are never trustworthy again with 
a can of beer (it's a self reinforcing behaviour).

M. Shirley Chong
Grinnell, Iowa