weird habits... hiding stuff

[picasso]

I have a 15 week old husky/wolf mix. She is the most amazingly intelligent dog I've had and very easy to train. She has this odd habit of hiding things, however. She will take anything she can carry and tuck them away in strange places (often under my pillow or blankets). Has anyone else run across this? Know why she does it?

[showpug]

I have a 15 week old husky/wolf mix. She is the most amazingly intelligent dog I've had and very easy to train. She has this odd habit of hiding things, however. She will take anything she can carry and tuck them away in strange places (often under my pillow or blankets). Has anyone else run across this? Know why she does it?

The nordic breeds are big into dens. I am sure she is just using her den instinct to the extreme. She is storing stuff away for the harsh winter LOL ;)

[bubbatd]

Sounds reasonable to me ! A did have one female Golden though who loved to hide things as a joke . Toys , her dish etc and then make a big game of it when I'd ask her where they were.

[~Dixie's_Mom~]

My Yorkie does the same thing with dog biscuits.....I'm worried about her because she whines, and gets very frustrated when she can't hide it. She'll dig in everthing, couches, chairs, LEGS, blankets, pillows, anything. She seems almost obsessive about it....which is what worries me. If you take it away she'll start whining and digging around for it, but when I give it back she instantly begins hunting for a spot to bury it again. She doesn't eat it...she just carrys it around, and if the other dogs get near her she growls and starts trying to find a place to bury it....:rolleyes: If you find a soulution to it, let me know. Normally "obsessions" form from not having enought mental stimulation, so we've been trying to take her on extra walks, and so far nothing's happened yet, but I'll let you know if something changes. :) GOOD LUCK!

[Herschel]

Dixie's Mom,

It sounds like your dog is on the path to being treat aggressive. When we first started giving our dog bully sticks, he would immediately run and try to hide them. If we came near him, he would run away from us.

We've been really consistent about having him drop anything with which he is too possessive. As soon as he starts to run, we say "drop!" and he drops it. Then we treat him (with a small training treat), pick up the bully stick, and then hold it for a few minutes in front of him before giving it back.

Now, he brings his bully sticks to us. :)

Make sure your dog realizes that the treat came from you as a gift, and isn't something that she is allowed to hoard.

[Amalthea]

Picasso,

I also have a wolf mix who likes to hide stuff in her special hiding place... There's a large desk with an attached bench in our middle bedroom, and the space underneath it is like the perfect-sized den. She loved to hide back there as a puppy, and still stashes things in there. When she was a puppy, her big obsession was shoes... she had a big collection of shoes in her den. Oddly enough, she only wanted one shoe out of the pair. She would run off with the one shoe and leave the other where she found it. She wouldn't go after a shoe if she already had one from that pair. She's a little less determined to own one of every shoe on earth now :D but she still likes to sniff and sniff at everyone's shoes, especially if they're new. The hiding stuff is a normal behavior and should become less of a fascination as she gets older, though she will probably still do it every once in a while, like with her favorite toys or with treats she might want to eat later.