Squirrel obsession

[Taqroy]

Mu has it. When we go on walks ALL she does is look for squirrels. If I ask for attention or for a leave it (when she actually sees one or is trying to chase) I get it for a little bit and then she gets her reward and goes back to squirrel watching. She gets hyper-attentive and to be honest it's freaking me out because it is the exact same way my sister's OCD dog gets about lights.

She doesn't even react to dogs on our walks now - which is awesome but I don't want to trade obsession for obsession. How the heck do I fix this?

[HappyPuppy]

Dunno ... we have that as well, tho maybe not quite so intensely.... My dog also constantly scans under cars on our walks for meow-ing things... "Head left - head right - head left - head right.... I know I saw one here last week!!"

[lizzybeth727]

The only thing I've had any success with as far as chasing small animals, is to use the Premack principle. Here's a great article about how to do it. Skim way down to "BE THE BROCOLLI," that's where it talks about chasing animals specifically.

[Laurelin]

I used premacking with Mia as she was like that at one point. She'd get to certain areas where we'd see them and just go crazy. It worked well but you do need some patience.

I can now call her off them whenever. I still let her chase them around the yard though.