Very Very Strange Behaviour Problems

Hello all my name is Peter and I am new to this site. My fiancee Jo and I have had Bomber our border collie since he was a pup for 18 months now and all seemed fine up until about 5 months ago. It all started when he went for his walk, when he came back home he came inside like he always does. Inside is a tiled area with a couple of the rooms being carpet, and after being inside for 30 minutes he had all of a sudden became afraid to walk onto the tiles. Ever since then he has not walked onto the tiles or any surface which is similar to smooth tiles. He has never fallen on the tiles from what we have seen and he was walking around on them happily just hours before hand.

Since then we have seen the vet and he could not give an answer without extensive and very expensive testing with a vet neurologist. Some more of his weird attributes as of late are that he attacks the grass. He will be walking in the back yard and will all of a sudden just attack the grass and take a big chunk of grass. He does not always eat the grass just rips it out of the ground.

Today his latest one is when he is sitting down he is biting at mid air & barking for no reason.

Please if anyone has had similar experiences with their dogs or can refer a good website it would be greatly appreciated.

Thankyou.

My Lab, Bonnie (pts last yr.) was weird about certain rugs. My Mom had a throw rug with stripes....a wool one made in the southwest. Anyhow, she was leery of that and would not walk on it, but go around it. I think her vision was such that something about it looked unsafe, like a grated place on a sidewalk or something. I don't really know about the tiles with your dog, what happened there or what's going on.

As far as attacking the grass, are you sure he isn't playing with it? What does his whole body do, his head, ears, tail, rear end, what vocalizations, if any?

Does your dog get plenty of exercise and some brain work every day...some obedience lessons? Perhaps he just needs more to do to tire him out and tire his brain out. Maybe he's got too much idle brain space. LOL. I don't know because I don't know what you do with your dog, so that's just a guess.

I don't really know what to do about the tiles. But at any rate, try not to make a big deal out of it when he reacts because that will only reinforce it. Maybe you can sit on the edge, between carpet and the tiles and let him lie down on the carpet....next to the tiles and give him a massage or belly rub, give a few treats which you set on the tiles and do that for a few days. Then see if he'll go just one step onto the tiles and maybe put his food bowl there. Maybe it's hard for him to stand on the slipperier surface and he feels uneasy. I just don't really know what to do. I'll be thinking on this some more. Maybe someone else will have an idea.

Thankyou for your reply about Bomber. He gets an hour to an hour and a half walk every day. He also quite often comes with me to our neighbour to visit and will run around flat out with their dog for about half an hour. In terms of mental exercise its a hard one, he wont chase balls at all or play with any of the many, many different dog stimulating toys I brought him. It is very, very strange for a Border Collie not to play with balls.

With the grass, he runs around the backyard, and as he is running he bites at the grass, taking out a big chunk, so you can see the dirt below it, then he either eats it or just drops it.

The tiles have been the same ever since the night it all started, he just won’t walk on any smooth surface, even at the shopping centre, there is a smooth walkway all around it and he wont step foot on it. Also when I’m walking him, he will not walk across people’s driveways that have those large smooth pavers.

To start of with I did make a bit of a fuss, because I was so worried, but in the last 4 months I have not made a deal about it at all. I have tried sitting just inside, with food and with out and he will stand on the back door mat, but as soon as one foot hits the tiles he backs up straight out the door again.

Did I also mention about his sight, he is forever running into things, and not softly, I’m talking about running head on collisions. No so much in our back yard, because every thing is familiar, but other peoples are the worst.

It is a hard one, and the vet now thinks it could very well be neurological problems. Our problem is that if we have him taken to the big pet hospital the first thing they will do is full blood test and a bone marrow test which will only cost a few hundred, but then they want to do a cat scan which costs 10,000, and we just have not got that kind of money at the moment.

As long as he is happy and not in pain there is not allot I can do but hope there weird thing will some how just go away.

Peter

Reply To Doberluv

Thankyou for your reply about Bomber. He gets an hour to an hour and a half walk every day. He also quite often comes with me to our neighbour to visit and will run around flat out with their dog for about half an hour. In terms of mental exercise its a hard one, he wont chase balls at all or play with any of the many, many different dog stimulating toys I brought him. It is very, very strange for a Border Collie not to play with balls.

With the grass, he runs around the backyard, and as he is running he bites at the grass, taking out a big chunk, so you can see the dirt below it, then he either eats it or just drops it.

The tiles have been the same ever since the night it all started, he just won’t walk on any smooth surface, even at the shopping centre, there is a smooth walkway all around it and he wont step foot on it. Also when I’m walking him, he will not walk across people’s driveways that have those large smooth pavers.

To start of with I did make a bit of a fuss, because I was so worried, but in the last 4 months I have not made a deal about it at all. I have tried sitting just inside, with food and with out and he will stand on the back door mat, but as soon as one foot hits the tiles he backs up straight out the door again.

Did I also mention about his sight, he is forever running into things, and not softly, I’m talking about running head on collisions. No so much in our back yard, because every thing is familiar, but other peoples are the worst.

It is a hard one, and the vet now thinks it could very well be neurological problems. Our problem is that if we have him taken to the big pet hospital the first thing they will do is full blood test and a bone marrow test which will only cost a few hundred, but then they want to do a cat scan which costs 10,000, and we just have not got that kind of money at the moment.

As long as he is happy and not in pain there is not allot I can do but hope there weird thing will some how just go away.

Peter

Reply To Doberluv

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thankyou for your reply about Bomber. He gets an hour to an hour and a half walk every day. He also quite often comes with me to our neighbour to visit and will run around flat out with their dog for about half an hour. In terms of mental exercise its a hard one, he wont chase balls at all or play with any of the many, many different dog stimulating toys I brought him. It is very, very strange for a Border Collie not to play with balls.

With the grass, he runs around the backyard, and as he is running he bites at the grass, taking out a big chunk, so you can see the dirt below it, then he either eats it or just drops it.

The tiles have been the same ever since the night it all started, he just won’t walk on any smooth surface, even at the shopping centre, there is a smooth walkway all around it and he wont step foot on it. Also when I’m walking him, he will not walk across people’s driveways that have those large smooth pavers.

To start of with I did make a bit of a fuss, because I was so worried, but in the last 4 months I have not made a deal about it at all. I have tried sitting just inside, with food and with out and he will stand on the back door mat, but as soon as one foot hits the tiles he backs up straight out the door again.

Did I also mention about his sight, he is forever running into things, and not softly, I’m talking about running head on collisions. No so much in our back yard, because every thing is familiar, but other peoples are the worst.

It is a hard one, and the vet now thinks it could very well be neurological problems. Our problem is that if we have him taken to the big pet hospital the first thing they will do is full blood test and a bone marrow test which will only cost a few hundred, but then they want to do a cat scan which costs 10,000, and we just have not got that kind of money at the moment.

As long as he is happy and not in pain there is not allot I can do but hope there weird thing will some how just go away.

Peter