Hi
Does anyone's dog have a favourite object which will be sucked on for hours at a time? Our 10 month old corgi got for Christmas a woolly star shaped toy with a squeak inside and since then he will take it in his mouth and lie down and suck on it and then fall asleep with it still in his mouth. He does not make it squeak, just sucks on it. He is not possessive about this or any of his other toys so I can pick it up without him getting upset. His mother sadly died when giving birth to the litter and I wonder if the sucking has something to do with that but as he did not start the sucking until he was 7 months, I am not sure. The breeders were very caring and hand reared all the puppies, he has a wonderful temperament and he gets lots of cuddles on the floor etc. He also has lots of chew toys which he spends time chewing on but this one is treated differently - not chewed, just sucked.
Is this normal - what do other people's dogs do?
thanks
cissy

Cissy,

I think the behaviour is very common in pups who are taken away from their mother too young, for whatever reason.
Kittens display the same behaviour by "treading and suckling".
Its just a comfort thing for him and I wouldnt worry about it too much.
Just make sure the fabric isnt dyed with anything that could cause him harm.

Chewi has a large furry stuffed pyramid with a squeaker that he doesn't play with but just cuddles and sucks until he goes to sleep with his mouth round it. He has had this for nearly a year now and the only damage so far is that the fur is wearing down on the corners, and the squeak is still there, which is not bad for a delinquent 17 month malamute! :D
Jean

My dog doesn't suck her toys but she has had a furry pig since the day we had her nearly 4yrs ago. As you can imagine it has had many repairs to it. After each meal she will go and find it and throws it around for you to play with her with it. When it is bedtime she will not go to bed without it. Its white so as you can imagine it gets very dirty and when I need to wash it, I have to put it in the machine without her seeing it and then it has to be dried as quickly as possible before she realises it gone. I don't know why she likes it so much as the squeeky inside it went a long time ago.

"The Flower" has at the moment 14 toys laying on the living room carpet and she plays with every one of them. She goes out side to collect them up and bring them indoors and some evenings she brings them one at a time to her bean bag then goes to sleep. ;)

John

Awwww Bless 'er :)

And although she brings me the pheasants she still expects me to carry the gamebag! ;)

Course you have to do the carrying John - your a bloke :D :D

Gina :p

My Westie also has a furry (pink) pig which she loves. I got it because I rehomed Lucy a few months ago and I thought it would make her feel more secure. She loves to throw it around and play with it but is not possessive with at all. I have already had to sew - as best I could - its head back on as the stuffing kept coming out! She doesn't suck it though or go to bed with it.

Talking of sucking and treading - my ginger cat still does it with old woollies in his basket - and he is about 8 or so!

Sixpence

Gus has loads of toys although he doesnt suck on them . I sometimes feel visitors to the house must think we keep a baby in his crate as there are lots of cuddly , squeaky toys in there . Honestly at the end of the day its just like when i used to clear up all the toys when the babies went to bed ( many moons ago)
:)
Lel

Charlie has *so* many toys!! He keep them all in his old basket, one form when we first got him and he was incredibly tiny!! He's grown out of that now, but at least its somewhere to kepp his mess- not that it stays in there for long!! His favourite game seems to be to take them all outside one by one, then bring them back in one by one and put them in his basket. He'll play that 'game' for hours on end!

His favourite is a stuffed eeyore - we lost it a few weeks ago (turns out it was left at a friends house) and he moped around until it was found. While it was missing he would keep going and getting his father christmas or his tigger and 'killing' them - his dad reckons he was interogating them to see if they knew were it was ;D

His strangest obsession though seems to be with his toy rope, which is just a piece of rope with a rubber ball in the middle. He HATES anyone else touching it, and sulks if anyone tries to play with it. If someone picks it up, he takes it off them, puts it in his toy basket, puts all the other toys on top of it, then climbs on top of them all :) I sometimes suspect he's a bit unhinged :D

That's hilarious - how did you get him to put them back?!! Lascaux also uses his old bed as a storage box and he will stand in front of it for awhile deciding which toy to pick out and carry off to his mat but it's always ME doing the tidying up. I thought I could get him to be a useful corgi and herd them back in but to no avail.
Each time I think about doing a cull of the "dead" squeak toys he decides to dig one out that he hasn't played with for months so they are piling up. Latest obsession for him is a small laughable screeching gorilla which I can hear from the other end of the house but my husband thinks that is more my toy than the dog's!
cissy

I wish I could claim that i had taught him to do it, but the clever little rascal just did it by himself. We have been trying to teach him to do it when we tell him ("tidy up"), but that it progressing VERY slowly. Considering it took him less than ten minutes each to learn his other 'tricks' (roll over, spin round, give me five, and dont eat the stolen biccies!), i think he has just got particular male gene that prevents them from doing anything even vaguely housework related :rolleyes: :D

The girls have their own toy box ! We try and alternate the toys so that they never get bored of them !

Lucy

I have to take an old glove with me on every walk for Teejay to carry. I keep it in my pocket, then at the furthest point he dances up and down 'til I give it to him and he proudly carries it all the way back.
Whichever walk we're doing, he knows the exact point where the outward journey becomes the homeward journey. If I ever forget the glove I have to find something on me to use as a substitute - hat, hankie, mobile phone case.....even non-doggy people manage to raise a smile when they see him :)