Dogs and Sticks

Most dogs love sticks, especially the retriever types who retrieves almost anything being tossed at them.

Does your dog loves sticks? Do they drop it at your feet for you to toss? Or do they grab it with their paws and chew it until its gone?

My dog, Peanuts chews sticks badly. Sometimes, I'm a bit concerned that someday she might puncture herself with wooden splinters or have wood migrated to her lungs.

Does your dog chew on sticks too? What do you do to stop him/her from doing so?

Candy, my Bangkeaw chews everything, including sticks. I have tried playing the fetch game with her but she has other ideas. She would run for the stick, pick it up and take it elsewhere to make short work of it. She has never once brought it back to me. Which may actually mean that she's smarter than I think. Maybe she has figured out that there's no point in bringing the stick back to me if all I am going to do with it is to throw it away again.

My previous dog was a Lab and she didn't care for sticks. She wasn't much of a retriever unless food was involved.

My Jack Russell played with sticks when she was a puppy. However, she got sick a couple of times from chewing on them, so I had to keep her away from them. It's no fun being woken up in the middle of the night by a dog getting sick.

My JR does chase stuffed animals and tennis balls. She will return them and throw them at me. She chews on them, too. Every single stuff animal is missing a leg or the nose. LOL

That's quite common. I mean the chewing part.

One thing that baffles me is why my dogs simply love to chew my old shoes. They don't touch my new shoes at all. And what's more perplexing is that sometimes, one entire shoe just disappears. Even when I look everywhere in the house, I cannot find the missing shoe. It's a real mystery because, although my dogs chew on my shoes, I have never seen them eating one yet.

My dogs were both totally uninterested in sticks. I wonder if this has anything to do with them being small dogs? Actually while my dogs liked to play other games and were playful and active they didn't like to play fetch.

It's actually unusual now I come to think of it as all my friends dogs would try and get me to play fetch with them by bringing me a stick or a tennis ball.

Victor, I can't believe a dog would eat a whole shoe, but you never know. There is probably a secret stockpile somewhere.

That reminds me of a story that was on the local news. In one neighborhood things went missing at several locations. They put up a surveillance camera and found out it was a cat that lived in the neighborhood. He had a bad stealing habit.

My Lab loved sticks when she was teething. I used to bring a branch from our avocado tree into the house. She would gnaw on it contentedly. It was a lot better than when I caught her gnawing on the bed frame and the floor boards!

No, I don't think my shoes had been eaten by my dogs. Actually I am very sure of that because I always look at their stools to see if there's any abnormalities in them like worms or blood. Never seen any sign of leather. Still it's a mystery. I have really looked everywhere even under the bed and behind the cupboards.

I have just thought of something. It might not be a good idea to discipline our dogs with sticks. That might make them become afraid of sticks. So if they are faced with an intruder who is armed with a stick, they may not attack. Usually I use a small wet towel to smack them when they are puppies. When they grow up, they still remember the towel smacking. It's very much less likely for an intruder to try to fend off a dog attack with just a towel.

(06-16-2012 04:23 PM)Victor Leigh Wrote:  No, I don't think my shoes had been eaten by my dogs. Actually I am very sure of that because I always look at their stools to see if there's any abnormalities in them like worms or blood. Never seen any sign of leather. Still it's a mystery. I have really looked everywhere even under the bed and behind the cupboards.

I have just thought of something. It might not be a good idea to discipline our dogs with sticks. That might make them become afraid of sticks. So if they are faced with an intruder who is armed with a stick, they may not attack. Usually I use a small wet towel to smack them when they are puppies. When they grow up, they still remember the towel smacking. It's very much less likely for an intruder to try to fend off a dog attack with just a towel.

I find it quite funny that this thread has ended up with a towel and smacking. My dogs love towels. If it's reachable, they'd instantly snatch it and bring it under the bed so I couldn't reach them. Then it would be fur ridden and I'd have to bring it out to wipe it all off.

I don't know why, but Coal, Ginger and BD are scared of sticks. When my mom is holding one, they would immediately go into a submissive position. What's more surprising is that they've never been spanked or disciplined with a stick before. I'm guessing their previous owners did something.