QuestionQUESTION: I have a 2 year old female yorkie and she is showing weird signs of behavior. The first sign of behavior is she will pace my wall waiting for a reflection to pop up, and she will do this for hours. She thinks she can actually get the reflection. She loves to play with the laser light, could this be a cause? How do I help her with this odd behavior?
The other question is my female yorkie is very aggressive towards other dogs. About 4 months ago she was bitten by another dog, and I'm not sure if this is her way to deal with this issue. She is not like this around bigger dogs, only dogs her size. This makes no sense to me as a bigger dog was the one that bit her. PLEASE HELP!!!!
ANSWER: Lisa,
My first suggestion is to stop playing with the laser light. Yorkies are prone to seizures and the ones I have had that had them were always fascinated by laser lights. The problem with this is that you can actually trigger a seizure when using a laser light. I am not saying she will have seizures but it never hurts to be cautious. If over the next few weeks (after you have stopped using the laser light) she continues to spend hours staring at the wall you may want to consider having her checked out by your vet. Pacing and looking at something that is not there can be a symptom of seizure.
Your female that is aggressive towards other dogs could be that way for a lot of different reasons. I would need to know more information if I am to answer that question correctly. I need to know:
How old is she?
What do you mean by aggressive?
How many other dogs do you have and what are their breeds and sexes?
Are all of your dogs neutered or spayed and if not which ones are?
What are the ages of the other dogs?
What order does she fall into (ie: first one you bought, second one etc.) Did you get her when she was a puppy and what age was she?
How severe was the attack that she suffered?
Is this behavior recent or has she always been aggressive?
If you answer these questions I should be able to give you a more definite answer and possibly help you to correct this behavior.
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QUESTION: Bella is 2 years old. The way she is aggressive is she will nip and growl at other small dogs. I have no other dogs. I am talking about neighbor dogs that are 4 years old or my friends dog who is 2 also. These neighbor dogs are both yorkies. Yes all of them have been neutered, and bella has been spayed. I bought Bella when she was 8 weeks old. The springer spaniel nipped at her towards her eye...she had a little blood near her eye. The behavior started after she was bit. Before that, we could go to a dog park and she would play with other dogs and be fine.
AnswerLisa,
I believe that Bella's aggressive behavior is psychological in nature because of the bite she received from the Springer Spaniel. Yorkshire Terriers are very intelligent and I have seen them display a full range of emotions that are similar to humans. That being said I think her aggressive behavior is a defense mechanism. When humans have something traumatic happen to them they respond in several different ways. Being attacked makes a person feel that they are no longer in control (which is a falsehood to begin with but we like to think we are in control). The same can be said of a dog. So their response is to create a feeling of being in control in order to compensate for the out of control feelings.
Now, because Bella is a very smart dog she has created an emotional bandage (her aggression towards smaller dogs) to make herself feel better. Again, because she is so smart she does not do this with larger dogs because she instinctively knows that they could hurt her.
So basically what you have here is an out of balance situation. What you have to do is be patient and try to understand her fear. When she is aggressive towards another dog you should not scold her. You should pick her up and tell her that she does not need to be afraid. Tell her in a soothing tone of voice. You can say something like; no Bella, its ok, your ok, and give her some hugs and kisses. What you are doing is replacing the fear reaction with calm, soothing words.
Unfortunately there is no way to tell just how traumatized she was from being bitten. It may take time for her to forget about it and be able to be around other dogs without being aggressive. Do your best to be consistent in reassuring her and what ever you do don't let her get around larger dogs because the potential for that happening again is too great. I fear that if she were bitten again the consequences to her psyche could be irreversible.
