Faking Injuries?

    • Gold Top Dog
    u have the smartest dog. LOL
    • Gold Top Dog
    One of our GSDs, Sheila, will pretend she's in more pain than she is most of the time. She and Patriot (the other GSD) roughouse, and he likes to flip her over, which hurts her shoulders and wrists sometimes, so she'll have a little limp. Until, that is, she knows you're watching. Then it becomes a huge limp with whining and crying and hobbling around.

    Patriot was crying for his dinner once, and I said, "Oh, hush," and swung the dish a good three feet above his head (and not very hard), and he looked at me for a good second and a half, before going, "YAP!" and falling over like I'd hurt him.

    Both shepherds play up the "Bang!" trick, too. Hams.
    • Gold Top Dog
    You know, I know that sympathy limps happen, but just the same, any time a dog limps sporadically I would still have them checked for Lyme disease just to be on the safe side, if you live in an area where that's prevalent.
    • Gold Top Dog
    I'm fairly certain that it isn't, and I'm also pretty sure she hasn't come into contact with any ticks. We go over her almost every day, and she never runs through any heavy brush, or anything, so it's really unlikely. (You do get Lyme from ticks, right?) It's way more likely that, if she's in pain, it's because of the other dog. Besides that, if she keeps up a limp for very long, we end up taking her in. Thank you for the advice, though. I'll keep it in mind for sure. =]
    • Gold Top Dog
    Nikki hurt her paw once (not badly) so she was limping for a little while.  Well for about a year or so after that she developed "sympathy paw".  If she did something she knew she wasn't supposed to, all of a sudden her paw hurt again.  She'd hold it up pathetically and whimper.  I usually had to leave the room laughing.  Or, if she felt she wasn't getting enough attention, "sympathy paw" would show up.  Eventually, because we knew nothing was wrong with her paw anymore and ignored the behavior after the first time, she stopped doing it lol.