Magnolia spinning at meals
Q: Hello,
I’m attaching a video of the spinning and biting her tail that happens at about 50-60% of mealtimes. In the past week we’ve changed the location where she’s fed and the food she’s eating. It’s helped some at first, but the behavior seems to be escalating again. I was pretty far from her when taking the video until she started escalating. After that I moved closer to try and snap her out of it. She eventually ate about 1/2 of her meal.
https://youtu.be/kwNwhXqUMYo
A: We will definitely want to unpack this more which we can do on a live call. I think there is opportunity to work on the still feet behavior we talked about last week with her feedings. When she shows still feet at the beginning toss an equal or better treat toward her food tray, maintaining your distance. Continue to toss food to her as long as she has still feet.
Your reinforcement plan would look something like this:
Food trey presented: Still feet, good girl (or click) toss a treat.
Looks at food, good girl (or click) toss a treat.
Takes a bite of food, good girl (or click) toss a treat.
I’m liking the idea of clicker training here because with compulsive behaviors she may not even register a verbal marker, but we can see what works best there.
I also want to work on her interruption. Safety first so I don’t want to have you interrupt in a way she could redirect. My though is having a harness and long line in place with treats to lead her away the moment she starts to spin or even muzzle training her (with a muzzle she can eat through) and a long line and harness.
She shows some good moments of stillness that we can work with in her training plan and in this video she turns her head in the direction of the spin before she spins which is really the moment you want to interrupt with a walk off or something.
I suggest watching the video in slow motions and watching for the behaviors you want (at the beginning and after the spin) as well as your opportunity to interrupt. We can watch it in today’s session as well.
