Ball obsession and jumping up
My Labrador turns one next week. For the past 3 months it’s become clear that he has become obsessed with balls or a stick, or just anything he can chase and catch.
We tried to curb this obsession by not taking a ball on a walk, but it just means that he goes wild as soon as he see’s another dog playing with one. We’ve since started taking a ball again but using it in moderation, making him sit before it’s thrown and saying “finished†when we put it away in an attempt to get him to switch off and go back to sniffing and exploring.
The biggest issue is he wants to take anything that looks like it might be thrown for him, including when he sees a stranger picking something up from the floor or taking something out of a bag. Today my wife took him on a walk and he leapt (all four feet off the floor and almost somersaulting) to take an acorn out of an old woman’s hand. He does try this with us on occasion too when he’s trying to get something that is about to be thrown.
When he has a ball he is less frantic and listens to us better, will come back when called instead of charging over to other dogs, but he is also less interested in the world.
I feel like we are probably just making life harder for ourselves by trying to stop him having a ball all the time, but also don’t want him to escalate his behaviour so that he is badly behaved with the ball.
If anyone has experienced similar things and has advice I’d love to hear from you. As he is such an energetic dog, keeping him on the lead is not really an option. We try to avoid situations when he know he will be overstimulated, but with the acorn incident earlier today it’s clear that something has to change before he injured either himself or someone else.