Stopping a Tail Chaser

kodiak

Hi there,

Hoping someone can help us out here before we're all driven mad. (Or madder at least.)

We've an approximately 2 yo male Alsatian (neutered), whom we got at the end of January. We're his third home that we know of and the people before us adopted him from a shelter about 6 months before giving him away. He had been a stray and was in fairly bad condition, with a scar around his neck that looked like he'd been tied up with a rope.

At his last home, Toby lived in the garden and got a walk a day or so. He lives inside at our house (is perfectly housebroken and mostly well-behaved) and he gets a fair bit of variety in his excerise - walks and runs on the leash, free running on about a half-acre, and chasing a sliotar. He probably gets about an hour of exercise each day. Someone is home with Toby most of the time.

As far as I can tell, when he's home alone, he just sleeps. But when we're home, especially when he's around me, when he gets bored, he chases his tail. He does so less often around my husband but will still do it. When he's chasing his tail, he emits high-pitched barks/whines and when he catches it, he might hold on to it but he never chews it. His tail is in fine condition.

In the midst of tail chasing, he often stops to look around and see if we're paying attention. If he spins himself into a wall, then he will sit with his back to the wall and will tend to calm down for at least a little while.

I've tried ignoring him. I've tried socially excluding him for a few minutes after tail chasing. We've tried verbal corrections. We don't want to reward this undesirable behaviour by giving it too much attention.

He's a fantastic dog otherwise and we love him very much. He has all the basic obedience skills and has learned everything else quickly.

Anyone have any experience with this or advice on how we can help him stop? It seems like a stress behaviour and it really stresses me out when he does it. (It's incredibly distracting and the barking is quite shrill and difficult to listen to.)

Thanks!

Cheers,
Ann