Chelsea does NOT want to play?!?

C

Chelsea

Forums Regular
Chelsea and I are new to this forum, but look forward to connecting with all you Sheltie fans! I adopted/rescued Cassie (Chelsea's mom) from a breeder that decided that she was too small to breed. She was VERY small. What we didn't know was that she was PG when I got her. A few weeks and several thousand dollars later I had one live baby! I fed Chelsea the first couple weeks with an eye dropper every two hours. Finally Cassie decided to be the mom. They loved to run and play.

During this time my mother was very ill and I spent 4 months out of state with her before she died. I didn't spend much time actually training the girls, just playing with them. I won't go into all the details here, but after basically moving to my lake house Cassie had a tragic accident and was killed in March. Chelsea seemed to miss her for a couple weeks but then bonded with me even more.

Okay, I shared all that background in case it is part of this concern. Chelsea loves to run beside me, loves to be loved on, ALWAYS runs up and down the fence when the neighbors use their weedeater, BUT she will NOT play with any toys or chase a ball. Correction, she will chase the ball, get it and go hide it. I have even tried treats, but she will go hide the ball first, and she is food motivated! She won't play with any toys. She will also hide those around the house and/or outside. If I try to play with her in the yard, she will go up the stairs and sit on the porch and watch me. I am sure the neighbors enjoy my crazy antics, but Chelsea just says, "The yard is yours girlfriend! I am NOT interested!" She will hang with me in the yard, but if I start trying to play, she heads to the porch.

She is not even two yet and has a clean bill of health from the vet. She was bigger than her mom and everyone thought the mom was the baby. She would try to drag Cassie around by her tail. They played hard! I have had other dogs over to play and she will not play with anyone. I even had a Sheltie here for about a month and she NEVER played with her. She was fine with her and would even share food, but would not play. I took her for puppy training at PetSmart. She is pretty shy and won't let strangers pet her. She did great in classes, but never interacted with others.

Any suggestions??
 
Last edited:
I don't have any answers for you unfortunately. I have adopted 3 Shelties over the past year and one of the three won't play at all either. She is 6 and we just adopted her in Feb. from a breeder. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it or not. My other two girls play like crazy. I have tried to get Rasha involved and she doesn't care to play. Hopefully someone can give you some good suggestions.
 
Good Point! But she did play with her mother. They would romp and play for hours. I had a visitor that had a little dog. They were with us for 3 days. The first two days she would ignore the VERY playful attempts of the little pest, but the last day, she actually did play a bit. But the Sheltie that was here for over a month and her NEVER played.

When she was a baby she would play with toys in the play pen by herself, but now as an adult she will only sniff (as she does any new thing) any toys I try to interest her in. She loves her Kong, but that is for the food.

I have been seriously considering getting her a little brother or sister. Think that would make it better or worse??

She kind of acts like she looks in this picture of her....."Me play? That is SOOOO childish!":cool:
 

Attachments

  • Cabin- HHH 100.jpg
    Cabin- HHH 100.jpg
    99.5 KB · Views: 20
~ playful puppygirls ~

*Hi* Chelsea ~

Please know how deeply sorry I am for the sad loss of your mom and your *Cassie*

My husband and I are blessed with a pair of 5 year old Sheltie sisters.....
we got our *Emily* ~ a gorgeous mahogany sable, from a breeder when she was a baby
and we rescued our *Sadie* ~ a beautiful deep tricolor, only a year ago :smile2:

It absolutely broke our hearts when we realized that precious little Sadie had absolutely
nooo clue what ordinary toys are..... or even h-o-w to play!

Our darling Emily was entirely bewildered by her new little sister not wanting to be silly
with her and she continually dropped every one of her toys in front of Sadie and then she
*danced* around her, enticing her to play..... it was really cute, but really very sad as well.

Well, between Emily's relentless insistence of being goofy with her, and my encouraging
her to chase me while I was continually squeaking a doggie toy.....
Sadie finally realized what having FUN is all about!

~ David and I were honestly in tears when that moment happened and our sweet Emily
was just plain overjoyed..... and they have been little lunatics together ever since! :lol:
 
Last edited:
She might do well with a buddy. I think the majority of us on here have more than one Sheltie for that reason. I just went a little crazy and got a third!! :biggrin2:
 
My 2 year old Roxy has no food drive at all and very little play drive with toys. The one thing she really likes is the rope and she will bring it to us to play tug of war with. When outside, nothing, not even the rope interests her. When she has done her business, her play time is wanting to chase the 26ft retractable leash that I take her out on. She loves to play with that thing. I just got Buster who is 5 months old and he has been teaching Roxy how to play. Its been really interesting watching her over the last week. She has always had several toys but didnt really mess with them much till Buster showed her what fun is.

Now she is playing with all the toys, she doesn't even come to us hardly at all now for tug o war with her rope, She picks up the rope and buster comes running and they play tug o war together. If buster gets it first, its on, she chases him all over till she can play tug o war with him. Both of my dogs are rescues. Roxy never had much human or animal contact as she grew up. We believe her owner just kept her pinned up most of the time. It took almost a month before she even started wagging her tail when she would come to us. Now she will knock you in the face with it every chance she gets. We believe Busters life was much rougher. He had never been inside a house and is very shy. Tomorrow we will have had him a week and he is already a different dog. They both are helping each other so much it is just amazing. Heck as of today, we have buster now on a 3 hour timer for going potty. So I am hoping in another week or so, we will have him house broken. He already does great in his crate. We have had no accidents at night time even since day 1.

So I agree with a lot of folks in that a second dog can really help bring them out of their shell. Our vet who actually knew Roxy's previous owner was shocked at the news of Roxy taking to the new dog, she didn't think that was going to go over well at all. And to go along with another thread in here, Roxy watches a lot of animal planet and Dog Whisper. She just loves to bark at those animals on the screen. Of course it could also be that the 65" TV has a pretty big dog standing on the screen so that could have something to do with it lol.
 
Thanks for the kind words and support. Yes, her life was not the best before I adopted her. I remember the breeder having to look up on paper what Cassie's name was. It was at least 3 or 4 months before Cassie would run up to me and it was several months before she wagged her tail. I comforted myself after her death with knowing that the last couple years of her life was the happiest!

I shed a lot of tears just watching Chelsea lay on the porch, looking through the railings and when she would hear a noise, jump up in excitement and run down the stairs looking for Cassie. She didn't want to come indoors, she was waiting for Cassie to return.

It wasn't until the last 3 months of Cassie's life would she come in by herself. I would have to go out in the yard and pick her up and carry her indoors.

Chelsea's biggest drive is when our neighbors fires up a lawnmower or weedeater. She will almost tear the door down to get outside and will run up and down the fence the entire time they are going. Then she will sit by the fence an hour or so, JUST to make sure it doesn't start up again! :sadsmile: She will hear their mower start before I do. One of her favorite sleeping spots is under the coffee table. She has actually banged her head in her hurry to get out from under there and get to the door!! She doesn't bark or anything when the yard guy mows my yard. I guess WE have the mowing monopoly on this country road! :biggrin2: Maybe I should get her a toy lawn mower! :biggrin2: She is not a barker.

Should I get a smaller dog? There is a mini Aussie on Craigslist in my area.

Thanks!!
 
Last edited:
My Max is the polar opposite. All he wants to do is play. The only time we can get affection is when we come home from work & bedtime. :lol: He's more excited when he meets a new "friend". Maybe take Chelsea to see any possible adoptees to see if she gets excited around them? I know I want another companion for Max after we move into our house in March. Possibly a rescue Sheltie. I don't know where you are in Tx, but the Dallas/Ft Worth Sheltie rescue has some beautiful dogs available. They do adoption days every month at area Petsmarts. We went & talked to them before we got Max.http://www.sheltie.org/
 
I don't think Meeko (our rescue) would be doing so well if we didn't have Indy (11 weeks). We've had both for 3 weeks now and Meeko has gone from hiding all day to playing with us, Indy, toys and even barking at anything that goes past the fence.:lol:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top