Does Your Sheltie Spin?

I heard a sheltie person explain to me that the spinning is not a herding thing as much as it is a "There is a wolf- act big and scary and it will go away." I do not know if this is fully true, but it makes sense. Like the birds or fish that puff themselves up when a predator is around.
 
I imagine it's probably a manifestation of circling the herd--so you have the instinct to go around the herd, or circle your flock, and somehow through breeding ended up with an offshoot of that--which I agree, from a working perspective less than desirable.

I have known some shelties who circled so much they couldn't focus in the ring. I believe that breeder stopped breeding because of the crazy it produced. Reminds me of what I've heard a few times--you can breed a dog with too much drive.
 
corbinam said:
I imagine it's probably a manifestation of circling the herd--so you have the instinct to go around the herd, or circle your flock, and somehow through breeding ended up with an offshoot of that--which I agree, from a working perspective less than desirable.

I have known some shelties who circled so much they couldn't focus in the ring. I believe that breeder stopped breeding because of the crazy it produced. Reminds me of what I've heard a few times--you can breed a dog with too much drive.
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I agree! My Spirit is actually not a crazy high drive sheltie - and there are a lot of shelties out there who are faster than she is on the course because of their crazy drive - but I have to LIVE with my dog outside of the ring, and I think a really high drive dog like that would be very difficult to live with.

Like I said in an earlier post, there's spinning, and then there's SPINNING! The single spin done in excitement when I'm about to put Spirit's food down is harmless. The 20 spins I see another sheltie do with the slightest bit of excitement is over the top. So I think it's also a question of intensity of the behavior.
 
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Yes Shelby spins too. At our old house she would spin multiple times if she was outside when a train would come by. She would run the fence spinning and chasing the train. She wouldn't do it in the house, only if she was outside. And when she got tired she would stop and just watch the train go by.

Now that we moved I don't think I have seen her spin at all. I think she misses her trains.
 
ClantyreSheltie said:
Only for dinner.

To me, spinning is an OCD behavior that tells me the dog is over-threshold or anxious. I don't teach them to spin in either direction like obedience/agility people love to teach. Why encourage that kind of behavior?
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Makes sense, Sandstorm only spins when one of us is leaving the house.
 
Very sorry to say, but it's not good that they try to catch their tails, it can be a bad habit / stress.

I would definitely try to distract this behavior immediately with some toys.

This is my personal opinion and written in lumpy English, sorry.
 
Some Tai Chi principles ascertain that energy is either being gathered, or released, depending upon the direction of the spin. So, the dogs are either calming down, or revving up!
Clockwise movement spirals and gathers energy, while counterclockwise movement disperses energy.
Just a little something to add to the discussion :)
 
Sheltie4 said:
Some Tai Chi principles ascertain that energy is either being gathered, or released, depending upon the direction of the spin. So, the dogs are either calming down, or revving up!
Clockwise movement spirals and gathers energy, while counterclockwise movement disperses energy.
Just a little something to add to the discussion :)
Click to expand...
So Zulu spins clockwise, that explains a lot of things!!
 
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