The “Me Monster.”
Me - adjective
of or involving an obsessive interest in one's own satisfaction:the me decade.
Monster - a legendary animal combining features of animal and human form or having the forms of various animals in combination, as a centaur, griffin, or sphinx.
All “Me Monsters” are not human. Riggs is a “Me Monster” and I’m sure that many of you live with or know a k9 version of the “Me Monster.” So what is a canine “Me Monster?” There are many different versions of “Me Monsters;” but for Riggs it means that he wants and needs all the toys and will never stop in his quest and he wants to be the first and only one greeting us when we get home. Last night as we sat watching television; Elsa jumped off the couch and ran to get her ball. She wasn’t interested in playing ball, she just wanted to have it with her on the couch. I immediately jumped into protective mode, knowing full well how Riggs would react.
Riggs wants whatever Elsa has. It makes no difference how many toys he has at the current time, he needs what she has. Even when he has a ball in his mouth he will try to wrangle another ball in there. He has a small mouth so he cannot physically get two in there at the same time. So he is being educated about taking Elsa’s things; not by Elsa but the humans in the family. Elsa is beyond tolerant of his “Me Monster” antics.
Playing fetch use to be a nightmare with Riggs around. We tried two balls and he was never satisfied with his. He would run after his and then hers, trying to wrangle the two balls into his possession some how. But things are much better now, he has learned that his ball is “his” ball. He is not allowed to touch her ball when they are playing fetch. I did not want to have to put him away when Elsa retrieved, so I trained and he learned.
All dogs are different and even though Elsa has an insane drive to retrieve and adores her balls; she has no desire to own them and loves to share. In fact she prefers to share, and play with others rather than control or own the balls. Nice.
Training dogs that are “Me Monsters” is a challenge but with consistency and determination it can be done and is well worth it. No I cannot take the desire to own everything away from Riggs but I can teach him impulse control.
Riggs fell asleep on my lap last night and Elsa on the other side with her ball tucked safely underneath her. Of course the moment she got up to stretch her legs he swooped in and snagged the ball. It may have been gone but it will never be forgotten.; it doesn’t matter how long she has something.
There are a lot of things that you can do to modify obsessive behaviors and they all have to do with association.