Does your chihuahua follow you everywhere? If you pop to the loo does she wait
outside? Have you wondered why your chihuahua feels the need to follow you
around the house? Is it bad for her and should you try and curb the habit?
Does your chihuahua follow you everywhere? If you pop to the loo does she wait outside? Have you wondered why your chihuahua feels the need to follow you around the house? Is it bad for her and should you try and curb the habit?
Chihuahuas seem to have a special talent for this behaviour, especially if you are their ‘designated favourite.’ Picking a ‘favourite’ is a chihuahua idiosyncrasy. Once you have been chosen you are the one they want to be with all the time.
Should your chihuahua follow you about?
A lot of people think it’s kinda cute, you pop to the toilet and you have your own little parade of chihuahuas following you. Tails wagging like flags. But there are a few issues with encouraging your chihuahua to follow you everywhere.
Separation related behaviours
It entirely possible that your chihuahua becomes anxious when your not there, the more this is encouraged and rehearsed the bigger the dangers of SRB. (Separation related behaviours). A dog that struggles to cope when your not there is a dog under stress. You may start to get unwanted behaviours like crying and whining when left to chewing and creating nasty hot spots. SRB is time consuming to unpick and it really is better not to let it develop.
It can pay into barking behaviours.
It might seem strange but excited barking behaviour can be an unintended consequence of following you about. To see why this is you need to understand some about your chihuahua’s emotional bucket. So if you haven’t read the post on this I would check it out. Basically, how full your chihuahua’s emotional bucket is will have an impact on behaviour. Some of the things that fill your chihuahua’s bucket are, excitement, tiredness and stress. All dogs need to have an appropriate amount of rest in the day. Chihuahua do a lot of ‘chi-miles’, just charging around the house on little legs. When they get up and follow you this disturbs rest. They are always on the go watching for you to move. Tiredness and an overfull bucket creates barking at noises and reactivity. When they are barking, this creates excitement, which fills the bucket and creates more barking. They then start to rehearse this behaviour and then in comes trigger stacking. It becomes a cyclic hot mess that is hard to unpick.
Hola,
I traded retirement for volunteer sciences teaching at the only English immersion high school in rural Guatemala. I love it here. And yes, it is safer here than most US cities!
I got a 6 month old chihuahua from a local family 2 years ago. Gaby is fantastic, intelligent and obedient, most of the time. 2 years later, I got another puppy from the same doggy parents. Sofie is 2 months old. I saw her when she was only 1 month old. I told the family her name was Sofie. They called her Sofie all along. When I picked her up yesterday, she already knew her name, walks on a leash and uses pee pee pads!
However…. Gaby was 6 months old when I got her and she did NOT know who the hell I was and did not do anything I asked her to do. She even ran away from me and it took me an hour to catch her! After about a week, she stopped running away, but was still cautious around me for another week. Sofie, on the other hand is a Velcro puppy. Granted she’s only 2 months old, but she LOVES me. She has to nap by my side and must be in the same room with me ALL the time. Is this normal? Is it because she’s only 2 months old as compared to Gaby who was 6 months old?
I can’t believe how smart Sofie is. When I hang laundry on the line, she comes outside and follows me. When I take Gaby for a walk, Sofie walks along on a leash like a pro at 2 months!
Sofie has a large dog kennel with a pet warming pad to sleep in at night. After a bit of whining, Sofie settled down and slept until 5am. I got up and put her immediately on the pee pee pad and she went. I have several pee pee pads around the house and so far, Sofie has gone on the pads.
However, I am concerned about the time Sofie spends gnawing on chew toys. I get her small chew toys and she will spend hours chewing on them. She has tiny dagger teeth, and chews mostly with her carnassials. Is this normal?
I consider myself very lucky to have 2 smart little dogs.
Salud,
Anne
Hi there,
Gnawing on a chew is good for your dog and a natural and calming behaviour. It is important that she is not chewing anything plastic that is just meat flavoured. Natural chews are things like hooves, raw bones (take out the marrow) pigs ears, ostrich spaghetti, things like that. Chihuahuas do get attached and want to be with their human and while this is adorable you may run into separation anxiety if you are not around. so building gentle independence is a good idea.
I have a chihuahua called Max. He is a year old and is just the best. I found out they don’t like rain, but Max goes outside in all weathers! It did take a long time to train him. He used to go by the front door so I kept the door shut and he now lets me know when he wants to go outside.
My dog Boss is very smart. But he can’t quite get it to pee outside. He goes on the pads alright. I have taken a used pad and rubbed it on rocks, bushes, Lamp posts etc. He ignores the smell of it and my constant verbal coaching. He goes to the pads when we come inside!! I even asked a neighbor to point out the spots where her dog goes so he could make his mark. Help!
My little girl burrows wherever there are covers/blankets around. The first time, I was looking all over the house and outside, afraid that she had made an escape. Thankfully, she started to move and there she was! Now we don’t panic if she “disappears”!
My Tito follows me everywhere! Except when daddy’s home that’s his favorite person. Lil Mommies and Nikki woo woo are always by my side on the couch under the blanket. I love all of them so.
We rescued our little “Gabbi” 1 1/2 yrs. ago; and is the first Chihuahua I’ve ever had, so I wonder if this problem is predominant to her breed. She will go in my bathroom and pee if the door is left open; she is aware that this a no-no!
Any ideas or suggestions other than keeping the door. What would cause this behavior?
Chihuahuas are very hard to toilet train, so don’t worry it nothing you are doing. Maybe put a pee pad down to save your carpet then start to work with her to get her to go out side.
It is case of ‘catch her being good’ and make a huge fuss when she does it right and try and ignore the accidents. Take her out every hour or so to pee and encourage her like mad. If she gets it right make sure you have a reward on hand, it has to be given at the scene so she associates the reward with peeing outside. It may take a while as you don’t know her background but chis are clever and you will get there in the end.
Regards
Louise
My two Chihuahuas both would go in the house, sometimes right after I let them go outside. I noticed that they always go in another room to do it out of my sight because they know it’s a no-no.
My solution is to keep my bedroom door closed. I live in a one bedroom apt so I can see them any where out in the living area, so they won’t do it in front of me.
Also, when I leave out, I restrict them to my kitchen with a baby gate. They will not go on the hard, uncarpeted floor.
I also have them sleep at night in crates. If I let them sleep in the bed with me, they will inevitability jump down sometime during the night and relieve themselves somewhere. I made the mistake initially of buying crates that were too big for them and they both would go in a corner. I switched to extra small, just enough room for them to turn around and no more going in their crates. I keep their crates near my bed so they can see me and they are very happy to sleep there.
If I see them start walking around near the door or turning in circles (a telltale sign,) I immediately take them outside. I always make a big deal when they go outside.
I used to keep a pee pad out but half the time they missed and would go just over the edge. I read that continued pee pad use tells them that it’s ok to go in the house, so I stopped using them. Accidents inside are now rare.