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Biting and thyroid?

Behavioral Issues
  • Cody is normally people-friendly when it comes to those that he knows, and lately he has been semi-friendly with strangers upon first meeting them. Two days ago, since we finally finished Cody-proofing the backyard by fixing all the areas that we had temporarily patched up, my mother let him and Moe outside to play and whatnot, and he was off-leash. When they were both ready to come inside, Moe walked in, but Cody was still standing in the doorway. She grabbed his harness to nudge him further inside so that she could shut the door (which she had seen me do occasionally) and he bit her arm a few times, drawing blood in 4 places. She was a little shaken and wasn't sure what to do, so she put him in his kennel until I got home from work, which was about 1 1/2 hours later.

    He hadn't shown any signs of aggression before that, and hasn't since then. He seems to know that he was wrong; he walked around with his head down when I got home and let him out of his kennel, and he seems to show her more affection than before (well, his brand of affection with people besides me, which is mostly sitting at her feet, nosing/nuzzling her legs, and the like).

    What I'm wondering is if this is an isolated incident or could it be a thyroid problem? From what I've read on here it seems like with thyroid there is change in attitude/behavior that goes on for a while, not just one episode, but I may be understanding that wrong. Do issues with thyroid start like that, gradually with isolated incidents here and there, or is the behavioral change more sudden?

  • My first basenji had thyroid problems but I never noticed any behaviorial changes.
    If you suspect this then have him tested.

  • Always good to rule out anything medical first… before attempting to deal with a bad behavior like you are seeing.

    How old is Cody?

  • I think he's about 3 years old, I'm not sure exactly because he was a rescue. I am going to get him checked out, I was just wondering how issues with thyroid show themselves and I had read on here that aggression can be associated with thyroid.

  • Thyroid problems can show a lot of different ways.. one thing for sure, when it is a sudden change, always best to check out the health angle first.

5/5

21 Jul 2009, 19:53

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    @JoeyQ: Yikes, have we done something really wrong??? Joey has not been aggresive at all. When we play with him he will "bite" our arms, but not hard. If we say "ow" or "no biting" he stops immediately. Should we not encourage this behavior? or is it ok to do when we are playing which has been the only time that Joey uses his mouth? We do the same thing. Alani will put her mouth around our arms but never bite down enough to even leave an indentation. However, sometimes she will grab a toy to play fetch and if I don't respond or tell her I don't want to play she will lay the toy across my arm and act like she's chewing on her toy but feel for where my skin is and start pinching it. I know she's doing it on purpose and she thinks she's so sneaky…but I know.