Lottie's Invisible Friends

Within just a few days of coming to live with me, Lottie Moon started some strange behavior.  One day we were out in the back yard, and she cocked her head sideways and looked at the ground.  Then she pounced on something, and barked at it.  Next she dug furiously, then pounced again, all the while looking curiously at the ground and turning her head like she was looking at something, or listening to something.  Since she's deaf and blind, this was expecially odd.  She then bounded off like a rabbit, or a coyote, all the while looking at the ground, frantically barking, as stopping every once in a while to furiously dig.  Well, I thought she was able sense the vibrations under the ground of moles, or bugs, and was amazed at her gift of extrasensory perception.  Then she did it in the kitchen.  I'm pretty confident that there are no moles under my kitchen floor.  So now I don't know what it is.

 My friend Victoria also has a blind/deaf aussie, and she told me her Dhalia does the same thing, sort of.  Dhalia will be calming lying in the living room, then suddenly jump up and snap at something in the air, invisible to Victoria.  Dhalia will bark furiously, and snap at nothing.  Then calmly lie down again.  Victoria calls it "playing with her invisible friends."

Punch doesn't know what Lottie is trying to do,
but he doesn't want to miss out on it.

 

 I've been observing this, and it has continued to get worse -- more often in more locations, and less easy to distract her.  So I've decided it is not extrasensory perception, but just Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), or if you like, just plain "crazy".  I try not to let her do it in the house, or if she's on a leash, but honestly it is a lot of work to get her focus off of her invisible friends, unless I have a cookie.  I figure the more I can keep her from it, the less she can practice it, and I always tell my clients, "Don't let your dog practice bad behavior!"  So I'm trying to follow my own advice, but it is hard!

She seems to do it whenever the other dogs get excited, and Victoria has observed the same thing, so we are speculating it might have to do with energy sensations.  Heck, that sounds good, anyway!

While it is kinda funny and cute in the backyard, it is annoying and destructive in other places, like my kitchen, and the dog park.  The digging is quite furious.  And it is kinda sad to see my other dogs running and playing together, and Lottie off in her own little world with her Invisible Friends.  I would rather she play with the ones I can see.  She will run with my other dogs for a bit, but she usually diverts at some point to her barking at the ground.  Hmm, this is a project in progress . . .