[babyjake]

I was lucky with JD and his ears have stood up ever since Ive brought him home.

But...he found his tail and likes to chew on it, at first you think...well he not chewing on my feet. But, I've now discouraged this because his tip is getting deformed. Is there any way I can straighten this out? Or am I kind of stuck with it?

 

[Elaine]

Any sort of excessive licking or chewing is something to stop immediately, if not sooner. If your puppy has actually deformed the tip of his tail himself and it wasn't that way to begin with, I would be running him to the vet right away. You need to be looking at a medical reason for this first and then a behavioral problem. Is your puppy getting enough mental and physical stimulation? Is he healthy and what are you feeding him?

 

[babyjake]

I think I'm more worried that he has damaged a nerve ending to the tip of his tail. I've discouraged him to the point that once he looks at his tail, he'll then look to me on whether it's okay to go after it. And my body language tells him no. He get pretty much gets all of my attention and we practice "focus" excercises every night, that's on top of the training that he's getting at classes. For physical excercise we do alot around the house. Fetch with a tennis ball, alot of running around, getting him to sit and stay while I go into the other room. He's actually a pretty disciplined dog for his age. There is always room for improvement though. He gets walked later at night, but since I live in the city and until he gets older I don't walk him much on concrete, due to the fear of HD. And he get Nutro Large Puppy Breed food.

 

[MaggieRoseLee]

Puppy chewing on tail tip?

They can damage the skin/fur/nerves so you are right.

And the reason GSD's pups are hard to raise in the city, is probably one of the reasons you are having this crop up. While it sounds like you are doing alot more than most to TRY to keep him from getting bored and some exercise. Is appears to me he needs more.

Are there any dog parks you can get to and have him safely off leash? While there are problems and concerns with dog parks, the very reason there are so many of them is because alot of people have dogs like yours who just need MORE exercise and MORE mental stimulation and socialization than one person in the house can give. If you can meet up with people with dogs you know are friendly? Or get there early in the morning or late in the day when less people are there?

Or even plan you weekend around some event outside your area. Swimming, NEW places, NEW sights, NEW people, new smells, hiking.

He doesn't sound like it's a neurotic nutdog behavior (yet) just boredom. And hopefully if you are proactive and come up with some good athletic activities for a few months you'll break the cycle and he'll forget all about that darn tail.