Sit Stay Go Play - Free Online Dog Training

I found your wonderful website that claims to provide "online advice for dog lovers", which happens to be the very service I require! My wife Petronella and I have enjoyed the company of our fantastic dog Robinson for almost half a year now. Everything is perfect, however there has been a behavioural issue that does often concern us, and we were hoping you might be able to shed some light on it.

Around two months ago, my wife was having trouble locating Robinson when his bi-daily meal was prepared. After calling for him around the house, grounds and tennis courts, Robinson would appear up to a minute and a half later - quite a concernable delay for a big hungry Old English Mastiff. On each occasion Robinson would return short of breath, and a look on his face that my wife and I agreed to be "quite worried". After three days of searching the grounds, I found Robinson around 200yds from the house, in an area of dense bush and thicket. He had built what can best be described as a 'nest'.

It was well hidden from view, and I thought the choice of location was quite remarkable for a dog, it was (almost) a flawless hiding place. I found him asleep, but my presence startled and awoke him, at which point he ran back to the house.

The nest was organised in the form of a circular clearing in the bush, of approximately 2 metres in diameter, with a collection of objects stolen from the house organised into a neat pile on one side, and with bedding made from small sticks and bundles of leaves occupying the other half. All of this struck me as quite strange, but still plausible if considering that Robinson may have been acting out some kind of primal urge to take shelter in the great outdoors. That is, however, except for Robinson's choice of stolen objects. The choice of objects goes beyond any kind of primal urge, and is instead nothing less than completely baffling.

In an estimated three days, he had collected, without detection:

Five books, all by the same author, despite the fact that they were dispersed around the house
Three towels, which had been neatly folded and stacked.
Two photo frames containing photos of my wife and I, one buried
All the bedding from the guest bedroom
A metal bucket, containing three cassette tapes
Three clocks and one watch, all (except the watch) with the batteries removed and buried

I was amazed. We have no neighbours that may have somehow helped Robinson, as we live in the country, and our only child (Mulligan) has been sent to boarding school in East Sussex, and was there at the time.

I collected the items and brought them back to the house, and Robinson's extremely strange activities ceased. That was, until today. I caught Robinson, this afternoon, in the act of stealing objects and taking them back to the nest. He was attempting to steal a bag of charcoal, but I stopped him before he left the shed. Before it, he had already stolen seven of the dining room's eight metal candlesticks, which were stored in the nest. It was finding this that encouraged me to seek some advice from internet pet gurus such as yourselves.

For now, Robinson will be punished by a stern shouting at 7.00am precisely each morning, and there is to be no more afternoon "nap attack", when he is usually allowed to nap for half an hour in any part of the garden.

We are currently greatly confused, and any light you can shed on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for visiting our dog training website and contacting us regarding your dog's strange behaviour. I'm quite puzzled as to why it would behave like this, but would you take offence to me passing this story on to some dog behaviour experts that I am in contact with, and see how they respond to the problem?

Thank you for your speedy reply, I appreciate your concern and I would have no problem with you passing any information on. Additionally, at this stage it would probably be best to keep you updated as there was a development before bedtime last night.

It appears Robinson has worked out how to open the twisting-handle mechanism that operates the garage door. Last night, he opened the garage and proceeded to take all the paint (there are a LOT of paint tins), I think he may have been attracted to the handles on the tins, that make them easy for a dog to carry. Thankfully one of the tins must have been damaged in the collection process, and left a trail. It turns out the nest was a decoy all along - pretty crafty if you ask me - as he has constructed another nest almost three times the size (approximately 5 metres in diameter), containing every item that's gone missing from the house since we first got him 6 months ago. Robinson was quite frustrated that I had found his 'main' nest, and got quite defensive, but not to the point of violence as he is well trained and sufficiently loyal.

I have blocked up the entry points to both nests using bricks and big pieces of wood, and this morning Robinson is not pleased. He has been running around the house, barking and whining at my wife and I, in a seemingly pleading manner. He's been awake for 5 hours now, and I have been distracting him with newspapers (he loves them), with which he has created a bed in the upstairs bathtub.

Any further advice? I shall keep you updated if he does anything else.

Yours faithfully,