I have a Red Heeler named Zoey, who will be a year on July 4th. I have had her since she was just 1 month, and have never had issues with this before. She will play fetch with anything, and I give her a wide variety of toys to try out. She loves giant sticks, frisbee, tennis balls, softballs, squeaky toys, stuffed toys, knotted rope toys, giant rawhide bones, nerf toys, foam noodle pool toys, giant plastic balls, (this is making me laugh), you name it really- and she will keep you entertained for hours. However, one day- she found a rock that she unearthed and has become obsessed with rocks ever since. Little ones, big ones, doesn't matter. She will sit with the rock- and whine and whimper and lick the rocks. Recently she chipped a tooth trying to get a rock out of the ground. I talked to my vet about her tooth, and its fine, but I am concerned. Does anyone else have these issues? Easy points up for grabs

Heelers are herding breeds. Working breeds. They're bred to have focus, determination, and drive. Not to mention tons of energy. If they don't get the mental stimulation they need as a WORKING animal then they tend to develop obsessions and pour all that excess energy into that obsession.

For your dog it started out harmlessly (with toys). But it developed into something more serious when it turned to rocks. Which can do far more than chip teeth.

What she needs is some mental stimulation activities to drain the working energy - structured walks (meaning she is by your side and under control), agility, flyball, obedience, sheep herding, all of the above. SOMETHING to get her mind going for a good hour or two a day. Fetch won't cut it, unless you make her WORK for it (in other words make her perform for the thrown toy... and even then it won't last for very long).

Owned by Mutt

your dog has sever mental problems. she needs to see a shrink

No, its just a quirk your dog has but one you've got to stop right now. You've already found she can damage her teeth, but if you allow this obsessive behaviour to continue, she might start swallowing them and that will lead to expensive surgery to save her life.

You need to re-direct her immediately when she goes for a wock and train her (on leash) to ignore rocks, making sure you reward her for complying.

Zoey needs more structured exercise... long walks at heel, not running and playing and having fun. The long walks make her focus her mind - and she needs mental as well as physical exercise. You can also do obedience drills with her for about 5-10 minutes at a time several times a day. When you give her something more interesting to do, she should lose interest in the rock.

some dogs like to obsess ... my jack russell when she was young loved rocks ... walking on the street and accidentally kick a rock and she was off after it ... but it ruined her teeth (along with tennis balls, so you might want to stick to rubber balls for dogs) as i allowed it to continue, initially i thought it was cute until the vet told me otherwise ... no more rock play, redirect with an appropriate thing to play with which sounds like it won't be too hard :O)