Episodes consist of a hypokinetic gait with compulsive pacing

February 3, 2021 2:58 PM

Dog trancing (Instagram link) is a little-understood behavior (PDF link).

Episodes are most commonly associated with dogs walking underneath stationary objects, including vegetation and household objects, but are exceptionally rare away from the home environment, even if similar objects are encountered.

Bloggers and forum posters report that bull terriers and greyhounds are most likely to display trancing, and that dogs appear to "enjoy it immensely". The behavior, also known as "ghost-walking" or "weed-walking", is generally described as walking very slowly under hanging objects which lightly brush the dog's back.

Dogs with trancing are more likely than non-trancing dogs to have other abnormal behavior patterns (including tail-chasing, sudden onset aggression/rage syndrome, fly-catching, and licking/chewing/biting, P<0.0001), but trancing dogs did not display abnormal neurological activity, and there was no correlation between other routine test results in trancing and non-trancing dogs. Treatment with oral phenobarbital or potassium bromide had no appreciable effect. Multiple possible causes are suggested, but none are well-supported.

2nd and 4th paragraph text is paraphrased from the article in the second link.

posted by agentofselection (21 comments total)

My big white Akbash(think Great Pyrenees) would do this almost exclusively with Oleander when we were on our walks. He went to places i wished i could have gone.
posted by wmo at 3:20 PM on February 3, 2021 [2 favorites]

My dog does this but not necessarily under things so I don't know if it counts. He also has epilepsy, and I've wondered if it's a very slight seizure, but I put him on meds, which stopped the noticeable seizures but not this activity. Interesting to note that the article says it's not related to abnormal neurological activity.

Mostly I have just chalked it up to "weird dog behavior."
posted by lunasol at 3:37 PM on February 3, 2021

i assumed that my dog was watching a fairy ballroom dance, or a leprechaun fiddle contest, or mayhaps communing with the Menehune.
posted by wmo at 3:48 PM on February 3, 2021 [2 favorites]

I thought they were looking for threats, possibly from the spirit realm, and just concentrating.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:02 PM on February 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

It looks like just they're doing it because it feels good? Like a kind of ASMR? Just like how having your legs touched lightly also feels good. What about this makes people think this is some kind of syndrome that needs treatment?
posted by bleep at 4:03 PM on February 3, 2021 [8 favorites]

If my pup is happy, I'm all for whatever it is called.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:04 PM on February 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

You ever have one of those little wire massagers pushed onto your head and moved around slowly?
I bet that's exactly what this feels like.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:11 PM on February 3, 2021 [13 favorites]

Makes me think of ASMR...
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 4:40 PM on February 3, 2021

My old Staffy, Satch, used to walk under a bush or an overhanging branch or frond or the like and, if it touched her on her back just above her tail "joint" in just the right way, would definitely fall into a trance of frantically waving her head back and forth and licking the air, and would sometimes let out little whine-huffs ("grunts" sounds wrong) of pleasure.

Scritchies in that spot were definitely a thing she enjoyed, but she never responded in quite the same way.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:44 PM on February 3, 2021

My big white Akbash(think Great Pyrenees) would do this almost exclusively with Oleander when we were on our walks. He went to places i wished i could have gone.

That's fascinating, wmo!

I knew Oleander as pretty toxic, but when I googled to see whether it had much effect on fleas, I found this page:

Years ago, we had four dogs infested with ticks and fleas. When two of them were caged under the Yellow Oleander (Cascabela thevetia)1 the pests disappeared after about a week. But the dogs inside our house remained infested.

I think that's enough to justify a speculation that it's an instinctive programmatic behavior which can help control fleas and ticks.
posted by jamjam at 4:55 PM on February 3, 2021 [3 favorites]

seimooz, then?
posted by scruss at 5:23 PM on February 3, 2021

Do not let your dog chase their tail if there's a chance they might catch it. I've heard stories.
posted by aniola at 6:33 PM on February 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

My dog catches her tail regularly. She has it all figured out where she drags her butt on the floor in a circle and then she can get a hold of it. Usually because it itches. It's never been a problem.
posted by VTX at 7:09 PM on February 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

I couldn't make the Instagram videos work because I don't have an account, but here's a YT video of a Bull Terrier trancing under some sheer window curtains. The comments from other people whose dogs perform it are also interesting.

It's clearly an altered state.
posted by jamjam at 11:51 PM on February 3, 2021 [4 favorites]

After more than 50 years of owning dogs (and being surrounded by dogs every day) I'd never known on this behaviour until today, so thank you!
posted by greenhornet at 2:17 AM on February 4, 2021

Did you ever look at your paws? I mean, really look at them.
posted by thelonius at 5:35 AM on February 4, 2021 [10 favorites]

My greyhound(we think)/Border Collie mix loves to walk under the neighbor's elephant grass, and "pets" himself on any low yew bushes we encounter. I'll have to observe if he trances out when he does this.

The Lab/Pit mix does not give a shit about such things...her favorite thing on walks is found food (chicken bones, bread left out for the birds, GOOSE POOP WTF!?!?...)
posted by notsnot at 5:56 AM on February 4, 2021

Come to think of it, Frankie (the grey/BC mix) doesn't care much for regular petting, but he does enjoy walking through my legs for a "car wash". Huh.
posted by notsnot at 5:59 AM on February 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

I guess that I never felt the need to explain 90% of dog behavior. Dog OS seems pretty glitchy. Mine, a ?blue heeler? mutt, likes this class of stimulation also, so it isn’t some inbred only neurological problem, though the behavior may be more prominent. It is annoying when it causes him to get wet, and I imagine it increases his tick exposure.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 9:17 AM on February 4, 2021

My Labrador often did this under evergreen hedges & shrubs of the right height - slowly forwards, backwards, forwards, backwards. It always looked like it felt amazing.
posted by misteraitch at 1:27 PM on February 4, 2021

Here is one of the funniest trancing videos I’ve seen so far in the apparently endless parade of the damned things YouTube is running by me since I linked the one above, and it shows very clearly the amazing power the trance state has over the dog.

The dog is standing on a narrow glass topped table next to a chair, brushing the leaves of a houseplant which is also on the table over its back while one of its humans tells it to get down before the other human comes and the dog really gets in trouble. At first the dog doesn’t react at all, then gives a tiny tail wag of acknowledgement and slowly, slowly gets down on the chair, and then finally we can see the moment when the trance breaks and the dog is back to full awareness.

To me this is like a whole new world of possible dog behavior I had no previous inkling of. I find myself wondering whether hypnosis among human beings could be an outcropping of something far more basic to the human psyche than the mere epiphenomenon I’ve always thought it was.
posted by jamjam at 5:49 PM on February 14, 2021 [1 favorite]