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My room mate has a nine year old cocker with bad eye sight every day for apparently no reason starts attacking its foot the left rear leg mostly any thoughts on how to make him stop with out hitting it or yeling at it...im able to usually calm it down by restraining it with my hand over its eyes talking to it sofly. He says the vet thinks that its got some sort of hip problem or old age is their any thing i can do to help it (I have been told by him not to mess with his dog but i cant help it) the dog is sweet and stupid but he needs to stop attacking his foot

>>My room mate has a nine year old cocker with bad eye sight every day for apparently no reason starts attacking its foot the left rear leg mostly any thoughts on how to make him stop with out hitting it or yeling at it...im able to usually calm it down by restraining it with my hand over its eyes talking to it sofly. He says the vet thinks that its got some sort of hip problem or old age is their any thing i can do to help it (I have been told by him not to mess with his dog but i cant help it) the dog is sweet and stupid but he needs to stop attacking his foot

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Do not punish the dog or yell at him. You could give him something to chew or a toy with food inside to distract him. It sounds like he needs treatment and/or pain medication. That is the real solution, so get him to a vet for that.
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Kathy Diamond Davis, author, "Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others," 2nd edition, and the free Canine Behavior Series at www.veterinaryforum.com

i am drunk right now but still the dog attacks his foot it is not interested in balls but after i hold its head down with one hand and pet it and talk softly to it it calms down no matter what state I'm in and as for a toy it usually is interested in only attacking it's foot after it starts growling altho since I'm like a frigging horse whisperer i can calm him down semi quickly maybe like under 15 mins and he stops growling then if he is totally done with his attack mode he licks his penis and is a happy puppy again he also dose this if his owner hits him or yells at him I'm such a animal person lol sorry I'm typing in to this forum drunk but no one is here but me and i got nothing better to do lol altho i wish i could break the cocker of the habit of attacking it's self (dang typing is hard under the influence lol) I'm thinking of finding some sort of job working with dogs up to draft horses i believe i would be great at it i absolutely love animals

I have had the misfortune to see this before. I am a groomer who once had a client that adopted a cocker pup. When he was about 1 1/2 old, he began attacking himself while he was eating. Never really doing doing much damage, buy he sure sounded serious. She ended up bringing him to Colorado Veterinary University for observation, and he was concluded to have a bonafide mental disorder. He now takes a physocotropic? - don't know if thats it - drugs. He's better, but still weird. His person told me that the vets at the Uni showed her cases of this happening, and it usually stems from a kind of doggie schizophrenia. The only way to take care of it is with expensive specialized treatment. The cocker is not the most genetically stable dog.