Once upon a time, I knew a behavioral term to describe the “pacing” or other repetitive behavior or a caged animal.
Anyone help with this?
With horses in stalls, it is called “stall weaving”. The horse shifts wight on the forelegs, and sometimes moves their head around. Not really pacing, but it’s one term I know of.
“Zoo Psychosis” is the term I know for animals that pace their cages. (The general term for a thing like habitual weaving or pawing or cribbing in horses is a “stall vice.”)
The most general term is a ``stereotypy’’. While the exact mechanism by which they develop is debated, they are generally held to occur in poor housing environments, although if one develops in a poor environment, it can often persist despite later improvements in the environment.
Thanks all. Nothing rings a bell (little behavioral humor there).
Maybe it was stereotypy. I’m so used to hearing/using that term with autistic kids that I may have forgot the first time I heard it.
So I continue to watch my neighbor’s year-old fox terrier pace in and around it’s 8x6 kennel.
Yes. There are several terms to describe such behavior of caged animals.
- “Looking busy”
- “Reading email”
- “Checking inventory”
- “Enhancing shareholder value”