Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?? Suggestions please

[Nancy (Spuddie' s Mum)]

My Chihuahua Chewie was abused and neglected in his previous life. I got him as a foster dog and because he initially had agression issues and he was not adoptable. We decided to keep him and work with him and he has become a much kinder and happy dog. Now, I know he is obsessed with his squeaky toys because he always has about 10 toys around him and will often have one in his mouth to walk around with. Sometimes he even goes out to pee holding on to one. LOL I think he probably never had a toy before he came here and so I don't worry too much about his love for them and I think they are kind of a "security blanket" too.

Now lately he has taken on a strange behavior. We have baby gates across the bedroom doors so that the dogs can't get in there, he started out scratching at my daughter's gate (I thought he wanted her stuffed toys). It now seems he is facinated by the gates and tries to spend every evening scratching at one of them (not just my daughters room), grunting and crying as if there is something he MUST get at. If I take the gate down he will sniff it like mad all over, when I show him there is nothing there and put the gate back, he will start the scratching at it and crying again. He even scratched the paint off the door frame last night beside the edge of the gate. The odd thing is he only does this in the evenings after dinner and he's quite obsessed with it. Even sending him away and telling him NO only works for a few seconds then he's right back at it again. I finally have to put him in his crate to end it. Has anyone ever had a problem like this before, it's very strange and I can't help wondering if it may somehow have something to do with his past.

Nothing has changed in our home that would have upset him, he's healthy and chipper and I am really not sure if this is a "problem" or if he just thinks there is something he should have? We have had Chewie since last November (9 months) and this strange behavior started about a month ago and it is not limited to just one baby gate, sometimes he will scratch at my door or the office door's gate too. So do I need to call a doggie shrink?

[Mary Plummer]

I've never had that exact problem, but I'm just wondering whether the fact that he CAN'T go into the room protected by the gate is what is concerning him. Whenever we close a bedroom door in our house, Mr. Blue spends a lot of time sniffing at it and laying down right next to it. I'm convinced he thinks we've hidden some incredible goody in there (which we haven't done).