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We have a puppy now oh god what have we done She is between 9 and 10 weeks old. First night was okay, we had a heartbeat buddy in her crate by the bed and she only needed to be taken out 1x overnight. Still working out how to get her comfortable in her exercise pen and basically anywhere where we're not like 3ft away. Only 1 pee accident last night because we couldn't tell if she peed when we got her home (too dark).
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Dec 15, 2019 15:35
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We had to put our old guy down today. He was a 16 year old lab - a long and happy life until the end when could no longer walk. My wife got him when she was 19 and he was a puppy - they have been through everything together - and she is crushed. I'm just looking for some advice on how to help her through the grief - any help or tips or anything that helped you through the loss of your first dog would be really helpful right now.
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Dec 16, 2019 05:25
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It's tough. There's no easy way to deal with it. At a certain point dogs, humans etc are just suffering so take solace in knowing they're at ease. They gave you their life and the best thing you could do is be with them until the end and make their life worth it by showering them with love and remember what a good dog they were. I think a lot of people underestimate the amount of love and loss we have for our pets. They become integral part of our families and our lives. It takes time and it's panful. There's no way around it. Don't watch Marley and me. My recommendation is to not try and rush out to fill that gap right away. If you go to a shelter you will probably leave with a dog. Take your time. Grieve. Do something nice to remember your dog and help give you some closure.
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Dec 16, 2019 06:07
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Sab0921 posted:We had to put our old guy down today. He was a 16 year old lab - a long and happy life until the end when could no longer walk. She just lost a close family member. There isn't really anything you can do except be generally understanding and supportive and let her grieve however she wants. It just sucks and there isn't anything that makes it better except time.
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Dec 16, 2019 16:12
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our pup is almost a year old and we have taught her to be housebroken she's changed her bathroom habits and wants to be walked for a bathroom break at least once a night...and i need my sleep. how do we shift her behavior so that she doesnt wake us to take bathroom breaks at night? she gets LOTS of walks every day and one right before bed. plenty of opportunities.
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Dec 16, 2019 17:52
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Is this a recent thing? If she was sleeping through the night before and now wants late-night bathroom breaks, you may want to check in with your vet and see if she's picked up a UTI. The only time our girl's potty habits changed since housetraining, that was the culprit. We got our puppy to stop whining for overnight bathroom trips partly by making them as boring as possible. We didn't talk to her, pet her, or give her any attention other than a quick "good girl" after she went in the right spot. She had to be on leash the whole time, even in our fenced backyard, so she couldn't run off to sniff or explore. Then she had to go right back to bed in her crate. When she figured out that late night potty runs were a chore rather than a chance to hang out, she stopped wanting them.
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Dec 16, 2019 19:29
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Verman posted:It's tough. There's no easy way to deal with it. At a certain point dogs, humans etc are just suffering so take solace in knowing they're at ease. They gave you their life and the best thing you could do is be with them until the end and make their life worth it by showering them with love and remember what a good dog they were. I think a lot of people underestimate the amount of love and loss we have for our pets. They become integral part of our families and our lives. It takes time and it's panful. There's no way around it. Don't watch Marley and me. My recommendation is to not try and rush out to fill that gap right away. If you go to a shelter you will probably leave with a dog. Take your time. Grieve. Do something nice to remember your dog and help give you some closure. Thanks for this - we have another dog, so we will let her be a solitary dog for a little bit - and Marley & Me will hit way to close to home. Our guy was a bad dog, but he was our bad dog and we loved him - he was destructive during thunderstorms, barked at children (never hurt them) and the one time we brought him out to one of our softball games he immediately bolted to grab a ball in play and then spent the rest of the game barking because he wanted that ball that was being tossed around. I figure time is the only thing that will heal the wounds - how long did you/have you waited before getting another dog?
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Dec 16, 2019 20:47
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I had to take my dog to be put down back in 2011, and it was the first time as an adult I had to take on this duty rather than a parent going to the vet and coming home alone. So that was, naturally, loving horrible especially as I just thought he was a bit poorly. Feeling like garbage, I put the TV on to cheer myself up and loaded up Patrice O'Neal's new standup show where he goes into a bit that lasts a good 5 minutes or so about dogs being killed. Only Patrice could have made me laugh at those jokes on that day, that loving sucked timing wise though.
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Dec 16, 2019 20:53
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deety posted:Is this a recent thing? If she was sleeping through the night before and now wants late-night bathroom breaks, you may want to check in with your vet and see if she's picked up a UTI. The only time our girl's potty habits changed since housetraining, that was the culprit. well sometimes it's just a pee break but often its a poo break too. sometimes i think she's waking up and wants to sit on the bed with us
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Dec 17, 2019 18:31
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Alucard posted:We have a puppy now oh god what have we done Small success yesterday, no pee accidents last night for the first time since she's been here! I think we figured out her schedule and she's usually getting us informed by walking to the back door and scratching a little. Sometimes she's just interested in going out and chewing on big sticks though, so we'll have to make it a point to reinforce that her "I want outside" is supposed to be for business not pleasure. Now we need to work on getting her bladder strength better (she usually needs to go every hour and a half or so), and start some training for her to be comfortable enough in the crate alone while we're not around. During the day, she tends to sleep on the floor outside the crate, and she enjoys the crate for food and snack-filled kongs, but as soon as she's finished with either and the crate is closed, she starts getting whiny. I'd say she has about a 30 second clock before she starts whining, and she gets a little more anxious at around the 2 minute mark. Any suggestions other than "just keep stretching it?" She doesn't seem to be apprehensive about the crate generally, which we think is a great sign, but we also don't want her to get too accustomed to being given freedom of the house since we won't be able to keep an eagle eye on her after the holiday season is over. We abandoned the exercise pen part, since it seemed to be just getting her more anxious about everything around the crate space. Bonus picture of cuddledog: 
Alucard fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Dec 21, 2019 |
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Dec 21, 2019 15:38
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Alucard posted:Now we need to work on getting her bladder strength better Our vet said a good rule of thumb is that your pup is going to be able to hold their pee for an hour for every month of life, I assume there's an upward bound there somewhere obviously but holds fairly true for the first 6-9 months.
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Dec 21, 2019 17:22
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MF_James posted:Our vet said a good rule of thumb is that your pup is going to be able to hold their pee for an hour for every month of life, I assume there's an upward bound there somewhere obviously but holds fairly true for the first 6-9 months. This. Every dog is different too. My own dog took close to a year to be 100% housebroken. Meanwhile, we’ve fostered puppies that were 10 weeks old that mostly figure it out in a few weeks.
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Dec 21, 2019 17:26
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Alucard posted:We abandoned the exercise pen part, since it seemed to be just getting her more anxious about everything around the crate space. First of all that is a very good girl and please pass along a good girl belly rub from me. Second, I’ll throw out that we stopped using exercise pens for my boy as well and his anxiety and behavior got much better in general. He’s still a really shy dog but we’ve not had a submissive piss in quite a few months. Without the anxiety he can hold his bladder quite well, often 10 hours overnight. Maybe longer but I’m not eager to test that. Puppy ownership is a wild ride but it is way worth it! Still figuring it out as I go but my boy is mostly making good choices and staying out of trouble so I guess I’m doing ok.
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Dec 22, 2019 07:07
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MF_James posted:Our vet said a good rule of thumb is that your pup is going to be able to hold their pee for an hour for every month of life, I assume there's an upward bound there somewhere obviously but holds fairly true for the first 6-9 months. Can confirm doesn’t hold true at 12 years. Snooter kisses are applied when I’m out of the house longer than usual and there’s no accidents, though.
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Dec 22, 2019 07:37
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Yay, puppy hell! Thanks everyone for the advice and info on puppydom so far. Our pupper has a case of vaginitis which is probably impeding her bladder control, but she's been good in terms of avoiding accidents inside the house. Max 1x a day and she's been in the home for close to 2 weeks. Last few days we haven't had any major ones, and all of them we managed to catch in time to get her outside to finish. The two big challenges we have right now are crate training and energy cycle schedules, which I think are semi-related. We have had good luck getting her crated with a treat so that she's only mildly whiny for about 5 minutes after her laser focus on food dissipates, then has a calm moment of around 10-15 seconds before we let her out. We figured we'd try to extend that to 15 minutes, and it's been an unmitigated disaster. I'm not sure if the addition of some cloth panels that cover the crate are helping or hurting the matter, since her crate in the bedroom works fine with a cover and she is ok sleeping through the night aside from needing to pee in the middle of the night. The other one is that she was really good this morning in getting out her morning energy during the 2h we plan to have to dedicate to food, bathroom, and exercise before going to work. When she got up for her lunchtime snack and exercise, she was okay, but clearly had way more energy than we could get out in the hour we'd like to be able to dedicate to the process, and it was more like 2.5 hours before she was drained enough, plus she got super toddler punchy. Both of these are a bit of a challenge, since we have to get back to work next week, and instead of having one of us telework and the other dedicating the day to monitoring, we'll have one person at the office and the other teleworking with limited time to dedicate to these shenanigans. And by February, we're hoping our long-term maintenance plan, which includes a few days of doggy day care or a walker instead of us teleworking, will be a sink-or-swim time. We're thinking this should be feasible with a 11-12 week old pup to be at that stage by the time she's 4 months, but any thoughts from the crowd? Our guess is that the infection and antibiotics are going to play all hell with pee and poo stuff, so best laid plans, and all. Here's a picture of the little poo poo all passed out from her most recent manic episode.  Silver lining, we seemed to make it through Christmas day, gift opening and general melee of the holidays without a major dog freakout / incident. So we're trying to savor those little wins. Alucard fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Dec 26, 2019 |
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Dec 26, 2019 20:51
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I got a second dog this past weekend! First time I've ever had 2 dogs. New one is a 5 year old Terrier-Pit mix. Aside from the ears she looks very similar to my current dog (https://photos.app.goo.gl/cscUEYNaSg1m6aob8 - new one is sitting up; apparently my work now blocks Imgur so I can't upload it there myself). She's adapted to my routine extremely well; happy to leash up, go out and pee, and go right back inside for breakfast in the AM. Good energy - we've walk 2-5 miles every day (dog #1 has unlimited energy at 6 years old still) Saturday was great. Sunday was great. Monday was great. Tuesday she peed in the house once. Wednesday she walked into the living room where we were unwrapping gifts just squatted down and pissed in front of all of us. Then she did it twice yesterday; once while I was in another room, then again when I was cleaning up the first mess. Not really sure what to make of that. Today's my first day leaving them alone together while I work, really hoping there won't be a mess to clean up when I get home but I'm not holding my breath... Also she has kennel cough. SPCA sent her home with medicine to take, I think she's been on it for 8 days now and she's still sneezing a lot, sinus is all boogered-up which then stains whatever furniture / blanket she's sitting on  I was thinking of calling the vet and asking if it's normal for symptoms to persist for this long after starting medicine...
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Dec 27, 2019 13:57
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My parents took the dogs out on a walk and one of them antagonized their poo poo out of another dog a guy was biking with, causing the other guy’s dog to bite both of them and the guy to fall off his bike. Both dogs have wounds on them and I asked my parents how we were to treat them and they just said “they’re already licking them, there’s nothing to do, besides the other dog probably has their shots so they won’t die”. Not even dressing the wounds or bandaging them or anything. This is after my parents are known around the neighborhood for their one rear end in a top hat dog that constantly escapes, runs into people’s houses, and shits on their floors. My parents are terrible dog owners and they’re terrorizing their neighborhood all because my mother can’t deal with having an empty nest.
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Dec 29, 2019 21:00
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All the other stuff aside, when my dog got bit by another dog, the vet's response was basically "always assume that dogs have some nasty bacteria in their mouths, so if they draw blood then the bitee needs to take antibiotics." Vaccines don't do poo poo for bacterial infections.
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Dec 29, 2019 21:30
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Pollyanna posted:escapes, runs into people’s houses, and shits on their floors. I’m sorry your folks suck at dog but this is objectively pretty funny Less so if they’re also antagonizing other animals in those homes. But still a little funny.
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Dec 30, 2019 00:38
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 The weather has been unpleasant so I knitted my little dog a sweater. GoodBee fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Dec 30, 2019 |
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Dec 30, 2019 04:04
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That's a drat good dog sweater.
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Dec 30, 2019 04:41
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It's a good pattern. I'm making her another one. Weird little dog likes wearing it.
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Dec 30, 2019 08:19
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So my dog has developed a severe noise phobia and I'm at my wit's end  She is eight years old, so not a new puppy discovering something scary for the first time. I'm unsure when it first started, but I think at some point the automatic ice maker in our freezer started to scare her. Ice would fall into the bin and the dog would high-tail it upstairs to our bedroom. Once we noticed, we turned it off but it seems the noise phobia has spread to any loud, sudden noise. Snow shifting or falling off the roof, oven turning on, opening the refrigerator door, or even just the coffee pot gurgling. Anything sudden will make her immediately vacate the room, run upstairs and turn into a panting, anxious mess. She used to just hide in our bedroom closet, but now that it is winter and snow shifts around on the roof I think she's decided nowhere in the house is safe anymore. Now she will lock herself into a bathroom or closet (we made the mistake of teaching her how to close doors as a puppy  ) and pace until we let her out, only to head straight for a different closet/bathroom and repeat until she finally calms down. God forbid another sound happens while she's freaking out, because then it's full on shaking conniption. If we close the various bedrooms/bathrooms she'll scratch at the door to get insideI'm not sure how to go about fixing this problem because it involves unexpected sounds, making it hard to counter-condition. She also freaks out so hard that she isn't really receptive to even the best treats. She is a reactive dog in general so we've done a lot of training over the years, and have used medication in pursuit of that too. She used to be on Prozac but we took her off about a 1.5y ago. The Prozac didn't seem to be helping with her reactivity training, and we saw very positive improvement since taking her off (excepting the recent noise phobia), e.g. increased affection, general happiness, willingness to play with our other dog, etc. We also have Trazedone on hand for when we go out to do reactive training (long distance from dog park, etc to work on her dog reactivity). Is the only option to throw her back on medication to dull the terror and then find a way to counter-condition? Come up with some kind of "safe" routine like sending her to her crate and rewarding with a lot of treats each time an episode happens? Open to any ideas/suggestions. (Amusingly, lightning/thunder is no problem. Go figure  )
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Dec 31, 2019 22:03
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She going deaf?
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Dec 31, 2019 22:15
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Submarine Sandpaper posted:She going deaf? Hmm, hadn't considered. I'm not sure... but I don't think so. She'll easily hear the mailman drive up to our mailbox (and start barking), will come running from the distant upstairs bedroom if we say the magic words "want to go outside?" in a normal speaking voice from downstairs, etc. I'll look around for some kind of diagnostic test and check just to be sure though. She has had ear problems in the past, small ear canals get infected easily. No outward symptoms now but maybe a bad ear infection could be causing partial hearing problems? I'll grab a flashlight and double check that too.
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Dec 31, 2019 22:27
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My 11 year old dog developed a sudden noise phobia this summer and it started progressing really quickly. He would just shake and hyperventilate for at least 30 minutes after hearing his trigger. I talked to his vet behaviorist because he's already on meds for anxiety and she suggested a medicine called sileo. It's a gel you rub on their gums as needed and its specifically for noise phobias. It kicked in super quick and worked really well at stopping his panic response instead of him getting more and more worked up every time he heard a gunshot. For him it even brought him back to his normal level of noise sensitivity after a few uses so I haven't needed to use it since this summer. It's a little expensive for my 75 lb dog but it was totally worth it and I only ended up needing maybe 3 tubes (a tube was only two doses for him) to get work him through his issues. It might be something to talk to your vet about.
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Jan 1, 2020 00:37
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My weird little dog who likes wearing sweaters also likes screaming at thunder. Then she hides behind the toilet. The hound dog does like bad weather either. She also hides in the bathroom. I'm hoping loud TV keeps everyone from hiding tonight.
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Jan 1, 2020 02:51
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My 8 year old Newfoundland needs a dog bed for his doggy arthritis. As he is a very large boy, everything I've priced out is about $300. Any tips or resources for making one or getting a cheaper one?
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Jan 2, 2020 06:23
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Poldarn posted:My 8 year old Newfoundland needs a dog bed for his doggy arthritis. As he is a very large boy, everything I've priced out is about $300. Any tips or resources for making one or getting a cheaper one? Toddler beds are a good bet if that's a good size for your dog, you can also order just a big foam mattress pad and stick it in some sort of cover. I have a topper from here that worked well for me. Fluffy Bunnies might have more suggestions since she has a hoard of giant dogs.
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Jan 2, 2020 17:05
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This Saturday will be 3 weeks since rescueing a 5 year old terrier-pit mix from the local SPCA. I already have a 6 year old hound mix. They get along great, but we're having some real trouble house breaking the new one. She's poo poo in the house twice and peed numerous times. I rarely catch her in the act to scold her / correct the behavior, and now the holidays are over I'm back to work. That's frustrating, but my apartment is all hardwood / laminate so it's easy to clean. Maybe the previous owner had multiple humans in the house who could let her out throughout the day, but I was really hoping a more middle-aged dog like this would be able to hold it while I'm at work Aside from "take her outside as soon as she pees in the house" I don't really know what I can do?She's also chewed up a package of toilet paper, and now today she destroyed one of my shoes. I'm starting to really lose my patience now that she ruined $160 pair of shoes... There's plenty of toys, and, y'know, the other dog to play with so I don't really know why she'd resort to chewing random poo poo  
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Jan 2, 2020 23:40
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Well Thor's Cushings has escalated and he wet the bed the other night. We might need to double his medication. I'm worried that his time is running out.
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Jan 3, 2020 00:27
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I adopted a 2 year old bigger dog a little over a year ago and he just didn't get not peeing in the house. He was very well kennel trained though so he got to stay in there overnight and while no one was home. What I ended up doing was getting him to pee on command and on schedule. I can't really say how long it took though because dude had heartworms so he had to spend 2 of the first 5 months in his kennel anyway. He also has an insatiable appetite for toilet paper, especially the cardboard roll in the middle.
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Jan 3, 2020 01:33
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Instant Jellyfish posted:My 11 year old dog developed a sudden noise phobia this summer and it started progressing really quickly. He would just shake and hyperventilate for at least 30 minutes after hearing his trigger. I talked to his vet behaviorist because he's already on meds for anxiety and she suggested a medicine called sileo. It's a gel you rub on their gums as needed and its specifically for noise phobias. It kicked in super quick and worked really well at stopping his panic response instead of him getting more and more worked up every time he heard a gunshot. For him it even brought him back to his normal level of noise sensitivity after a few uses so I haven't needed to use it since this summer. It's a little expensive for my 75 lb dog but it was totally worth it and I only ended up needing maybe 3 tubes (a tube was only two doses for him) to get work him through his issues. It might be something to talk to your vet about. Interesting, we'll ask about this. So did you work on counter-conditioning right after application (after it kicks in)? Or was the sedating effect of the meds enough to sorta do the coutner-conditioning on it's own? We had a good look inside our dog's ear (as much as we could without a probe anyway) and there was some dried, sorta-bloody crusty stuff. So maybe she did get a bad infection or some kind of injury, leading her to partial deafness? Not sure, we're going to rinse some of it out and take her to the vet for them to do a more thorough investigation. Thanks all!
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Jan 3, 2020 01:47
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Does anyone have experience training with a dog whistle? Our 1 year old puppy loves hiking and is great most of the time. But occasionally, he'll get really interested in something and bolt. It's like his ears have closed and his brain can no longer process "come". Once we've managed to get his attention, he does come back. I'm hoping that a dog whistle with help snap his focus. Any thoughts? Here's the little stinker 
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Jan 3, 2020 01:51
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GoodBee posted:I adopted a 2 year old bigger dog a little over a year ago and he just didn't get not peeing in the house. He was very well kennel trained though so he got to stay in there overnight and while no one was home. What I ended up doing was getting him to pee on command and on schedule. I've never kenneled a dog growing up, and as an adult always thought it seemed kind of unfair... But I might have to learn to re-evaluate
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Jan 3, 2020 13:27
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Sab669 posted:I've never kenneled a dog growing up, and as an adult always thought it seemed kind of unfair... But I might have to learn to re-evaluate We crate trained our dogs growing up and they generally loved it. Our second dog spent almost every single waking moment in her crate, laying in it with her blanket in her mouth.
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Jan 3, 2020 13:40
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I know there are plenty of dogs who genuinely do like it, it's just a weird hang up I personally have - have a hard time comprehending how anything can enjoy being confined to a small space for 9+ hours a day.
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Jan 3, 2020 13:42
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3 weeks is typically nowhere near enough time for a dog to fully acclimate to a new environment. Especially if you were home for much of it and are now going back to work. She barely knows you let alone your schedule yet. She’ll come around, just need to be patient and give her time to adjust to her new life, and keep reinforcing good behaviors of course.
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Jan 3, 2020 14:24
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Sab669 posted:I know there are plenty of dogs who genuinely do like it, it's just a weird hang up I personally have - have a hard time comprehending how anything can enjoy being confined to a small space for 9+ hours a day. I don't know that mine like it but they're okay with it when necessary. And it was necessary for their heartworm treatments. It certainly made house training a little easier. They spend most of the day sleeping on a couch or my bed anyway now. I don't think sleeping all day in the kennel was that much different.
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Jan 3, 2020 16:49
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 18:55 |
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Sab669 posted:I know there are plenty of dogs who genuinely do like it, it's just a weird hang up I personally have - have a hard time comprehending how anything can enjoy being confined to a small space for 9+ hours a day. Think less of it as a confinement and more as a den.
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Jan 3, 2020 17:27
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