The Pet Thread

[Kyyle23]

Ok, I promise I will stop telling Joe he is wrong when you stop telling Greg775 he is wrong...

 

I dont tell greg he is wrong. I just say "come on, again?"

 

its different.

 

And this is mostly to tell Joe to stop baiting you, which he clearly is. Lets get back to what this thread is about, not telling Joe to quit pimping lazy mans dog products.

[Texsox]

I think a case could be made that the keeping of pets is wrong. Based on that, it's the degree of wrong we're willing to accept. Having a dog catch his own rabbit for supper is probably ideal, but not practical. I'm willing to accept that I have never fed my dogs the perfect diet. If I'm 80% of perfect instead of 60%, I'm comfortable with that decision.

[iamshack]

I dont tell greg he is wrong. I just say "come on, again?"

 

its different.

 

And this is mostly to tell Joe to stop baiting you, which he clearly is. Lets get back to what this thread is about, not telling Joe to quit pimping lazy mans dog products.

No, you're right...I have probably been accused of refusing to let something go a few times before...

[iamshack]

I think a case could be made that the keeping of pets is wrong. Based on that, it's the degree of wrong we're willing to accept. Having a dog catch his own rabbit for supper is probably ideal, but not practical. I'm willing to accept that I have never fed my dogs the perfect diet. If I'm 80% of perfect instead of 60%, I'm comfortable with that decision.

Have you ever seen that Ax Men show on History? There is that swamp logger, Shelby, who has a dog named Willy. He doesn't even feed Willy....Willy just sort of lives with him and is his companion. Willy is responsible for catching all his own food...what he eats, I honestly have no freaking clue...but I often think that is probably the ideal relationship between dog and man...

 

Obviously, however, we can't all do that in an urban setting...there would be dogs roaming all over the place chasing rabbits and squirrels...

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

I dont tell greg he is wrong. I just say "come on, again?"

 

its different.

 

And this is mostly to tell Joe to stop baiting you, which he clearly is. Lets get back to what this thread is about, not telling Joe to quit pimping lazy mans dog products.

 

Aaawwww so close! I thought for a second there you would go through the whole thing without adding in your own personal opinion. So while telling us to stop, you also weighed in the issue.

[Kyyle23]

Aaawwww so close! I thought for a second there you would go through the whole thing without adding in your own personal opinion. So while telling us to stop, you also weighed in the issue.

 

and also for that second you thought i cared. Now stop

[Texsox]

Favorite quote about dogs, cats, or pets in general

 

"Any time you think you have influence, try ordering around someone else's dog."

[Iwritecode]

We just taught our 3-year-old dog how to shake. She learned sit, speak and down when she was a puppy. She also knows "off" when she gets her front paws up somewhere she's not supposed to be and "leave it" when she chases after one of the cats (although they usually do a pretty good job of letting her know if they don't want her around. In fact she's scared of one them and he's the smallest one.).

 

For some reason she never understood "shake" until a few days ago.

Edited April 13, 2012 by Iwritecode

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

We just taught our 3-year-old dog how to shake. She learned sit, speak and down when she was a puppy. She also knows "off" when she gets her front paws up somewhere she's not supposed to be and "leave it" when she chases after one of the cats (although they usually do a pretty good job of letting her know if they don't want her around. In fact she's scared of one them and he's the smallest one.).

 

For some reason she never understood "shake" until a few days ago.

 

Shake, or paw, or high-five is always a fun one. It's a command that lets your dog interact with you. My dog loves to come up to me when I have my foot sticking out, and put her paw on my foot. lol.

[Kyyle23]

We just taught our 3-year-old dog how to shake. She learned sit, speak and down when she was a puppy. She also knows "off" when she gets her front paws up somewhere she's not supposed to be and "leave it" when she chases after one of the cats (although they usually do a pretty good job of letting her know if they don't want her around. In fact she's scared of one them and he's the smallest one.).

 

For some reason she never understood "shake" until a few days ago.

 

We tought my now deceased basset Clark how to shake when he was 10 years old. My(also now deceased) chocolate lab sunny knew how to do it, and one day I sat there with treats and would tell her to shake, and give her a treat. He watched me do it maybe 10 times then he started raising his paw.

 

I know it is monkey see monkey do, but I was really rather amazed that he learned that quickly considering how stubborn he was.

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

I don't know if Golden Retrievers are super smart, or if we just teach our dogs a lot of discipline, but our current retriever Casey knows a lot of stuff.

 

- Sit

-stay

- lay down

- up

- go away

- come

- shake

- dance (Jumps up and puts her paws on our arms)

- soft (will take a piece of food out of your hand very gently and slowly. works best when little kids feed her)

- go potty (She will squat every time, even to fake it just so we stop telling her, lol.)

- Go to your bed (No matter where you are in the house, she will go up to the kitchen and get in her bed)

- Stop

- If you drop a piece of food anywhere near her, she will look to one of us to tell her she can get it. She will never eat anything we don't give her permission to.

- Balance a treat on her nose, and then at the snap of a finger she flips it in the air and catches it. She will stay still for minutes at a time if we never snap our fingers.

- Throw a treat, tell her to get it, and then while she walks over to it, tell her to stop, and she will freeze until we can she can have it.

- And then obviously she plays fetch, and is OBSESSED with our boats and swimming in the water. She will go jump on the boat and wait for someone to drive her around.

- She also knows that when we open a door for her, she has to wait for us to tell her she can enter. This works best in the winter or when its muddy outside and we want to wipe her paws first. She even lifts all 4 paws individually to let us wipe them off.

- She will also stop at streets and corners and wait for us to cross, and then come across when we tell her.

 

Yeah, she is pretty amazing.

 

Her and my brother's puppy, Dina.

Edited April 13, 2012 by JoeCoolMan24

[knightni]

Fixed your embed. Just turn html on and it'll work every time.

[knightni]

Oops. Looks like you un-did it.

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

Oops. Looks like you un-did it.

 

Oh my bad. I did turn the HTML on, but then it wasn't coming up in the preview. I'll add it again.

[Jenksismyhero]

So has anyone solved a dog-being-scared-of-storms problem? We have a 6 year old Boston terrier. When we lived in the city (her first 4 or so years) she was absolutely fine when it came to rain/thunder/lightning. It didn't phase her at all. But once we moved to the burbs two years ago we noticed she was getting more and more afraid of them. It started with her just looking at my wife and I or getting close to us for comfort. Then that evolved into pseudo panic attacks - pant nonstop no matter what we did.

 

And then this weekend was the real kicker. We came home late from a movie during a torrential downpour. We have a gate blocking her from going down to the basement (litter box heaven for her) that is made of plastic. We walked into the house and it was a blood bath - blood all over the floor in front of the gate, blood on the stairs, blood on the walls in the stairway, etc. She had chewed the s*** out of the gate in an attempt to get to the basement (I assume) and cut her mouth. After we got inside she proceeded to grab her favorite ham bone and paced around with it in her mouth for about 30 minutes until the storm went away. She'd sit next to us for about half a second before going back to walking around again...she just couldn't sit still.

 

It's just weird to us that she is becoming more scared of storms the older she gets. Maybe in our apartment she wasn't able to hear them as well (though we lived in an older three flat, so it's not like it was a 30th floor condo with great insulation). Or maybe she's older and is paying more attention to her surroundings. Whatever it is I'm worried she's going to do something similar when we're away. I'm thinking about crating her in the basement if we know we'll be gone during a storm. Or maybe keep a TV on so she can hear voices. I've also heard there is some shirt that you can buy that is tight and makes them feel protected, though i'm wary of that since it sounds like a gimmick.

 

Anyone else have an issue like this before?

[LittleHurt05]

So has anyone solved a dog-being-scared-of-storms problem? We have a 6 year old Boston terrier. When we lived in the city (her first 4 or so years) she was absolutely fine when it came to rain/thunder/lightning. It didn't phase her at all. But once we moved to the burbs two years ago we noticed she was getting more and more afraid of them. It started with her just looking at my wife and I or getting close to us for comfort. Then that evolved into pseudo panic attacks - pant nonstop no matter what we did.

 

And then this weekend was the real kicker. We came home late from a movie during a torrential downpour. We have a gate blocking her from going down to the basement (litter box heaven for her) that is made of plastic. We walked into the house and it was a blood bath - blood all over the floor in front of the gate, blood on the stairs, blood on the walls in the stairway, etc. She had chewed the s*** out of the gate in an attempt to get to the basement (I assume) and cut her mouth. After we got inside she proceeded to grab her favorite ham bone and paced around with it in her mouth for about 30 minutes until the storm went away. She'd sit next to us for about half a second before going back to walking around again...she just couldn't sit still.

 

It's just weird to us that she is becoming more scared of storms the older she gets. Maybe in our apartment she wasn't able to hear them as well (though we lived in an older three flat, so it's not like it was a 30th floor condo with great insulation). Or maybe she's older and is paying more attention to her surroundings. Whatever it is I'm worried she's going to do something similar when we're away. I'm thinking about crating her in the basement if we know we'll be gone during a storm. Or maybe keep a TV on so she can hear voices. I've also heard there is some shirt that you can buy that is tight and makes them feel protected, though i'm wary of that since it sounds like a gimmick.

Anyone else have an issue like this before?

 

My brother-in-law's dog would freak out whenever there was thunder. She would get so scared and just be curled up and shaking. They bought one of these and said it helped.

[Kyyle23]

I just found out my basset hound was afraid of storms last night, which is wonderful

 

 

Some people actually have to tranquilize their dogs to get them through storms because they freak out so much. There are some over the counter relaxers you can get from the pet store as well, but it is just herbal stuff.

 

Talk to your vet about it, maybe they can offer you a sedative for when your dog gets out of hand

[iamshack]

So has anyone solved a dog-being-scared-of-storms problem? We have a 6 year old Boston terrier. When we lived in the city (her first 4 or so years) she was absolutely fine when it came to rain/thunder/lightning. It didn't phase her at all. But once we moved to the burbs two years ago we noticed she was getting more and more afraid of them. It started with her just looking at my wife and I or getting close to us for comfort. Then that evolved into pseudo panic attacks - pant nonstop no matter what we did.

 

And then this weekend was the real kicker. We came home late from a movie during a torrential downpour. We have a gate blocking her from going down to the basement (litter box heaven for her) that is made of plastic. We walked into the house and it was a blood bath - blood all over the floor in front of the gate, blood on the stairs, blood on the walls in the stairway, etc. She had chewed the s*** out of the gate in an attempt to get to the basement (I assume) and cut her mouth. After we got inside she proceeded to grab her favorite ham bone and paced around with it in her mouth for about 30 minutes until the storm went away. She'd sit next to us for about half a second before going back to walking around again...she just couldn't sit still.

 

It's just weird to us that she is becoming more scared of storms the older she gets. Maybe in our apartment she wasn't able to hear them as well (though we lived in an older three flat, so it's not like it was a 30th floor condo with great insulation). Or maybe she's older and is paying more attention to her surroundings. Whatever it is I'm worried she's going to do something similar when we're away. I'm thinking about crating her in the basement if we know we'll be gone during a storm. Or maybe keep a TV on so she can hear voices. I've also heard there is some shirt that you can buy that is tight and makes them feel protected, though i'm wary of that since it sounds like a gimmick.

 

Anyone else have an issue like this before?

The Thundershirt!

 

It's not a gimmick IMO, and I did see it work on one of my dogs. Basically, it puts some pressure on the torso, which supposedly has a calming effect. It's worked on animals before and even autistic children. There is an autistic author named Temple Grandin who has written on this and done experiments with it.

 

I have a dog I rescued from a local shelter that had major separation anxiety. Was a saint while I was home but if I was gone for more than an hour or so, I'd come home to find things destroyed and strewn all over the house. I heard about this shirt from my mother and skeptically bought it. It definitely seemed to work, the only problem was he (oftentimes with the help of my Great Dane) would chew it off of him and tear it. I could never get them to last more than a week or so before it got ruined.

 

I think they cost about $40...might be a good idea to try it, considering just how stressed out your dog seems to get.

[Jenksismyhero]

I'll take a look at that thunder shirt. I might try to find just a normal tight fitting shirt first to see if that helps. I'm sure I can find something like that for cheaper than $40. I wonder too if this was just enhanced because we weren't home. It's one thing to get nervous about storms, it's another to get so freaked out that she felt compelled to get downstairs and hurt herself in the process.

[iamshack]

I'll take a look at that thunder shirt. I might try to find just a normal tight fitting shirt first to see if that helps. I'm sure I can find something like that for cheaper than $40. I wonder too if this was just enhanced because we weren't home. It's one thing to get nervous about storms, it's another to get so freaked out that she felt compelled to get downstairs and hurt herself in the process.

Yeah, any old shirt will work, as long as it fits tightly around her torso...not choking her or anything, but kind of like a girdle

[Steve9347]

The thundershirt works. My mother and sister use it on their dogs and it's changed them big time.

[IlliniKrush]

First few weeks no chewing issues, now she loves chewing on the ends of furniture, including table legs and stuff. WTF? She has like 12 toys.

 

How to stop this behavior?

 

I'm going to get some more larger bones in hopes those will curb it, not sure what else to do.

[CrimsonWeltall]

First few weeks no chewing issues, now she loves chewing on the ends of furniture, including table legs and stuff. WTF? She has like 12 toys.

 

How to stop this behavior?

 

I'm going to get some more larger bones in hopes those will curb it, not sure what else to do.

 

I have no experience using it, but what about Bitter Apple? You spray it on things and it makes it unpleasant for dogs to chew them.

[iamshack]

First few weeks no chewing issues, now she loves chewing on the ends of furniture, including table legs and stuff. WTF? She has like 12 toys.

 

How to stop this behavior?

 

I'm going to get some more larger bones in hopes those will curb it, not sure what else to do.

The chewing is related to the development of her teeth and gums...it has nothing to do with the chronology of her being adopted by you...(Edit: I should say most likely...it is possible it is a reaction to stress, but given her age, it probably is her teeth and gums)

 

Her baby teeth might be getting ready to fall out or her gums may be aching...it's just part of having a puppy.

 

When you catch her chewing on something she shouldn't be, tell her NO and take it away. Replace it with something she IS allowed to chew on, and when she does, say Good Girl!

 

Repeat forever and ever. Eventually she should be able to learn what is off-limits and what she is allowed to chew on. And DO NOT buy toys shaped like an object you do not want her to chew on....such as a dog toy shaped like a shoe...then she will think your shoes are toys...I've never understood this one...

 

Also, learn from your mistakes and take as much temptation away from her as possible...when you leave put things up high or in an enclosed room she has no access to.

Edited May 2, 2012 by iamshack

[StrangeSox]

We're looking at adopting a dog after we get back from vacation in about 6 weeks. Anyone have recommendations on local shelters/rescue societies?