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Helanna
Feb 1, 2007

alucinor posted:

Oh dear god, no. Ferrets are predators and will kill rabbits if they can. They were actually used in England to hunt rabbits up until the last century.

Actually, they still are :D I got my second ferret ( a few years ago) from a friend of the family because his friend was a game keeper who hunted with ferrets and this particular female refused to kill anything so she had to become someone's pet!

I would definitely not recommend getting a ferret to keep a rabbit company though; that's unlikely to end well.

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Skinote
Jan 12, 2009

Ceridwen posted:

How long ago is "recently"?

How often are you attempting to offer food?

Stop offering her live. She's taken F/T so she almost certainly will again if you are patient. Snakes can go a *very* long time without food, especially snakes large enough to eat 2 large rats in a sitting.

DO NOT leave a live rat in with her again. EVER. EVER EVER. It is VERY dangerous for the snake.

I've had her for about 5 weeks now, and was attempting to feed her about every 14 days. Usually for one or two days in a row once that larger time period had passed. So you recommend just holding out and sticking with F/T until she comes around? As of this post, she hasn't eaten for about a month.

Olive Bar
Mar 30, 2005

Take me to the moon

Skinote posted:

I've had her for about 5 weeks now, and was attempting to feed her about every 14 days. Usually for one or two days in a row once that larger time period had passed. So you recommend just holding out and sticking with F/T until she comes around? As of this post, she hasn't eaten for about a month.

If I'm not mistaken most snakes if healthy and fully grown can go 6 months without eating. My cornsnake once went off of her food for about 5-6 months and she was fine, started eating again out of the blue like nothing had happened. (Yes, she was taken to the vet quite a few times, no worries, I wasn't neglecting her.)

tse1618
May 27, 2008

Cuddle time!
I had a cousin who had a well fed boa when he went off out of the country serving with the armed forces for about a year. His parents promised to feed the snake while he was gone, and did it once or twice and then kind of forgot about the whole thing. My cousin comes back and finds the snake very thin, but alive, having not eaten for almost a year.

This all happened years ago and I was pretty pissed at my aunt and uncle neglecting that snake when I heard the story for the first time, but they can survive for a long time without eating.

Fenarisk
Oct 27, 2005

I had no idea ferrets were used to kill rabbits. I think we may just look at getting another rabbit then from the chicagoland HRS at some point. Thanks for the info.

jackpot
Aug 31, 2004

First cousin to the Black Rabbit himself. Such was Woundwort's monument...and perhaps it would not have displeased him.<

jackpot posted:

Came home Thursday to a cat with a leaky eye. A warm compress made it stop, then a few hours later we see it's leaky/watery again, and also his brow ridge(?) is swollen. At that point we take him to the vet and they say he probably got knocked around by playing with the other cat. They did the UV test, where they give him drops then shine a UV light in his eyes, looking for scratches - they didn't see any, the surface of his eye is fine. So they gave me some ointment to give him (triple antibiotic - vetropolycin) three times a day in the eye. We've been doing that since Thursday, but he's still squinty (which we understand could just be from jamming medicine into his eye three times a day), and at the moment his eye is watery and his brow is slightly swollen again. We never even found any cuts on him in the first place, so the antibiotic was basically a precautionary measure. It's four days later, why is his eye still messed up? Is it time for another trip to the vet?

Behavior/feeding/everything else is fine and dandy.
Took him back to the vet today, they think it's feline herpes. Treatable and not too serious, although the girlfriend is gonna be pissed since it almost guarantees her cat has it now, too.

Ceridwen
Dec 11, 2004
Of course... If the Jell-O gets moldy, the whole thing should be set aflame.

Skinote posted:

I've had her for about 5 weeks now, and was attempting to feed her about every 14 days. Usually for one or two days in a row once that larger time period had passed. So you recommend just holding out and sticking with F/T until she comes around? As of this post, she hasn't eaten for about a month.

A month is *nothing*. Even a hatchling snake can go over a month without eating (in fact for some species they go a MINIMUM of a month before they will eat). Ball pythons may go a year without eating in some cases.

Offer her a single FT rat every 1-2 weeks until she decides she is ready to eat again. If you get to the 3-4 month mark and she hasn't given in I'd start to get mildly concerned about trying other things (like fresh killed NOT LIVE prey).

If you are really worried about making sure she's ok while fasting, pick up a postal scale on amazon for 10-20 bucks and weigh her once a week or so. You'll figure out pretty quickly that she is fine.

Also, what is your overall setup like for her? What temps are you maintaining on the hot and cold sides of the tank? What do you use to heat the tank? Is it a tank or a rubbermaid tub or a reptile specific cage? Are you using a digital probe thermometer or the stick on type? What is the substrate? Does she had adequate access to hides? Are you feeding in the tank or in a feeding tub? Are you handling her on non-feeding days?

One of the common reasons for being off feed is something wrong with the husbandry.

Engineer Lenk
Aug 28, 2003

Mnogo losho e!
How do I get my deaf cat to stop howling? It wasn't so bad when he'd only do it downstairs, but he's discovered the shower stall and it makes for a rather terrifying wakeup call.

Arcee
Oct 1, 2007

Dr. StrangeGuy
Ok, this seems like the ideal thread for this. My cat, Harli, is a 1 1/2 spayed rescue kitty who is under a new vet's care. This is a lengthy setup, so bear with me. Around October, she started eating her clay cat litter and licking the raw pottery I had laying around the house. She also started getting thin. I took her to her vet (also the vet I adopted her from) and he said it was just a bad habit and gave her an antibiotic to try. I boarded her for a week in December and asked them to look at her again since she wasn't any better. They ran a fecal and found nothing. The last couple of weeks she's gotten extremely thin and hasn't been visiting the litter box frequently and started eating a few bites a day. I took her Monday to a new vet who ran a blood test and found she was extremely anemic, like transfusion worthy, and said we should put her on kitten food if she'll eat it and gave us an iron supplement. I take her back on Thursday to find out if she's still producing blood or not, since there doesn't appear to be anywhere she is losing it from. She hasn't used the litter box at all today, so I think I'll be taking her tomorrow for an emergency visit.

My question is, has anyone else gone through this and can offer insight into possible cause or outlook? I'm not asking for professional advice, that's what I pay the vet for.

Also, she's FIV and leukemia negative, thank God.

EDIT: We lost Harli today, her liver enzymes were past 10 and her iron was in single digits. She couldn't lay or be held without being in pain.

Arcee fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Jan 21, 2009

Writer Cath
Apr 1, 2007

Box. Flipped.
Plaster Town Cop
My dog keeps wrecking stuff when she's alone, even if it's just for 20 minutes. Crating doesn't make much sense, since we live next to where we work. It's easy for one of us to pop in, but not always possible for someone to be around all the time.

So far she gets into bags and kleenex boxes, so it's not like she's tearing up valuables, but it's still a huge pain in the rear end.

tse1618
May 27, 2008

Cuddle time!
Crating isn't done because of the proximity to where you work, it's done to help with housetraining and to keep the dog from destroying everything you love while you're gone.

Zombiesinmyshower!
Nov 14, 2006

by angerbotSD
Why does crating not make sense due to where you work? I think you are misunderstanding - crate training is used to keep the dog out of trouble, whether its for 10 minutes or 5 hours.

From the destruction to your house that you are describing, it certainly sounds like you would benefit from a crate.

Writer Cath
Apr 1, 2007

Box. Flipped.
Plaster Town Cop
Thanks for clearing that up; I'll try bringing up the idea to my parents again.

Women's Rights?
Nov 16, 2005

Ain't give a damn
I lost Rin last week, and now Professor is grieving pretty hard. He keeps climbing under the blankets looking for her (Rin was real big on sleeping under blankets/clothes/piles of laundry) and it's really quite heartbreaking to see him wander around looking for his sister. He's looking for a playmate and Poko's completely useless with that. What can I do to help distract him from her being gone that doesn't involve getting another cat? I've tried giving him extra laser pointer time/tossing balls/treats and snuggles time but he's still searching for her.

On another note, it's really creepy that Rin died in the bathroom and now neither of them will go into the bathroom anymore.

Spermy Smurf
Jul 2, 2004
Does anyone know of a place online or would someone be willing to buy locally and ship me some huge pizzle sticks? I saw some like 3 foot long ones in the PISS thread, and I cant find them locally or online.


PMs are enabled!

HYDE.lana.HYDE
May 18, 2008

VikingKitten posted:

My kitten Curtis likes to lick my lips. This is weird, but not especially bothersome. Is that a weird habit unique to him, or do other people have cats that lick human lips?

It might be that you have something on your lips that smells yummy to him. My cat licks my armpits, I think he likes the taste of the deodorant.

RazorBunny
May 23, 2007

Sometimes I feel like this.

My sister's cat likes to sit on her chest when she's asleep and nibble on her nose until she wakes up. Cats are just weird, I think.

JayKay
Sep 11, 2001

And you thought they were cute and cuddly.

My adopted Beagle seems to have some separation anxiety issues. She's mostly crate trained and the only time we crate her is if we leave or if we're asleep and she's fine with that. However as of late, when we leave she starts freaking out in her crate. Twice now when I've come home, I've discovered the blankets I used to cover the crate have been pulled into the crate.

Any suggestions into dealing with this? We put the blankets on the crate as we've been told it helps her think of her crate like a den.

IDemandSatisfaction
Feb 20, 2007

Glove slap baby!
Our dog will not let us leave the house peacefully. Every time she sees us getting our coats on, she goes apeshit and does everything possible to stop us (she bites our feet sometimes).

Any tips on how to break the habit?

mumblingscrapwaver
Dec 13, 2007

unnecessary complication
Once the dog's already in the habit of freaking out, I'm not sure how to stop it... but I bet you're going to hear "crate the dog" a lot.

I know my mom's dog was crazy whenever they came home, for at least the first year, and he was never crate-trained. (He probably could have benefited from it, though.) She told me dogs take their cues from your behavior, so if you make a big deal out of coming / going, they're going to make a big deal out of it too. When she comes home now, she ignores him until she's taken off her coat and put down the mail and whatnot, then he gets his lovin'. But he's always been good when they leave; he gets a sad look on his face and goes to lay down under his coffee table.

McDougirl
Jun 22, 2006
this title is custom-made!

IDemandSatisfaction posted:

Any tips on how to break the habit?

Obviously, again, crating. It will give her a den to go to feel safe, plus if she freaks when you leave, what is she doing when your gone? Giving her a nice comfy spot to chill and a kong to slobber on while your leaving seems like the best for everyone involved

But barring that, you need to desensitize her to the idea. So randomly get up and move your coat then set back down, or jingle your keys, or put your shoes on and then back off. Start with just a few seconds, and then slowly build up more and more time, maybe even go so far as to walk out the door and then come back and sit down-- without making a big deal out of it. Basically though, you want it so that she can't tell the difference between real leaving and fake leaving, and knows that either way you'll be back and it isn't even an issue.

UniversalDonor
Mar 16, 2006
The ladies at the blood clinic say I'm special.
Hello!
I have a question about guinea pigs and where the best place to get one is. I already have a 6-month old female guinea pig, and I now realize that I should have gotten more then one when I got her, as they are very social. Trying to correct my mistake, I just finished building her a great big C&C cage, and am looking for a nice female roomate for her. However, I live in a small area and my choice of possible pigs is extremely limited. I have the following options:

1) Get one from a pet store. This is probably the easiest and fastest option, obviously. There seems to be a ready supply of pigs her age and younger. One of the close-by pet stores is a big chain who's staff don't know anything about guinea pig care, but the other is a smaller "Ma and Pop" where the staff are quite knowledgeable and the pigs seem well cared for, all things considered (pigs get fruit, veggies, and unlimited hay, are not housed with the opposite sex once they come of age, have a decent amount of space to live in.) The pigs there are born in-house and not from a breeder, and I don't know if that's better or worse. Obviously it's still not ideal, and a lot of "guinea pig" forums I've visited have a severe anti-petstore sentiment.

2)Get one from the local Humane Society. This seems like the no-brainer answer, but as I come from a small place, the humane society also is quite small and rarely has pigs. It could be many months before they get a female or neutered male pig again, and that's just extra time my pig has to be alone. Also, the staff there don't really know how to care for guinea pigs (they get no veggies or hay, and are fed rabbit food.) My friend got a pig there, and they didn't know what sex it was (he was a huge male with huge nuts to boot) and when I went there to look for pigs, the lady thought there was some, until it turned out that those were, in fact, gerbils. But I know that if there was a nice female pig there, it would be way better to adopt one then get a pet-store pig. It's just a question of whether it's worth waiting to see if they get any pigs I can adopt.

3)Boy/Sell/Trade "free to good home" pigs. There are two of these in the local online classifieds. "Adopting" one of these pigs might be better (less selfish/ more socially conscious or whichever) then getting a brand-new petstore pig, and a lot quicker then waiting for a humane-society pig, but the options that I have found doesn't seem to have been cared for that well. The pictures included in the ads show extremely small cages with no hay or toys or anything like that. The pigs are also about a year older then my pig, and I'm unsure how they would get along, esspecially if they were raised in unfit conditions. It would be extremely admirable to give these pigs a better home, but I am in no position to endanger my current pig's well-being, or pay for the vet bills that might occur if the pig has lots of health problems due to long-term neglect. That said, they might not be as bad as they look. Maybe they get lots of out-of-cage time, and they actually had plenty of hay and entertainment that wasn't shown in the pictures. Of all the options, this one is a definite gamble. They could be the sweetest pigs in the world, or they could be riddled with health and behavioural problems.

So, any goons with guinea pigs that have been in a similar situation, or have any suggestions as to which option is likely the best? Any alternate ideas I haven't thought of? I'll take any help I can get!

CompactFanny
Oct 1, 2008

Of course, find a rescue. There are a lot of piggies that need homes.

I have an unaltered boar that I want to give to a good home... I'm willing to have him neutered. He's about 10 months old. Want? I live in metro Atlanta.

Masey
Aug 22, 2006
Pancakes.
I need someone to recommend me a veterinarian in the NE area of West Virginia.

My poor little Luigi (1 y/o cat) was suggested that he had asthma some time last Summer, every time we go to our current vet to either get them to stop putting tuna flavouring in the horribly acidic tasting medicine, they can't tell use when we start the hard pills for him (he was too young/light when he was first diagnosed) or anything

We asked them if we could get a prescription for a non-alcoholic version of the medicine that they originally gave us for his asthma. They said they could do that, would call the pharmacy and then call us back when it was ready. We called the pharmacy, the veterinarian never called them after a week or so. So we called the veterinarian to see what was up, they didn't pick up so we left a few messages and they never got back to us.

They've failed to call us several times with results from tests and things like that, other than that they're great vets but we're not sure if he actually has asthma or not. We'd like a second veterinarian opinion, anything within 30 miles of the zip code 26554 would be greatly appreciative (Weston, Clarksburg, Bridgeville, Fairmont, Morgantown area). We currently go to Middletown Animal Clinic.

Also are there tests for asthma or is just kind of all these symptoms are asthma related, he has asthma?

Masey fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Jan 27, 2009

tse1618
May 27, 2008

Cuddle time!

UniversalDonor posted:

Hello!
I have a question about guinea pigs and where the best place to get one is. I already have a 6-month old female guinea pig, and I now realize that I should have gotten more then one when I got her, as they are very social. Trying to correct my mistake, I just finished building her a great big C&C cage, and am looking for a nice female roomate for her. However, I live in a small area and my choice of possible pigs is extremely limited. I have the following options:

1) Get one from a pet store. This is probably the easiest and fastest option, obviously. There seems to be a ready supply of pigs her age and younger. One of the close-by pet stores is a big chain who's staff don't know anything about guinea pig care

Which chain is it? Some of them accept animals in for adoption. The store I work very frequently has guinea pigs up for adoption because their kids got bored of them or they got a female pig somewhere who turned out to be pregnant and they don't want to keep the babies. We once accepted in 4 pregnant sows, 1 boar, and 12 baby piggies because some redneck had decided to breed them and sell them, but then no one was buying them so he just gave them to us. We had guinea pigs for a LONG time then. You should call the store and ask if they do small animal adoptions.

alucinor
May 21, 2003



Taco Defender

UniversalDonor posted:

So, any goons with guinea pigs that have been in a similar situation, or have any suggestions as to which option is likely the best? Any alternate ideas I haven't thought of? I'll take any help I can get!

Your concerns about classified ad pigs is quite valid. My recommendation would be to find a guinea pig specific rescue. If you take one of theirs, who is already vetted, treated for parasites, neutered, etc, you're making room for them to take one of the ones who is possibly sick and needing medical care prior to being adoptable.

The reason most of us are so vehemently against pet store purchases is twofold. First, the chain stores buy from puppy mill type breeders. Nearly all of their pigs are ill, either with respiratory infections or mite infestations. Probably one out of ten people who writes to me to ask about adoption, has just had a petstore pig who died.

Secondly, there are THOUSANDS of pigs in rescue. Why support backyard (or back-room) breeding when you can save a pig already in need of a home?

I'd recommend the following:

1. Check this list of national and international rescues to find a guinea pig rescue near you. You can also tell me your zip code and I'll tell you who is in the area.
2. Check the placement forum in Guinea Lynx - if there aren't any listings in your area, register and post a thread titled "Female/neutered boar wanted in City, State".
3. Even if there is no rescue in your exact location, check https://www.petfinder.com. Many of us will do interstate transports to bring pigs to adopters.

Good luck and don't hesitate to PM me with questions!

UniversalDonor
Mar 16, 2006
The ladies at the blood clinic say I'm special.
Thanks for the helpful replies! I will definitly be making a post at the cavy placement forum. I really wish there was a rescue here! I've been searching the guinealynx and petfinder websites and see tons of gorgeous pigs I would love to have, but are way too far away.
Unfortunatly, I'm in Atlantic Canada, and there appears to be no piggy rescues anywhere near me. This is further compounded by the fact that even if there was one in one of the neighbouring provinces, my car is a peice of crap, and won't take me very far (stupid winter!). There are so many cats up for adoption the the humane societies in the neighboring provinces, it's sad. No guinea pigs, though :(. I'll have to be patient :)

To answer tse1618's question, the big chain store is Pets Unlimited, and the "Ma and Pop" style store is called "Critters" if anyone's heard of it. I'll have to ask both stores if any of their pigs are "adoption" pigs.

my dog boyfriend!!
Nov 21, 2008
This is going to sound like an incredibly strange question (at least it does to me) and I hope it doesn't warrant its own thread, but does anyone know how shelters feel about asking to adopt pets with specific disabilities or special needs?

I'm not in any position to go about adopting animals in the very near future (4 years of college and getting my own place and stability come first :eng101:) but I am just all kinds of heartbroken over the number of pets with cerebellar hypoplasia that seem to show up in my searches and I feel a weird calling in my life to adopt a CH cat someday. :unsmith: Would it be incredibly untoward of me if, in the future, I went asking around specifically for a CH cat?

Olive Bar
Mar 30, 2005

Take me to the moon
I don't see any reason why a shelter would have an issue with that at all, in fact I'm sure they'd be thrilled to find a good home for a disabled cat. And let me just say, I (he's actually my dad's, but I love him too dammit) have a cat with CH actually, and he is the most awesome cat I could ever have, I'd say he's just as awesome as my Siamese. He just moves funny, has a cute retard meow, can't jump, and tends to throw his head around a bit.

Olive Bar fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Jan 28, 2009

my dog boyfriend!!
Nov 21, 2008
:unsmith: Now I can rest easy and just keep this in mind for five or so years. CH cats melt my heart. Every cat I've encountered looks at me like they think I'm retarded and awkward; now I can someday get one that's just like me! Thanks.

MockTurtle
Mar 9, 2006
Once I was a real Turtle.
I never heard of CH and while I was looking for it I saw this video and it made me melt... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJQG6V1MOVY
<3 Charley :3:

Now that I think about it, there was a cat at the shelter I volunteered at for a while and he was like this. His name was Weeble :)

RyanNotBrian
Nov 28, 2005

Always five, acting as one. Dedicated! Inseparable! Invincible!
Not really a question just a funny observation on the intelligence of poodles.

About 3 days ago we started giving our 14 week old toy poodle a treat whenever he toilets in the right place, as per Ian Dunbar's advice. He quickly caught on, and now he jumps onto his tray* for a pee, jumps off for his treat, jumps back on again to pee again, jumps off for his treat, then does it one more time! He's learned to let his pee out in small increments to maximise the number of treats. Cheeky!

*He pees in a tray of sand in our courtyard, as we have no grass at our place.

SuperNintendo Chalmers
Mar 31, 2002

class after class of ugly, ugly children...
Goons help me!

We got a kitty a few months ago. All was good, she was adorable, did her business where she was supposed to and was fairly quiet.

But in the last 3 weeks she has started to do a non-stop meow marathon at 5am every loving morning and wont stop till everyone in the house is awake. The kitty is five months old now and when she started this morning meowing she was sleeping in the hall outside everyone's rooms. We thought maybe she needed her own space, so we moved her to the basement with her essentials. But that hasn't fixed it, she still meows every drat morning and is now louder than ever. I tried wearing her out at night with toys and activities so she would sleep all night, nothing.

We have kids, so we know how to deal with sleep deprivation, but this out of control. My wife is literally days away from giving her to the humane society due to lack of any sleep, so any help would be appreciated.

nonanone
Oct 25, 2007


Sounds like she might be in heat. If she's not fixed, she should be. Especially if she's meowing during the day too, or displaying any other unusual behavior.
If she is fixed, it may be that she wants to play, or is trying to get your attention at night. Behavior training can probably help this. If she's doing it right outside your door, try some sort of negative reinforcement (not associated with you) like a vacuum cleaner. If you are giving in and checking on her, then you are reinforcing that meowing all night long will get her attention. Also, cats are not people. They [usually] don't suffer from emotional problems like "needing their own space."

nonanone fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Jan 29, 2009

Eggplant Wizard
Jul 8, 2005


i loev catte

SuperNintendo Chalmers posted:

Goons help me!

We got a kitty a few months ago. All was good, she was adorable, did her business where she was supposed to and was fairly quiet.

But in the last 3 weeks she has started to do a non-stop meow marathon at 5am every loving morning and wont stop till everyone in the house is awake. The kitty is five months old now and when she started this morning meowing she was sleeping in the hall outside everyone's rooms. We thought maybe she needed her own space, so we moved her to the basement with her essentials. But that hasn't fixed it, she still meows every drat morning and is now louder than ever. I tried wearing her out at night with toys and activities so she would sleep all night, nothing.

We have kids, so we know how to deal with sleep deprivation, but this out of control. My wife is literally days away from giving her to the humane society due to lack of any sleep, so any help would be appreciated.

She may be lonely. Putting her in the basement would make it worse. I don't suppose your wife would be up for going back the HS to get her a buddy? :v:

Also yes, could be heat, but it sounds more like bored/lonely and wants to plaaaaay to me.

SuperNintendo Chalmers
Mar 31, 2002

class after class of ugly, ugly children...

exactduckwoman posted:

She may be lonely. Putting her in the basement would make it worse. I don't suppose your wife would be up for going back the HS to get her a buddy? :v:

Also yes, could be heat, but it sounds more like bored/lonely and wants to plaaaaay to me.

She is getting fixed on Monday. We are hoping that it's that, but I tend to think it's that she wants someone up to pay attention or have someone play (ugh at 5am). We have been getting up and acknowledging that she is meowing, if we flat out ignored her would that actually work?

Not that it's a feesable option (yet) but how would a second kitty help? Just someone else to help wear her out?

Eggplant Wizard
Jul 8, 2005


i loev catte

SuperNintendo Chalmers posted:

She is getting fixed on Monday. We are hoping that it's that, but I tend to think it's that she wants someone up to pay attention or have someone play (ugh at 5am). We have been getting up and acknowledging that she is meowing, if we flat out ignored her would that actually work?

Not that it's a feesable option (yet) but how would a second kitty help? Just someone else to help wear her out?

Yeah, stop getting up. All that does is show her you're listening. With two cats, they can entertain one another and keep each other company. While they aren't pack animals by any means, a lot of cats do better with a social life.

Sekhmet
Nov 16, 2001


MarshallX posted:

These are exactly them! Very beautiful dogs. Can you go into detail about why they are not recommended for Lab owners?

tse1618 pretty much touched on this.

I have a Great Pyrenees (the one in the picture). I got him from breed rescue (after an owner who let him do what he wanted and then handed him over when he was too much to handle), and I can't really imagine too many dogs farther from the typical Lab personality than Sam. He's a particularly stubborn example of a breed that's stubborn to begin with, and basically every single day I have to reinforce that he is not in charge in this house. NILIF is the operating principle, and letting up on it for a couple days means we're back to square one, pretty much. He's male dog-aggressive and extremely territorial. And all of these traits are common in the breed because of their history - they were bred to be livestock guardians who spent all of their time among a herd and defended it, not working with humans cooperatively in the same manner as, say, a sporting dog.

Basically, if a Lab is your kind of dog, a Pyr is probably not (and it goes vice versa too ;))

Women's Rights?
Nov 16, 2005

Ain't give a damn
What the hell is wrong with my cat? I took him in on Monday because he'd been more pukey than normal last weekend (vomitting has stopped), and the vet and I discovered that he's lost 3 lbs in the past 9 months (was nearly 15 lbs in April '08 when I brought him in for vaccines, is now 11 lbs 12 ounces). So far everything on him has come back normal - vet listened to all the major organs and felt for any lumps where there shouldn't be and that was totally fine, they ran a CBC on him and everything there came within the perfectly normal range.

The vet said at this point he wants to wait a week for me to bring him back in to see if there's any changes in his weight, and then after that we'll go with either regular x-rays or barium to make sure everything is working okay in his digestive tract. If that doesn't come back with any results, then I don't know what the gently caress. Professor eats California Natural food with occassional Tempting Tidbits or Pit'R'Pat once a day as a nummy, and he's been eating, drinking, and using the litter box just fine. I haven't been trying to make him lose weight, and 3 lbs is an awful lot in less than a year. He wasn't even fat last year, because I remember specifically asking the vet if I should work on slimming him down and the vet said no, he's just a big guy, that's a perfectly healthy weight for him.

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SubponticatePoster
Aug 9, 2004

Every day takes figurin' out all over again how to fuckin' live.
Slippery Tilde

Women's Rights? posted:

What the hell is wrong with my cat? I took him in on Monday because he'd been more pukey than normal last weekend (vomitting has stopped), and the vet and I discovered that he's lost 3 lbs in the past 9 months (was nearly 15 lbs in April '08 when I brought him in for vaccines, is now 11 lbs 12 ounces). So far everything on him has come back normal - vet listened to all the major organs and felt for any lumps where there shouldn't be and that was totally fine, they ran a CBC on him and everything there came within the perfectly normal range.

The vet said at this point he wants to wait a week for me to bring him back in to see if there's any changes in his weight, and then after that we'll go with either regular x-rays or barium to make sure everything is working okay in his digestive tract. If that doesn't come back with any results, then I don't know what the gently caress. Professor eats California Natural food with occassional Tempting Tidbits or Pit'R'Pat once a day as a nummy, and he's been eating, drinking, and using the litter box just fine. I haven't been trying to make him lose weight, and 3 lbs is an awful lot in less than a year. He wasn't even fat last year, because I remember specifically asking the vet if I should work on slimming him down and the vet said no, he's just a big guy, that's a perfectly healthy weight for him.

What's in the :barf:? Is it whole food chunks? Semi-digested? Hair? Nothing and it's just yellow spit? If it's whole food, he might be eating too fast. If it's semi digested, he might be sensitive to one of the ingredients in what you're giving him (foor OR treats). Hair's prety obvious, ratchet up the grooming schedule and give him hairball remedy or similar hairball relieving treatment. If it's just bile then hope your vet can figure out what the problem is.

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