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Does anyone have any advice for keeping pigeons away in the middle of a city? There is a couple that live on the roof of the building next time me but have decided to make my balcony their summer home/hookup spot and just poo poo EVERYWHERE. I've tried getting a falcon statue that is supposed to deter them, but they gave 0 fucks about it, and I'd rather not get those little plastic spike strips for the railing since then we can't lean against the rails either. Any suggestions on how to keep the little bastards away from the balcony?
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Aug 5, 2014 15:34
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| # ? May 19, 2024 19:12 |
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Do we have any kind of thread for people that volunteer at various shelters/rescues/etc? It would be kind of nice, I think, to have somewhere to vent a little about some of the hardships that goes on when you're around so many animals. 
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Aug 10, 2014 00:56
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That drat Satyr posted:Do we have any kind of thread for people that volunteer at various shelters/rescues/etc? It would be kind of nice, I think, to have somewhere to vent a little about some of the hardships that goes on when you're around so many animals. There used to be but it died off.
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Aug 10, 2014 00:58
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cryingscarf posted:There used to be but it died off. Do you think it would be ok if I made a new one? Kind of got some stuff to vent about and... yeah. :p
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Aug 10, 2014 01:08
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That drat Satyr posted:Do you think it would be ok if I made a new one? Kind of got some stuff to vent about and... yeah. :p It's not against the rules to make threads. Go for it!
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Aug 10, 2014 01:59
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I got a new dog, yesterday. So far they get along pretty well, but a couple of times, our original dog (spayed female, 5) has sort of snapped in the new dog (neutered male, 4)'s general direction. There was no growling/barking, no hackles raising, no lips pulled back to show teeth, and the only actual contact made was when she bumped him with her nose. Every time, he has just sort of backed off without argument or complaint. It happened once when he wasn't paying attention and bumped into her during a walk, and twice when he got close to the container where we keep the food. (We also place her bowl on top of it when we feed her, but one of these times her bowl had been put away.) Half of what I'm reading says this is completely fine/normal/them working out what the boundaries are, and the other half is saying this is A Problem. Should I be worried, or is this just fine as long as it doesn't escalate? They're both sighthounds, if that matters.
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Aug 12, 2014 23:16
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ArmadilloConspiracy posted:I got a new dog, yesterday. So far they get along pretty well, but a couple of times, our original dog (spayed female, 5) has sort of snapped in the new dog (neutered male, 4)'s general direction. There was no growling/barking, no hackles raising, no lips pulled back to show teeth, and the only actual contact made was when she bumped him with her nose. Every time, he has just sort of backed off without argument or complaint. It happened once when he wasn't paying attention and bumped into her during a walk, and twice when he got close to the container where we keep the food. (We also place her bowl on top of it when we feed her, but one of these times her bowl had been put away.) Read up on introducing though, if you haven't already.
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Aug 13, 2014 00:44
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I would probably do some exercises to get them accustomed to being around each other, or start conditioning them to just ignore each other in the house. My dogs at this point can be perfectly fine around each other 98% of the time, and the few situations where Artemis' resource guarding causes her to snap, she doesn't usually get past snarling and snapping, which is a vast improvement over where it started. I only say this because you definitely don't want it to escalate, and just "letting it be" might be enough, but why hope for the best when you can actively improve the situation?
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Aug 13, 2014 13:49
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mcswizzle posted:I would probably do some exercises to get them accustomed to being around each other, or start conditioning them to just ignore each other in the house. My dogs at this point can be perfectly fine around each other 98% of the time, and the few situations where Artemis' resource guarding causes her to snap, she doesn't usually get past snarling and snapping, which is a vast improvement over where it started. I've been rewarding her for calm behavior around him, particularly when he's in that area, and I've gone back to feeding them completely separately, with the other one crated. No incidents so far today. I'm going to cook up a bunch of chicken liver today, so maybe when my husband gets home we'll spend some time working on name recognition with Fisk, and not being a bitch with Chelsea. Calling Fisk back and forth from the area, rewarding him for responding, and Chelsea for not freaking out. Sound about right? I think the walk snap was just a surprise, and they're 100% fine in every other area of the house, so at least we can focus.
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Aug 13, 2014 18:06
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Sounds like a good plan. The goal is to get them to not care about being around each other, not overly excited and not overly upset, just "bleh". Feeding separately is probably fine and will prevent food issues between them. I'd say you might want to try some mat work or to go to their bed when the other is around, that way they have something they know to do when the other comes into a room. How great would it be for the cue for your dog to go lay on his/her bed is your other dog coming into the room? Yeah, very challenging to train, especially for newer trainers (I'd say I'm still new, I have no idea if I could train this behavior easily), but if you attempt to get to that point, the result in the mean time would be ambivalent dogs who are fine being near each other. Our behaviorist recommended teaching Artemis a strong, solid "Back up" command - partly to work on our teaching methods but also so that if we're in a position to not physically control a situation (separate the dogs if something happens) that we can use a command to put distance between Artemis and the other dog. She knows the command, and when she's head on with us she does well with it, but it's challenging to teach it in a way where she'll listen when over threshold to just back up and move. That being said, I've learned that when she's at the point of lashing out, that she will try to put distance between her and the other dog before it becomes a problem. Maybe she's just getting nicer? Or maybe it has to do with the training. But, it's definitely improved a lot.
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Aug 13, 2014 21:14
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ArmadilloConspiracy posted:I've been rewarding her for calm behavior around him, particularly when he's in that area, and I've gone back to feeding them completely separately, with the other one crated. No incidents so far today. Feeding them separately is just generally a nice/good idea. That way, there's a low potential for someone to get snitty over food or start fights over valuable areas/food items. Reward lots of calm, polite interaction (including appropriately mile "go away" signals) and if the other dog refuses to respect the go away signals, you need to referee that and remove the other dog for a bit.
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Aug 14, 2014 00:02
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i wanna get a hedgehog, they're so adorable. can you teach them to do cool tricks?
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Aug 16, 2014 07:08
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Good News: The resource guarding/snapping has completely stopped. Bad News: My new dog has a very minor case of happy tail. The vet said no bandage was needed, and to just put antibiotic ointment on it twice a day, and keep him from licking it. Unfortunately, he wants to lick it, and he will need to be crated while I go to work tomorrow. Would it be safer to use a cone or a rubber/plastic basket muzzle in a wire crate? He's more accustomed to the muzzle, since he's an ex-racer. I guess some other options would be to bandage it and hope for the best, or see if the fabric travel crate works. What's my best course of action, here?
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Aug 17, 2014 16:09
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One of my greys had the same problem. The plastic basket muzzle worked fine.
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Aug 17, 2014 16:26
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I used to have a great dog hair picker-upper that I would like to re-buy but I can't remember what it was called. It was clear plastic with two little rollers on the bottom that were coated in the fabric that is on some pet-hair-removing brushes. Hair was collected by swiping it back and forth on afflicted surfaces (I think it was marketed specifically for couch cushions, maybe). The collected hair was trapped inside the device. It was supposed to be "disposable" but you could pull the hair out of it through the bottom and keep using it if you were clever enough. Like I said, I would love to buy another one of these but they don't seem to have them at my local target so I have to order online. Does anyone know what these things are called? Edit: Of course, as soon as I hit submit I happen to google the exact right thing. I was thinking of a Fabric Sweeper.
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Aug 18, 2014 01:32
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My English Pointer is having a problem. Up until 20 minutes ago, normal bouncy self, play fighting with the cat. Then, suddenly needed attention and petting, but not too much more than normal. Then suddenly acted like he needed to poop, so I rushed him outside. He sniffed and squatted, but wouldn't go. Then, just laid down. No energy. I coaxed him up and around and eventually he had a small bowel movement, not diarrhea, but more loose than normal. Still lethargic. No unusual eating, but for Safeway brand "beef basted munchies" which have no adverse info out there. Drinking a lot. Thoughts?
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Aug 19, 2014 02:55
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If he's still like this in the morning I would book a vet visit. It could be a number of things, some serious, some not.
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Aug 19, 2014 12:21
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a life less posted:If he's still like this in the morning I would book a vet visit. It could be a number of things, some serious, some not. He finally managed a couple of good pukes (carpet/bedspread) and was remarkably better after that. Going to skip the beef munchies I think.
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Aug 19, 2014 13:04
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torgeaux posted:He finally managed a couple of good pukes (carpet/bedspread) dogs.txt right there.
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Aug 19, 2014 17:36
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I'm sure this is something that has come up multiple times but my forum sleuthing has failed me so I'm just going to come out and ask. My girlfriend and I have a 8 year old mutt (we think black lab/dachshund with maybe a dash of pitbull, he looks just like a corgi sized black lab) who was passed around as a puppy before landing with us. We think that early instability is part of why he has always been a pretty anxious dog, uncomfortable when in a different house, very concerned if left in the car with one of us and the other goes into a store or something, needs to be around us during storms, etc. It's always been more of a quirk than anything really worrisome until about 4 months ago. Lately whenever there is a thunderstorm and no one is home with him he will throw around both bathroom rugs and pee on them, and much more concerning ,destroy things we believe in an attempt to find us. 3 months ago he clawed his way through a wooden door that was closed and just this month he destroyed a box spring in the master bedroom where we sleep. The guess is that both times he was trying to find us and on each of these occasions he developed cuts on his paws while scratching. We've already ordered a thundershirt but I was wondering if anyone has had to deal with a similar situation and how effective thundershirts have been for others?
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Aug 19, 2014 22:51
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Unfortunately I can't remember what they're called, but a friend of mine has a sort of medicated(?) or herbal(?) chew for her storm-phobic Golden. That, plus a Thundershirt have made a decent difference in how she copes with storms. She's still upset but it's manageable now. See if you can google up a treat like that. If that fails, I would recommend you talk to your vet about medication - periodic or perpetual. I've seen some nasty photos of dogs bloodying themselves due to phobias recently -- if they're severe they're nothing to mess around with.
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Aug 20, 2014 01:26
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The chew is probably Composure and I've heard of several people having good results with that and a thundershirt for storm phobias.
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Aug 20, 2014 01:51
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Thank you so much. He's always been a big baby about storms but the dog is 7 years old now so I have no idea what could have caused a drastic change in his reaction to them over the past few months.
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Aug 20, 2014 03:04
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Some people have success with melatonin for their storm or firework-phobic dogs as well. Composure's an L-theanine chew (a bit cheaper than Anxitane, includes a few other ingredients).
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Aug 20, 2014 03:07
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The Puppy Bowl posted:Thank you so much. Changes in sight or hearing ability could be a possibility. I'm fostering a blind dog who suddenly "became aggressive" to sudden movements. Nope, just went blind.
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Aug 21, 2014 14:52
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To preface this, I grew up in a family that always had dogs. My father bred and sold dogs (schipperkes) before he got married and he was always very insistent on actually teaching my sister and myself how to raise/train/keep a dog. I don't hit dogs, nor do I "rub their nose in it" after a mistake. Crating is used as a stepping stone towards being trusted in the house on their own. I don't intimidate or demand submissiveness from my dogs, all training is through positive reinforcement and frequent repetition. I'm not bragging with any of this, just wanted to get it out of the way, as a lot of this behavior translates, to me, as the actions of an abused/scared dog. I live in an apartment and have a schipperke mix, which we adopted from the humane society (neutered and all her shots). She's 4-ish years old and very sweet. When we first brought her home, I was ready to run the whole nine yards with crating, house-training, etc. over the course of a few months. She was so obedient and well-behaved, however, the whole process was greatly accelerated, to the point where we only crated her while we were out of the house for maybe a week. She loved going on walks, she wouldn't touch any human food unless it was specifically given to her (which is done very rarely), and she seemed pretty even-keeled. This behavior was steady for about 9-10 months, until it changed a few weeks back, when the following changes occurred: 1) Seemingly at random, while we're gone, she will defecate in the house (she's only urinated once, but we believe it was due to a really bad thunderstorm that happened while we weren't home). When we get home she's sitting guiltily in a corner somewhere, just waiting for whatever hellfire she imagines is going to rain down 2) When outside to do her business, she will start to defecate, but then plant her legs and pull it back in. This isn't just my imagination, we took her to the vet and he confirmed it doesn't appear like she's trying to defecate, but actively trying NOT to. This was coupled with her not defecating for 2-3 days at a time, only to have one massive movement all at once. 3) She will pretend to urinate. By this I mean, she will squat like she's urinating, but isn't actually going. When you try to walk around her to confirm if she's going, she will rotate with you while looking you in the eyes. This is a behavior that's been witnessed by a number of people, including our vet, so I promise I'm not just imagining it. 4) She has become exceedingly whiney. You can be petting her and she'll get up and walk away to the far side of the room and look at us while crying. If you approach her, she's fine, but she will not return if you just call her back. 5) Somewhat in addition to #4, while on walks, she will randomly be terrified of a random piece of terrain which changes on a day-to-day basis. One day, she will horrified to walk on grass, pulling on the leash so hard that she's choking her throat raw. The next day, the pavement is the worst thing in the entire world and reacts to it like she did the grass. After two inside accidents, we restricted her movement to just the living room and deck (which is open to the outside, for a little stimulation). We're never gone for more than 8 hours at a time. We've also taken her to the vet twice now, first time with the vet just saying that it doesn't appear to be anything medical and to just watch her and to make sure we take her outside to relieve herself often enough. Second visit he thought a high-fiber diet might help, just in case she's actually constipated. For a time, after the diet change and living space re-cordoning, things seemed to even out, but just coming home this morning after being away for maybe 45 minutes, she's defecated in the house again. She's still a sweet, head-strong little dog who will beg/demand food in your hands who loves to come and sit next to you on the couch, she's just miserable in all of these respects. What else can I do? Edit: "Doggie day-care" is not really an option as she does not play well with others. She was returned to the Humane Society twice, the second time with wounds from what seemed to be larger dogs. When we brought her home, she had just had the stitches removed from a wound on her rear, left leg. We're attempting to somewhat socialize her (read: not hate anything else with 4 legs) with my parents' and my sister's dog. She's fine in limited contact, which we always monitor, but she goes ballistic if we run into other dogs while out on a walk. As a result, we just take her on longer walks and avoid dog parks. tl;dr Dog is behaving erratically and seemingly losing her house-training. She's randomly terrified of random terrain surfaces while on walks. There've been no pattern/environment changes (that we can perceive), we've taken her to the vet, made what behavioral/dietary changes we can, and the behavior continues.
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Aug 22, 2014 15:20
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Did your vet do a rectal exam or x-rays? Constipation isn't something they should have to guess at, they should see it or feel it, as well as looking for anything visibly wrong with her pelvis and spine on x-rays, and palpating for any rectal masses or strictures that might be causing her pain.
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Aug 22, 2014 15:37
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My kitten has a vet visit in about an hour. When we first got her she had a little blood in her stool. We were told this was because of the dewormer she was given two days prior and it was normal. This morning I noticed a few drops of blood on top of the stool. It looks like it was after she pooped since it was on top. So I called the vet, gave her the information and got a sample ready for them. It seemed like it wasn't an emergency because she first tried to set the appointment up for in the afternoon. Question is what is the most likely cause of this and is their anything I should ask or bring up? Also what test will likely be done and what price will I be looking at?
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Aug 22, 2014 16:39
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Dr. Chaco posted:Did your vet do a rectal exam or x-rays? Constipation isn't something they should have to guess at, they should see it or feel it, as well as looking for anything visibly wrong with her pelvis and spine on x-rays, and palpating for any rectal masses or strictures that might be causing her pain. He checked for tenderness and for sphincter reaction, both of which seemed normal. She doesn't act as if she's in pain at all (excepting the old leg injury, which can make getting up a slow-ish process at times). He felt for masses and ran through other possibilities, none of which she was showing symptoms for (abscesses, holes in the rectal/vaginal wall, etc.).
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Aug 22, 2014 17:13
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Molothecat posted:What else can I do? Have you gone back to rewarding appropriate elimination? Does she have it on cue?
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Aug 22, 2014 19:04
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Engineer Lenk posted:Have you gone back to rewarding appropriate elimination? Does she have it on cue? I don't know what "on cue" means, but we've always rewarded her going outside. You can't take treats with you when you go out, or she'll just sit at your feet and beg. She always gets a number of accolades at the time of and then treats once we're back inside.
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Aug 22, 2014 20:28
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Molothecat posted:I don't know what "on cue" means, but we've always rewarded her going outside. You can't take treats with you when you go out, or she'll just sit at your feet and beg. She always gets a number of accolades at the time of and then treats once we're back inside. I think this is an opportunity for a different approach. Dogs are really sensitive to timing, so by giving her a treat after you're inside, she's likely not associated it at all with eliminating outside. If she's a little shy in the first place, I wonder how effective verbal praise is a reward. I would work through the treats outside issue - keep a stick of string cheese in a pocket or somewhere out of sight. If she does the 'beg at your feet', walk her around on leash. If she won't walk, go back to the basic housebreaking tenet of 'out every 20 minutes until you produce, in a crate otherwise'. By eliminate on cue, I mean that one of the first things I do with a new dog is associate them peeing or pooping outside with a phrase. I use 'go pee' and 'find your spot', but I know people who use things like 'hurry up' or 'get busy'. By consistently repeating this every time they go for a couple of weeks, you can teach them to eliminate on command. It comes in very helpful when you don't have the luxury of time for a long walk, or you know you're going to be gone for a while.
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Aug 22, 2014 21:01
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The Puppy Bowl posted:Thank you so much. I think Alucinor may be right. I have an 11-year-old dog who I've owned since he was a year old. He suddenly developed a fear of thunderstorms about 3 years ago where he never had one before. It also coincided with him "ignoring" vocal commands; a vet visit confirmed that he had significant hearing loss. My other older dog is blind, and for what it's worth, in retrospect the earliest sign was him suddenly going nuts when we passed other dogs on walks. It wasn't until months later that I realized he was stumbling over objects that were in unexpected places, that sort of thing. I suspect that sudden phobias in older dogs are often signs of blindness/deafness.
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Aug 23, 2014 05:28
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I have a question about my old dog. My dog is 10 years old, and is becoming increasingly aggressive. My wife got him well before I met her, and she suspects he was born in a puppy mill. He has always been uneasy around other dogs, but in recent years this anxiety has turned into aggression. More disturbingly, he has been reacting aggressively when meeting new people, and will occasionally even be aggressive with people he has met many times before. For example, he has started to adopt very aggressive postures towards service-providers like plumbers and carpenters, to the point of lunging at their feet or ankles if not restrained. Recently, he bit a friend of mine almost immediately after accepting a treat from him. We've had to resort to muzzling and confinement when we have workers over, and muzzling when friends are over. My corrections don't feel particularly effective anymore, and he doesn't respond to me when he works himself up. I'm afraid that at some point, if I can't figure out how to properly discipline or train these behaviors out of him, that I'm going to be liable for an injury to a neighbor or worker. Can anyone provide some advice? What do you all do about aggression in dogs? Are there any training programs I should look into? Should I talk to my vet about a responsible end of life plan?
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Aug 24, 2014 01:46
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Grand Theft Autobot posted:I have a question about my old dog. If you haven't brought your dog to the vet after a stark behavior change, do that first to rule out anything medical. Go ahead and check out and repost in this thread too: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3364451
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Aug 24, 2014 03:10
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Kerfuffle posted:If you haven't brought your dog to the vet after a stark behavior change, do that first to rule out anything medical. Thanks, I emailed my vet and should have something set up this week. That thread is excellent, I can't believeI didn't notice it when I was planning my post. The OP has a detailed explanation of correcting dog aggression with conditioning, and I think I can apply that to some success. On our morning walk today I supplied treats when we approached other dogs, and instead of losing his poo poo my dog responded positively. If I keep this up for a few months I might be able to condition his "other dog" anxiety out of him. There are also some recommendations for dealing with strangers that I'm going to try. Thanks for your post.
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Aug 24, 2014 21:54
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Keep in mind a lot of anxiety issues are things that you will have to end up maintaining and will sometimes resurface. So don't stress out or give up if things don't always progress in a straight line, there's pretty much always something you can change or include in training. 
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Aug 24, 2014 23:02
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Quick question for anyone more knowledgeable, recently my girlfriend moved in, and my dog has been acting very possessive of her, even to the point of near aggressiveness towards me. is there any way I can fix this?
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Aug 26, 2014 07:54
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There are ways to deal with that. Guarding a person like that isn't a terribly uncommon problem. You might get better advice if you ask in the training thread and give a little more detail though. It's not something I've dealt with personally so I don't have any good advice, but I know some people who have worked through it successfully.
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Aug 27, 2014 05:03
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| # ? May 19, 2024 19:12 |
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Around 6 weeks ago my partner and I found a cat in our garage that was looking pretty mangy and underfed. After taking her to the vet to have her checked out we found that she wasn't chipped, and was a little underweight but otherwise completely healthy. We've had her wormed and gotten rid of her fleas. Unfortunately we've not been able to find her owner, and we haven't found anyone looking for a cat of her description. The vet wasn't too helpful when we had the check-up as at first as he couldn't tell her sex, what breed of cat she could be, gave us an age range of 2 - 12, and couldn't tell if she'd been spayed. We're now thinking that she hasn't been! After having her for a week or so:  Now 5 weeks after that picture:  We haven't had a second check-up with the vet as we were advised by a few local rescue centres to wait a month or so before taking ownership of the cat officially (we've planned to have her spayed and chipped) in case of the owner claiming her. Is there a chance this cat is pregnant? She's extremely affectionate and has been since we found her, and has put on an incredible amount of weight since we've taken her into our care despite not being overfed and getting plenty of exercise. We've kept her inside at all times as a precaution, and we will be seeing a vet within the week but we'd like some outside opinions on whether cat is full of kittens or just needs one hell of a diet!
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Aug 27, 2014 07:20
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