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ImplicitAssembler
Jan 24, 2013

Ok, not kennel cough, but either a reaction of somekind that turned into a minor infection. Got antibiotics and should expect it to have cleared by the end of the week. (And should keep her from playing with other dogs until then)

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Cuniculous
Apr 23, 2007

kill people burn shit fuck school
Can a crate be too big? I have two crates. One used to belong to a 70 pound dog, but after she died my 25 pound papillion mix claimed it as her own (Probably because it has the good memory foam dog bed in it). So now I have a crate meant for a 30-40 pound dog that I was planning on using with my puppy. But he's going to be like 10 pounds when I get him. I want him to have room, but I don't want him to have so much room he's comfortable peeing in it at night.

Sorry is these are dumb questions :( I haven't had a puppy in 10-11 years... I've always adopted adult dogs who came house broken and only needed a crate as their 'leave me alone' place.

a life less
Jul 12, 2009

We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.

Cuniculous posted:

Can a crate be too big? I have two crates. One used to belong to a 70 pound dog, but after she died my 25 pound papillion mix claimed it as her own (Probably because it has the good memory foam dog bed in it). So now I have a crate meant for a 30-40 pound dog that I was planning on using with my puppy. But he's going to be like 10 pounds when I get him. I want him to have room, but I don't want him to have so much room he's comfortable peeing in it at night.

Sorry is these are dumb questions :( I haven't had a puppy in 10-11 years... I've always adopted adult dogs who came house broken and only needed a crate as their 'leave me alone' place.

Yes, crates can be too big. But it depends on the dog and the situation. As you suspected, a too-large crate may give the pup enough room for him to feel like he can sleep on one side and pee/poo on the other. What I did with my dog was I put some milk crates in the back of the crate to make it a little smaller, and removed them as my pup grew.

Cuniculous
Apr 23, 2007

kill people burn shit fuck school
That's good advice, thank you :)

biggest platypus
Mar 10, 2014
Things are going much better in terms of housebreaking and exercise/socialization with Tumbles. We're taking lots of walks and she's started coming in to work with me, where she plays with people and dogs and also naps a lot. During the day she seems to have a good schedule of walks / playtime / training and sleeping for a couple of hours here and there in between. We go on a longish walk/run right before bed, and that drains her energy enough that she goes to sleep in her crate without complaining (bedtime is around 11pm).

However, she's been waking up at 4:30 every day. She'll whimper a little bit, and when she's quiet I take her out back to pee then put her back to bed. During the first week or two this went well and she usually fell back asleep, but lately she seems to be wide awake and will whine and bark for close to an hour. She doesn't usually hate her crate, and afaict it's just that she is no longer sleepy and wants to exercise/play. But dang I am tired and would love to get more than 5 hours of sleep. Do I just need to accept that this is her schedule and plan on taking her for a big walk at 4:30ish every morning? Or is there some way I can encourage more sleep in her crate through the night?

e: she is 11.5 weeks, in case that impacts what her schedule should be like.

biggest platypus fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Sep 4, 2014

m.hache
Dec 1, 2004


Fun Shoe
Personally at 11.5 weeks I was still getting up every 3 hours to take the dog out to pee. Maybe try setting an alarm instead of waiting for the pup to start whining. Set her on your own schedule.

a life less
Jul 12, 2009

We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.

After a pee break I'd put her back in her crate and go back to sleep. Ear plugs may help. She'll get used to it eventually.

wtftastic
Jul 24, 2006

"In private, we will be mercifully free from the opinions of imbeciles and fools."

It also might help to cover her crate with a blanket at that time so it stays dark once she goes back in.

inklesspen
Oct 17, 2007

Here I am coming, with the good news of me, and you hate it. You can think only of the bell and how much I have it, and you are never the goose. I will run around with my bell as much as I want and you will make despair.
Buglord
I've just started dogsitting my sister's five-year-old Shiba Inu. Here's Lucy!



She's been spoiled rotten for most of her life and has a lot of issues meeting new people. She took to one roommate right away, but barked quite a bit at the other one. She'll sit on command, and when you fill her bowl she'll wait for an okay before going for it, but she's only about 50/50 on "come". Also she likes to sit down and try not to budge if on a walk we don't go in the direction she wants.

I've seen overviews of the "Nothing in Life is Free" approach and it seems reasonable. Any adjustments to make for a five-year-old vs a puppy? Also, would classes help her? She's just moved from a 2,000 person rural Washington town to bustling NYC and I can only imagine she's pretty stressed. I want to help her adjust.

Math You
Oct 27, 2010

So put your faith
in more than steel

inklesspen posted:

I've just started dogsitting my sister's five-year-old Shiba Inu. Here's Lucy!



She's been spoiled rotten for most of her life and has a lot of issues meeting new people. She took to one roommate right away, but barked quite a bit at the other one. She'll sit on command, and when you fill her bowl she'll wait for an okay before going for it, but she's only about 50/50 on "come". Also she likes to sit down and try not to budge if on a walk we don't go in the direction she wants.

I've seen overviews of the "Nothing in Life is Free" approach and it seems reasonable. Any adjustments to make for a five-year-old vs a puppy? Also, would classes help her? She's just moved from a 2,000 person rural Washington town to bustling NYC and I can only imagine she's pretty stressed. I want to help her adjust.

The whole "plant myself on the ground and not move" thing is her saying "Holy gently caress, what is going on here? I'm overwhelmed".

She is likely not sure of most of her surroundings. The traffic, the smells, the people. Take some time to expose her to these new items in a positive way (with lots of her favourite treats).

That's all I've got :)

Problem!
Jan 1, 2007

I am the queen of France.
My dog did the "sit down and not budge" thing when I first got him because he was super overwhelmed with everything. It was pretty easy to fix with lots of treats and encouragement :)

Jewce
Mar 11, 2008
My dog has separation anxiety and I just can't loving deal with it. I understand how to shape him to being calm for longer and longer periods of time being alone, but it's impossible for me to carry out because there is no way for me to prevent the dog from being alone for longer than we worked up to which is literally like 5 seconds right now.

Does anyone have experience with paying for help with separation anxiety? I'm wondering how that works. Any resources on how to overcome spearation anxiety when you absolutely have to leave the dog alone some days?

gently caress separation anxiety. Worst behavioral issue I've ever had to deal with. I basically just want to give the dog away.

luscious
Mar 8, 2005

Who can find a virtuous woman,
For her price is far above rubies.
I think if that's how you feel about your dog then maybe you should :(

Jewce
Mar 11, 2008

luscious posted:

I think if that's how you feel about your dog then maybe you should :(

I'm considering finding him another home, but not cause of how I feel about him. More cause I feel like an rear end cause I thought I could help him with this, but I'm failing and I think it makes his life shittier. I want him to be happy and all. He's a great dog aside from this major, major issue. I've done my best by being sure to exercise daily, provide feed delivery toys when I'm out, chew toys, etc.. It's challenging and I was definitely super frustrated when I made the post cause I just am not seeing improvement. Hence me feeling like I wanted to give him away.. I really don't, but I'm so frustrated.

I've had him a couple months so I'm attached, but not so much that if I really can't help him overcome this because of my work schedule, then maybe it is best for him. That's why I asked about using a pro trainer for it or finding a method that can work when he has to be alone on days I can't work from home. I've already contacted a trainer, but am looking for some insight on this.

Engineer Lenk
Aug 28, 2003

Mnogo losho e!

Jewce posted:

I'm considering finding him another home, but not cause of how I feel about him. More cause I feel like an rear end cause I thought I could help him with this, but I'm failing and I think it makes his life shittier. I want him to be happy and all. He's a great dog aside from this major, major issue. I've done my best by being sure to exercise daily, provide feed delivery toys when I'm out, chew toys, etc.. It's challenging and I was definitely super frustrated when I made the post cause I just am not seeing improvement. Hence me feeling like I wanted to give him away.. I really don't, but I'm so frustrated.

I've had him a couple months so I'm attached, but not so much that if I really can't help him overcome this because of my work schedule, then maybe it is best for him. That's why I asked about using a pro trainer for it or finding a method that can work when he has to be alone on days I can't work from home. I've already contacted a trainer, but am looking for some insight on this.

Have you gone the medication route yet?

Psychobabble!
Jun 22, 2010

Observing this filth unsettles me

inklesspen posted:

She'll sit on command, and when you fill her bowl she'll wait for an okay before going for it, but she's only about 50/50 on "come". Also she likes to sit down and try not to budge if on a walk we don't go in the direction she wants.

Hi yes this would be a shiba. They're generally kind of buttholes and you have to really work with them for training to stick(source: I have my own douchebag shiba puppy(she's amazing :3:)). As far as actual useful help, in my (not professional) opinion, NiLiF is useful(it ended up teaching her a pretty solid "wait" command at doors), and classes would probably be good too as long as she doesn't get over stimulated. Also when my girl was a puppy and she would plop down, we would use a squeaky toy to entice her to start moving again. Maybe not the best method but she walks loose leash now like a champ and never does the plop/stop moving thing so it may be worth a try.

edit:

Jewce posted:

I'm considering finding him another home, but not cause of how I feel about him. More cause I feel like an rear end cause I thought I could help him with this, but I'm failing and I think it makes his life shittier. I want him to be happy and all. He's a great dog aside from this major, major issue. I've done my best by being sure to exercise daily, provide feed delivery toys when I'm out, chew toys, etc.. It's challenging and I was definitely super frustrated when I made the post cause I just am not seeing improvement. Hence me feeling like I wanted to give him away.. I really don't, but I'm so frustrated.

I've had him a couple months so I'm attached, but not so much that if I really can't help him overcome this because of my work schedule, then maybe it is best for him. That's why I asked about using a pro trainer for it or finding a method that can work when he has to be alone on days I can't work from home. I've already contacted a trainer, but am looking for some insight on this.

Don't beat yourself up. Full blown SA is hard to counteract even for veteran dog owners. Talk to your vet about medication, and maybe talk to a vet behaviorist in your area. Thunder shirts are controversial as far as people debating their usefulness but you could look into one of those, too. At my work(doggy daycare/boarding place) a lot of the epileptic and/or anxious dogs wear them and it seems to help.

Psychobabble! fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Sep 8, 2014

inklesspen
Oct 17, 2007

Here I am coming, with the good news of me, and you hate it. You can think only of the bell and how much I have it, and you are never the goose. I will run around with my bell as much as I want and you will make despair.
Buglord
So here's an interesting problem: Lucy is used to going potty on dirt with plants growing out of it. This is actually really hard to find within a block's radius around my office (Union Square in Manhattan). I ended up having to lift her onto a fenced-off tree planter so she could pee and I feel guilty about that. Any tips for getting her to be okay at peeing on concrete?

Cuniculous
Apr 23, 2007

kill people burn shit fuck school
How much and how often should an 11 week old puppy be fed? He's about 4 pounds. The bag said 1 3/4 cups a day, but that seems like an awful lot

lazerwolf
Dec 22, 2009

Orange and Black
I'm looking for a little bit of advice. Our year and 4 month old pup seems to be regressing. There are a couple of events where she shows a change in behavior: walking her, at the dog park and at home.

She's never been the best walker, she was always a puller. We've worked with her a lot with a couple of training courses and her daily walks to try to get her loose leash walk. She walks a lot better now then when we started training, however she's still not perfect. Lately though she seems to be extremely easily distracted by any dog, person or bike going by, mainly other dogs. She can spot a dog a couple blocks and away and she crouches down and waits until they get closer. During this time she is unwilling to move on and barely will acknowledge me even if I try to refocus her onto me with a treat in hand. As the other dog gets closer I can see the hair on her back stand up and she loses control of herself. She will bark and pull at the other dog and just become an overall mess to handle.

There were two incidents at the dog park where she snapped at another dog who was trying to take her ball. Most of the time we go to dog parks, she seems fine with other dogs there. She will sniff them and then ignore them because she wants to play ball. We have taken her to doggie day care before to stay for a day and overnight several times and she was always been fine interacting with other dogs at camp as well. However, today when going to the park while we were inside the double gate of the park before actually entering the park another dog came over from inside the park and starting barking at her and then she just lost it and started barking back and showing her teeth. We took her home after that.

Lastly she's been destroying parts of the house. We've been leaving her home alone since she was about 7 months old. Normally she's only really home alone for short periods of time (~1-3 hours generally). Every now and then we will come home to something torn up such as the remote or a couple magazines. We've tried to make sure not to leave anything out that she could get into. Today we came home to a pillow and lamp destroyed. This behavior is very very rare/inconsistent, its not like this is a once a week occurrence or even more frequently than that. There is probably 5-6 times we have come home to something chew up and torn up. I'm not quite sure why every once in a while she would want to find something to chew up when she hasn't tried to chew up things. Could it be separation anxiety even though she's never shown signs of it before?

A little about our pup, she's a 60 lbs aussie mix. Dad was 100% aussie and Mom was a mutt with boxer, pit bull and GSD or so they think. We have a younger rescue dog as well who is a 9 month old 40 lbs border collie mix. They usually get along well. They will play wrestle a lot with both of them taking turns being the predator/prey. The rescue is much more timid than his older sister and he tends to bark at her a lot when they play.

Sorry for the long wall of text but I'm just not sure what the next steps should be. We start 3rd level training class this Saturday and I will definitely bring up these issues with our trainer but in the meantime I'm turning to you PI for advice.

Paper Triangle
Jul 27, 2004

more dog than your dog
Hello Thead,

So I am, I guess, a new dog owner with some questions, so this seems like the right place to be posting.

I found a stray dog about a month ago, a little chihuahua mix of some kind. I put up a bunch of signs in and around my neighborhood and called around to local vets to see if anyone was missing him, but got no response. I took him to the vet the day I found him where he was given a clean bill of health plus some immunizations and I've been taking care of him ever since.

The second day I had him he had a reverse sneezing fit, which I had never heard of and which scared me to death but I googled it which allayed my fears. He continued to have occasional reverse sneezing fits at random times on about an every-other-day basis after that.

About a week ago he started coughing and couldn't keep down any food/water, so I took him back to the vet where I was told he probably had an upper respiratory infection. They gave him two shots, one to stop the coughing and an antibiotic, and then they gave me two medications to give him, again one for the cough and one for the infection. However, they screwed up the dosage instructions so for three days I was only giving him half the needed amount of antibiotics. The day of the vet trip he seemed totally fine (post shots) but the days I was improperly dosing him he started getting worse. I called the vet and they gave me the correct dosage, after which he started improving, albeit somewhat slowly.

Anyway, a week later now and he seems better, but whereas he didn't reverse sneeze at all while he was sick, it's now happening frequently, multiple times a day. The last two days it's literally happened every time I've come home (between work school and errands I "come home" about 3x a day). He gets excited and jumps up at me, then almost immediately the reverse sneeze starts. The fits are pretty long in duration too, pushing the one minute mark that seems to be the upper limit of how long they should really last.

So what I'm asking is, can reverse sneezing sometimes be caused by a foreign body lodged somewhere in his sinuses, or by a continuing illness? Should I take him back to the vet? I'm starting to go broke and I'm really disappointed with my current vet's dosage cock-up so I'll have to find a new one. If anyone knows of a good vet in the Orlando, FL area I'd be open to suggestions.

tl;dr: My dog, after being sick for about a week, is having much more frequent reverse sneezing fits. Could he have something lodged in his throat/still be sick?

Thanks!

pizzadog
Oct 9, 2009

Can you get a video of the sound you are describing? It still sounds like kennel cough symptoms, I remember the cough my dogs made when they had it from the shelter was a similar noise to if something was stuck in their throat or up their nose, sort of a hacking wheeze/snort.

Paper Triangle
Jul 27, 2004

more dog than your dog
I keep trying to get a video, but every time it happens I'm so focused on calming him down (he gets seriously frantic when I come home) and massaging his throat that I always forget. Is kennel cough and an upper respiratory infection the same thing, by the way? Back when he was coughing he was doing the whole cough-cough-cough-cough-gag thing that seems typical of kennel cough, but that's totally gone now and has been for a few days.

I'll try to get a video when I get home tonight.

Edit: For what it's worth, the coughing I took him to the vet for and the reverse sneezing are wildly different. The reverse sneezes cause his whole body to kind of seize up over and over again, while the coughing seemed almost normal by comparison, until of course every coughing fit ended with him barfing up whatever he had recently eaten.

Paper Triangle fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Sep 9, 2014

pizzadog
Oct 9, 2009

Yeah I guess it's the same thing, but maybe the antibiotics weren't enough or the right kind to get that infection. There's so many strains of it, it's like the flu or colds.
When my dogs have had kennel cough, one of them just had a lot of snot and was snorting, and she had bronchitis, but I heard no coughs or anything, my other dogs were doing this hacking snort hock a loogie sound.
You should really just go back to the vet, or another vet, try Yelp for reviews.



Not sure if this is the right thread, but worth a try: What is the best way to start desensitizing a dog to severe fear of vacuums? I try to keep her near me and give her treats/distractions/settle her down when it's out, but she won't take any treats even very high value ones, won't look at me easily and she knows the 'focus' command quite well, she just looks down and hides in the furthest bathroom in the house and shakes like a leaf. And that is only if I can't manage to have her out of the house taking her for a walk while someone else does it, forget me vacuuming ever I have to ask my wife to do it all now. Very soon after the vacuum is off (btw this is a tiny hand pet bissel OR a large upright bissel, both get the same reaction), she will take treats from me, wiggle and submissively wag her tail, not upright, then she just curls up under my feet/follows me like a shadow. Less nervous, she's not longer shaking and she will eat, but still scared. The vacuum was not being used near her, within sight, it was basically completely across the house and barely within my hearing range. I know I have to do desensitization I just can't seem to find a starting point that has produced any progress. I know I shouldn't soothe her a ton right?

pizzadog fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Sep 9, 2014

Engineer Lenk
Aug 28, 2003

Mnogo losho e!

lazerwolf posted:

I'm looking for a little bit of advice. Our year and 4 month old pup seems to be regressing. There are a couple of events where she shows a change in behavior: walking her, at the dog park and at home.

Crate her when you're not home. U-turn and walk the other way on walks at the 'crouch down' phase. Drop the dog park for now (possibly forever). These are all management techniques so that she doesn't reinforce herself with these behaviors until you can get help from a trainer.

pizzadog posted:

The vacuum was not being used near her, within sight, it was basically completely across the house and barely within my hearing range. I know I have to do desensitization I just can't seem to find a starting point that has produced any progress. I know I shouldn't soothe her a ton right?

Don't worry about over-soothing her, it's not likely to do anything bad. Does she do well with a wrap or thundershirt? Does she have the same reaction to a recording of a vacuum cleaner?

pizzadog
Oct 9, 2009

Engineer Lenk posted:

Crate her when you're not home. U-turn and walk the other way on walks at the 'crouch down' phase. Drop the dog park for now (possibly forever). These are all management techniques so that she doesn't reinforce herself with these behaviors until you can get help from a trainer.


Don't worry about over-soothing her, it's not likely to do anything bad. Does she do well with a wrap or thundershirt? Does she have the same reaction to a recording of a vacuum cleaner?

I'll try the thundershirt next time, i'm playing a really loud dyson versus dirt devil youtube video and she is falling asleep on her rug near me haha... It's so irritating and loud and she gives zero fucks. Oh she is giving my computer the 'baroo' face when the dirt devil started up. But no shaking or hiding, it's definitely the real life ones.

Engineer Lenk
Aug 28, 2003

Mnogo losho e!

pizzadog posted:

I'll try the thundershirt next time, i'm playing a really loud dyson versus dirt devil youtube video and she is falling asleep on her rug near me haha... It's so irritating and loud and she gives zero fucks. Oh she is giving my computer the 'baroo' face when the dirt devil started up. But no shaking or hiding, it's definitely the real life ones.

If a recording isn't getting any reaction, try other stuff that has a motor, rattles and moves air (like a hair dryer or box fan). If she doesn't react to either of those, just start counter-conditioning with an unplugged vacuum. If she's completely nonplussed by you 'vacuuming' the room around her with it unplugged, then go back to working very short sessions with someone plugging it in two rooms over.

Psychobabble!
Jun 22, 2010

Observing this filth unsettles me

Cuniculous posted:

How much and how often should an 11 week old puppy be fed? He's about 4 pounds. The bag said 1 3/4 cups a day, but that seems like an awful lot

What kind of dog? I'm assuming intact? The bag will more often than not tell you to overfeed; it covers their rear end if your dog gets fat on their recommendation, vs malnourished. That sounds like a lot though. My 17~ lb dog gets 1/2 a cup a meal. Still though, it depends on the dog, and how active it is and about a million other factors. You're probably best off experimenting and just paying attention to its body

The MUMPSorceress
Jan 6, 2012


^SHTPSTS

Gary’s Answer

Psychobabble! posted:

What kind of dog? I'm assuming intact? The bag will more often than not tell you to overfeed; it covers their rear end if your dog gets fat on their recommendation, vs malnourished. That sounds like a lot though. My 17~ lb dog gets 1/2 a cup a meal. Still though, it depends on the dog, and how active it is and about a million other factors. You're probably best off experimenting and just paying attention to its body

But don't you need to feed puppies (which he said this is) a hell of a lot more while they grow?

Problem!
Jan 1, 2007

I am the queen of France.
Figuring out how much to feed is really a guessing game. Start with a bit less than the recommendation on the bag then either reduce the amount if they start getting chunky or add more if they start getting thin.

No two dogs are the same, finding out how much a dog of a similar size and breed eats is a good start but it all comes down to the individual dog. I have two cattledogs; one is 38 lbs and one is 43 lbs. Theoretically they should eat the same amount of food, but the smaller one gets two heaping cups of food a day and is still a beanpole and the bigger one gets barely 2/3rds of a cup a day and is still pretty solid.

Engineer Lenk
Aug 28, 2003

Mnogo losho e!
Puppy feeding has some different concerns than feeding adults, so I'd be hesitant to jump on the same strict body condition feedback. 4 lbs at 11 weeks is small breed, so you can free-feed up to the amount on the bag for the first 6 months or so. Don't worry if the dog doesn't finish their food, but don't limit their intake below the recommendation unless they're ridiculously chunky.

Blistering Sunburn
Aug 2, 2005
Yesterday we adopted a ~2 year old lab/pit/bulldog mix from our local shelter. He's a super sweet and gentle dog when he's home with us, but very nervous in any kind of unfamiliar situation. He came from one of those "bring rural dogs to the city to be adopted" programs and is therefore pretty freaked out by walking around outside here with idling trucks, riding the elevator in our building, train cars rattling by, people on bicycles, etc etc. It's possible he had some more sinister fear-inducing upbringing but we don't know any history.

We live in a condo, so our only real option right now for toilet time is going outside on the leash, which inevitably makes our guy tuck his tail and sometimes tremble, depending on the scariness of the stimulus in question. Normally I would try to very gradually ease him into the city world, but so far he won't pee or poop without walking for at least 20 min or so, so we inevitably have to be outside and endure some amount of scariness in order to just take care of business.

I've tried treating heavily when he gets scared, but he loses interest in food when he's freaked out, so instead I've been giving a lot of head rubs and back scratches and praise and trying to comfort/reassure.

Any additional ideas? We are working on clicker training but he's not super food-, praise-, or toy-motivated at this point so it's been slow going even getting the clicker charged.

I guess the answer may just be "give him time to adjust and try not to scar him too badly until he does"

Cuniculous
Apr 23, 2007

kill people burn shit fuck school
He's a french bulldog, still intact. He's pretty active, but he's still so young he sleeps most of the day. I've been offering him half a cup of food three times a day. He doesn't always eat it all. I'm just worried about making him too fat. I haven't had a puppy in so long, I don't really know what's puppy fat and what's obesity.

pizzadog
Oct 9, 2009

Another question! How normal is it for a 2 month old male puppy to be humping the other dogs mostly my female pit (spayed), anything I should do to discourage it other than removing him/pushing him off, saying NO!. How much does it matter?

a life less
Jul 12, 2009

We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.

pizzadog posted:

Another question! How normal is it for a 2 month old male puppy to be humping the other dogs mostly my female pit (spayed), anything I should do to discourage it other than removing him/pushing him off, saying NO!. How much does it matter?

It's not terribly unusual. I'd redirect/remove/reprimand, depending on the situation. It's no big deal, but not exactly socially acceptable so I'd recommend teaching some manners now.

Jewce
Mar 11, 2008

Engineer Lenk posted:

Have you gone the medication route yet?

I have not gone the medication route yet. I am definitely open to it, but I would rather spend my money on some professional help than start to medicate at this point in time.


Psychobabble! posted:



Don't beat yourself up. Full blown SA is hard to counteract even for veteran dog owners. Talk to your vet about medication, and maybe talk to a vet behaviorist in your area. Thunder shirts are controversial as far as people debating their usefulness but you could look into one of those, too. At my work(doggy daycare/boarding place) a lot of the epileptic and/or anxious dogs wear them and it seems to help.

Thanks and yeah, SA is really tough. He has a thundershirt and it doesn't really work. I've come home after going out to dinner and he's up and barking two hours later.

I'm glad that at least he just barks, scratches and paces as opposed to making GBS threads and pissing himself or chewing himself or something. Still, hate that he's anxious so often so hopefully I can find some reasonable training and if not, I'll look into medication.

inklesspen
Oct 17, 2007

Here I am coming, with the good news of me, and you hate it. You can think only of the bell and how much I have it, and you are never the goose. I will run around with my bell as much as I want and you will make despair.
Buglord
Lucy has mostly stopped eating. She's always been a fairly sedentary dog (20 lb, 5 years old Shiba) and my mom would feed her 1/3 cup of kibble in the morning and then another 1/3 in the evening. Yesterday she only ate about 1/5 of a cup in the morning and the same in the evening, and this morning she ate less than 1/8 of a cup.

My sister said that when Lucy was one, she dogsat her for about a month while my parents were away and Lucy had similar behavior (due to depression from missing them, she thinks).

How long should I give her to start eating again before I take her to the vet?

Problem!
Jan 1, 2007

I am the queen of France.
Has she had any other behavioral changes? If she's otherwise ok I'd give her another day or two. My usual rule of thumb is to take them to the vet if they're not eating and something else is wrong, like not pooping (or pooping too much), lethargy, etc.

inklesspen
Oct 17, 2007

Here I am coming, with the good news of me, and you hate it. You can think only of the bell and how much I have it, and you are never the goose. I will run around with my bell as much as I want and you will make despair.
Buglord
She's been a little less eager to play (which would also be explained by missing her people). Her pooping has changed a bit but it seems consistent with reduced intake.

Boris Galerkin
Dec 17, 2011

I don't understand why I can't harass people online. Seriously, somebody please explain why I shouldn't be allowed to stalk others on social media!
One of my neighbors lets her dog piss and poo poo in our cobblestone alley for walking. She picks up the poo poo but I just want to know if this is normal or not. I think it's super gross but then again I also get grossed the hell out when a dog licks me.

Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 13:19 on Sep 14, 2014

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a life less
Jul 12, 2009

We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.

Boris Galerkin posted:

One of my neighbors lets her dog piss and poo poo in our cobblestone alley for walking. She picks up the poo poo but I just want to know if this is normal or not. I think it's super gross but then again I also get grossed the hell out when a dog licks me.

It's pretty normal, but that isn't to say it's also not a little gross. I don't really like it when dogs pee places other than grass, but logically there's not much difference between grass and stone.

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