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So my roommate got a husky for our townhouse and it is the first time I have lived with a dog. I am all for living with a dog but the husky is 3 years old and terribly skittish and howls. Although my roommate has a lot of experience with dogs, including a prior husky, I dont and wouldve prefered a lower maintenance dog but oh well. As much as I like dogs, I work midnight shifts which are 12 hours long so I sleep during the day. The dog gets separation anxiety and howls during the day when my roommate leaves for work. Will this eventually stop on it's own or how do I stop it from doing it? I understand the dog's anxiety from the new environment but I work in a job where I need to get good sleep
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Nov 16, 2016 15:15
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Is the dog all alone while you are sleeping or can it come into your room? If it's only upset about being away from your roomie and not about being alone, your roomie has some training to do. Have Roomie practice having the dog Stay in another room for increasing amounts of time and that should help. We also have our dog eat in another room so it's fun for her. Unfortunately it's not a quick fix. I like Patricia McConnell's booklet "I'll Be Home Soon" for Separation Anxiety. Her methods worked well with a previous dog. (My current dog is not making much progress so ymmv.)
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Nov 16, 2016 16:07
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Chopstix posted:So my roommate got a husky for our townhouse and it is the first time I have lived with a dog. I am all for living with a dog but the husky is 3 years old and terribly skittish and howls. Although my roommate has a lot of experience with dogs, including a prior husky, I dont and wouldve prefered a lower maintenance dog but oh well. As much as I like dogs, I work midnight shifts which are 12 hours long so I sleep during the day. The dog gets separation anxiety and howls during the day when my roommate leaves for work. Get ear plugs.
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Nov 16, 2016 21:44
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Chopstix posted:So my roommate got a husky for our townhouse and it is the first time I have lived with a dog. I am all for living with a dog but the husky is 3 years old and terribly skittish and howls. Although my roommate has a lot of experience with dogs, including a prior husky, I dont and wouldve prefered a lower maintenance dog but oh well. As much as I like dogs, I work midnight shifts which are 12 hours long so I sleep during the day. The dog gets separation anxiety and howls during the day when my roommate leaves for work. tell your roomate they're a loving idiot for getting a husky in a townhouse
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Nov 17, 2016 08:19
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Chopstix posted:So my roommate got a husky for our townhouse and it is the first time I have lived with a dog. I am all for living with a dog but the husky is 3 years old and terribly skittish and howls. Although my roommate has a lot of experience with dogs, including a prior husky, I dont and wouldve prefered a lower maintenance dog but oh well. As much as I like dogs, I work midnight shifts which are 12 hours long so I sleep during the day. The dog gets separation anxiety and howls during the day when my roommate leaves for work. Jesus christ your roommate sounds like a loving idiot for getting a husky in a townhouse and you're a saint for not butchering the pair of them to get some sleep.
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Nov 17, 2016 11:20
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I like the borrow the dog and snuggle it idea. Or maybe ear plugs. Would putting on music, a TV or white noise machine help you? Or maybe it would help the dog? I think my dog seems calmer when we're hanging out and watching TV or listening to music than when we're hanging out in a quiet house. It's not exactly the same situation but it's an easy thing to try. My dog likes classic rock and Archer. Sometimes I feel like a monster for getting a dog when I don't have a yard. But then I remember I've got a good number of neighbors with all types and sizes of dogs. And I've decided to be a weirdo who takes my dog everywhere I possibly can.
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Nov 17, 2016 15:16
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Chopstix posted:So my roommate got a husky for our townhouse and it is the first time I have lived with a dog. I am all for living with a dog but the husky is 3 years old and terribly skittish and howls. Although my roommate has a lot of experience with dogs, including a prior husky, I dont and wouldve prefered a lower maintenance dog but oh well. As much as I like dogs, I work midnight shifts which are 12 hours long so I sleep during the day. The dog gets separation anxiety and howls during the day when my roommate leaves for work. Hi, owner of a formerly skittish as heck husky here. How much exercise is it getting? It also may be settling in and tbh if you're cool chilling with it, it might help if it can chill in your room with you when the roommate isn't there. Huskies are bred to be around company because of the nature of their work. If you're down, it's worth a shot. Mine doesn't even need to have direct contact with me and spends a good amount of time either on the floor across the room or on the other side of the bed, but he'd be stressed to gently caress if he was kept in a separate room(I imagine. He's my furry shadow so he never goes far from me these days) When my ex and I got ours we both worked graveyard so I feel your pain, but on the plus side they make great cuddle bros. It may be sep anxiety, it may be high rear end energy dog bored as gently caress. I would talk to your roommate about exercising it more, and getting it more long lasting chew toys. A frozen kong filled with PB would probably work well as a low maintenance/unsupervised toy. It sounds like(based on your brief description) he is hopefully just bored so I would impress chews on your roommate asap before he starts destroying things, which huskies are wont to do. I get meaty bones from the grocery store that are too big to swallow and they keep him amused. (also pics please) also PS, owning a husky in a town home isn't the worst thing as long as they are getting exercise. I've lived with one in a van and he was fine because we took him to the dog park and on long rear end walks every day. Edit: lazerwolf posted:Anyone have any knowledge or experience with partially/torn (ACL) CCL repair? Our 3.5 year old aussie mix has been lame in her back right leg for a little under a month now. Her vet initially thought it might be a meniscal tear after we first discovered her limping but her leg has been getting progressively worse over the last two weeks which prompted us to consult some orthopedic surgeons. We've gotten two consults with two different animal hospitals: one farther away closer to her original vet that recommends doing the TPLO procedure and a closer vet to our new house that has never done a TPLO but routinely does the TTA procedure and recommended that procedure over the 'fishing line' approach. I'm assuming you got this fixed already but just in case you didn't, there was a thread about this and here was the advice someone gave(it was short lived as a thread) pastor of muppets posted:I know this is over a week old now, but just in case you are still looking for advice... Psychobabble! fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Nov 17, 2016 |
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Nov 17, 2016 23:40
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I think i know the answer to this question, but we have this kinda dumb but really friendly half Poodle half Bernese Mountain dog. Like every other idiot poodle mix, he's a bit high strung with greetings. He's the friendliest dog I've ever had, but he's got two faults. He's 19 months now. 1) He likes to jump up on people when he first greets them. I've tried various things like stepping on the leash, doing down commands, etc. He can do Sit, Down, etc, but just doesn't perform when it's needed most. 2) Same poo poo when walking. He's a pretty good, (but not perfect) lose leash walker, but just goes mental when he sees another dog. My wife chose the breed, and while I like the dog (we walk a mile every morning) I don't consider myself to be a dog lover. Any ideas?
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Nov 18, 2016 03:06
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Chopstix posted:So my roommate got a husky for our townhouse Run. There is only ruin ahead.
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Nov 18, 2016 07:19
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Just from personal experience huskies tend to be fairly stubborn dogs to train, get separation anxiety and holy poo poo they can be vocal as all hell. Good luck, hope your roommate thought about the hours of exercise per day that huskies need rather than just being all AWW ER MEH GERD I GOTTA HAVZ WOLF PUPPY and thinking they could just go to work and leave it for 8 hours per day thinking a short 3 block walk after work will suffice. Thats bound to end up in a destroyed apartment, angry neighbors and rocky friendship with said roommate. I really wish people did more research into dogs before bringing them home.
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Nov 18, 2016 08:13
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So, we all know I'm a dipshit dog owner, and I feel I'm learning from my mistakes...but I'm wondering...at what point do you consider actually socialising your idiot dog? She's...pushing 12 and I think she may finally be calming down - we've had her for longer than she was in kennels now, and the open bar method works very well on her 99% of the time to stop her reacting to other dogs (the only reaction now is to ask for the treat...I need to work on cutting that one down/out too). Today was interesting on our walk too, as she actually wanted to go and meet another dog who was going past us - she did the small tentative wag which seems to be a better indicator of her being nice than the all-out butt-wiggling wag she does which is usually followed by yelling/lunging. She also was not remotely phased by a massive, muzzle-wearing dog (this thing was waist height on me...I'm not tall, but Wrags only comes up to my knees) who charged over to us - I got in-between them and shooed him off, but she just stood next to me on a loose lead (it was clicked on its shortest setting, but she didn't pull or anything) and waited for a treat. I feel like I need to follow these positive interactions with more positive interactions, and actually have some...y'know, actual interacting going on rather than just walking past. I have no idea if that's feasible or not, given the 1% of the time when she does react (usually to black labs, though she's been much better with them lately) - I don't want to cause an incident needlessly but my god it'd be less stressful if she could play well with others (and go walking with other dogs...she used to walk with my mother in law's and it was fine as long as they were out of the house). If I'm being unrealistic then...that's ok, we've dealt with her being a shitbag since we got her, a few more years of it is what we expected, even if it'd be nice to have her capable of seeing other dogs and not screaming her head off.
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Nov 18, 2016 17:27
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daslog posted:half Poodle half Bernese Mountain dog My half poodle half Great Dane (Noodle, 3yrs old) does the same things. We have been trying to give her zero attention when she jumps on us and that's seemed to help. When people come over she is made to sit and stay before we open the door but she still gets excited and jumps about half the time. She goes absolutely mental and jumps on her hind legs when she sees a rabbit on our walks but has been getting a little better as she's walked more. For her, just having things happen more often make them less exciting. If we had enough time to put into it we would practice having one of us ring the bell and while the other person had her sit and stay. With Noodle we are still focusing on the separation anxiety issue. Counterconditioning hasn't worked very well so we are trying to make separation repetitious and boring by leaving, driving down the driveway and coming right back again a bunch of times a day. So far there hasn't been much progress but she's a hard case.
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Nov 18, 2016 23:40
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-Inu- posted:I believe that thread is archived now, but I read it wayyyyyy back and used it as advice for cat food. This may be controversial, but I'm planning on keeping her on her Purina Pro diet. Nope, the Pet Nutrition thread is alive and well! I strongly suggest you take a look at it, but I'll put my 2 cents in here now: Firstly, while I am not a vet, I do know a little bit about how vets are trained in nutrition. Unfortunately, they take very few classes regarding it, and those classes are usually sponsored and taught by the company Hill's, which produces prescription foods that are controversial due to the lack of quality in their ingredients. Vets spend very little if any time at all on brand research, so most vets will recommend the only brands they are familiar with: Hill's, Purina, etc. A close friend of mine just recently got her veterinary degree and she still came to me with help as to what to feed her cat, not because she failed a nutrition class but that she actually didn't know what brands were good and which were bad or even dangerous. The nutrition classes covered things like how much to feed an animal, required vitamins and minerals, and so on...but not what's on the market. So while a vet might feed their pet a certain type or brand of food, it doesn't necessarily mean that is a quality choice. Just something to keep in mind. So, I'm not sure which variety of Purina you are feeding, but here's a breakdown of their "Savor" formula: Chicken, Brewer's Rice, Whole Grain Wheat, Poultry By-Product Meal (Natural Source of Glucosamine), Soybean Meal, Corn Gluten Meal, Animal Fat Preserved with Mixed-Tocopherols (Form of Vitamin E), Whole Grain Corn, Fish Meal (Natural Source of Glucosamine), Animal Digest, Glycerin, Dried Egg Product, Wheat Bran, Calcium Carbonate, Salt, Calcium Phosphate, Potassium Chloride, Vitamin E Supplement, Zinc Proteinate, Choline Chloride, Manganese Proteinate, Ferrous Sulfate, L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate (Source of Vitamin C), Sulfur, Niacin, L-Lysine Monohydrochloride, Copper Proteinate, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin Supplement, Vitamin B-12 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Garlic Oil, Folic Acid, Vitamin D-3 Supplement, Calcium Iodate, Biotin, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (Source of Vitamin K Activity), Sodium Selenite. W-4455. Chicken: So, chicken's the first ingredient! Seems good, right? Implies that the majority of the food is chicken? Actually, no. They have weighed the chicken pre-processing, so it is full of water. Once processed it loses the water and drops much farther down the ingredient list. Brewer's Rice: I'm just copy/pasting Wikipedia here: "Brewers' rice is the small milled fragments of rice kernels that have been separated from the larger kernels of milled rice. [1] Brewers' rice is a processed rice product that is missing many of the nutrients contained in whole ground rice and brown rice thus reducing the quality." Whole Grain Wheat: Not a bad ingredient, but as FIVE of their first 10 ingredients are wheat, corn, or rice, this means that the majority of your food is calorie and carb-rich fillers. Poultry By-Product Meal: This one's a twofer. "Poultry" as an ingredient is super sketchy to me because they don't even identify the protein. Not chicken, pheasant, duck, or etc, but non-specific "poultry." It could be anything, but it's most likely the scraps (by-products) left over from human products all ground up together. Some of this stuff can be good (offals, meat, marrow) but a good portion will be feathers, beaks, claws, and who knows what. Another downside is that since it's a non-specific meal, they're probably sourcing from a lot of different places, which ups the possibility of contamination. Just this past March, Purina recalled 5 varieties of their wet food, in 2013 a recall for salmonella, twice again for salmonella in 2011, it goes on and on. Soybean Meal, Corn Gluten Meal: Both used as livestock feeds, and generally considered a low-quality filler. They are pure calories and carbohydrates, really. Animal Fat: Another non-specific ingredient, even more mysterious than "poultry." Whole Grain Corn: Similar to corn gluten meal, generally considered a low-quality filler, but disguised with the prefix "Whole Grain" to make it sound better. Fish Meal, Animal Digest: Non-specific. That's as far as I'll go, but please don't think I'm trying to be a dick! This is a huge part of my job and I think it's important for people to be informed. I wouldn't feed Purina to a pet because I believe the ingredients are shady and low-quality, and the volume of their recalls alarms me. They use "ingredient splitting" to make it look like the food is meat-heavy, when in reality what you're getting is a lot of corn and potentially harmful by-products. I USED to feed Purina One to my cat, years ago, until I got into the pet business and read a whole lot about nutrition. Head over the the nutrition thread if you're curious and I can offer some other options, if you'd like!
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Nov 19, 2016 00:15
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Operation Bring My Dog Everywhere I Go is progressing nicely. We went out to lunch at a restaurant today and she was very well behaved. It wasn't crowded but she was fine with a bunch of strangers walking past and car noises and birds hopping around and seeing a couple of other dogs. There was a tiny Yorkie out on the patio with us and a big Golden service dog who walked past but that one went inside. She was probably a little tired though since we went to the dog park for a long time this morning. We practiced her recall a little and she's really good about coming when I call her. She also went running up to everyone else who called their dog so I don't know what to make of that. She's making a lot of new friends too. I've been bringing her over to meet all my friends and families dogs and she's been doing great. Sometimes I think it would be nice if I had another dog so she could always have a friend around but I couldn't bring two dogs everywhere with me. I was worried that she was bored all day when I'm at work but I think she's probably fine sleeping all day. She was pretty pooped last night after visiting some friends and after lunch today. She's kind of lazy. How can I judge if she should have some extra food for extra activity? And how much extra? She's still a little underweight but my vet said I shouldn't overfeed her, she'll probably gain weight just because she's been fixed and eating regularly. I'm feeding her according to the weight maintenance amount for how much we think she should weigh and we're going to she how she's doing when we go back in March.
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Nov 20, 2016 05:59
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Any food recommendations for a 12-week growing Great Dane male? We've been feeding him Royal Canin large breed puppy food.
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Nov 20, 2016 08:30
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beergod posted:Any food recommendations for a 12-week growing Great Dane male? We've been feeding him Royal Canin large breed puppy food. I don't want to clog up the thread but if you head over to the Nutrition thread I'll give you some options! Just repost this exact question there and I'll get to it when I get home.
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Nov 20, 2016 20:15
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beergod posted:Any food recommendations for a 12-week growing Great Dane male? We've been feeding him Royal Canin large breed puppy food. Royal Canin has a lot of crap fillers, but the calcium and phosphorous levels are about right. Our breeders recommend Natual Balance Large Breed. We used Lamb & Brown rice. https://www.naturalbalanceinc.com/dog-formulas/dry/limited-ingredient-diets/lamb-meal-and-brown-rice-large-breed-bites
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Nov 20, 2016 21:28
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Kluliss posted:So, we all know I'm a dipshit dog owner, and I feel I'm learning from my mistakes...but I'm wondering...at what point do you consider actually socialising your idiot dog? Does she act the same offleash as on leash? Some dogs are just leash reactive. I think the only good next step would be having a sort of dummy dog set up for a playdate, a super bulletproof tolerant dog, to see what they do, in an offleash environment after sort of a 'pack walk' side by side together in neutral territory if that goes well. If it makes you feel better you could always condition her to a muzzle for dog playdates so nothing terrible happens. I don't have any good advice where to find this, aside from training classes, or meeting folks at the dog park, but dog park may be a well over threshold environment for her. Not all dogs need dog friends and not all dogs will be friends with all other dogs and that's okay, it's dependent on their own socialization and genetics and the other dogs'. But it sounds like she'd like one, she's just selective. I think there's hope, but she's not living a poor life without that it sounds like. daslog posted:I think i know the answer to this question, but we have this kinda dumb but really friendly half Poodle half Bernese Mountain dog. Like every other idiot poodle mix, he's a bit high strung with greetings. He's the friendliest dog I've ever had, but he's got two faults. He's 19 months now. Have you tried throwing something really tasty on the ground instead in this case? Stinky little treats, cheese, steak or chicken bits. An incompatible behavior is having his nose on the ground and jumping up. Just keep adding treats if he's popping back up after that, or toss several so he has to spend time getting them, and make sure you're clear the treats are coming from the ground not the person. So instead of correcting for the dog making a mistake, prevent them from making the mistake and make it clear all four feet on the floor = treats! The jumping up and greeting the person is very self rewarding for him, so you have to make not jumping better than that. pizzadog fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Nov 22, 2016 |
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Nov 22, 2016 03:39
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I'll give the treats on the floor a shot
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Nov 22, 2016 04:04
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pizzadog posted:Does she act the same offleash as on leash? Some dogs are just leash reactive. I think the only good next step would be having a sort of dummy dog set up for a playdate, a super bulletproof tolerant dog, to see what they do, in an offleash environment after sort of a 'pack walk' side by side together in neutral territory if that goes well. If it makes you feel better you could always condition her to a muzzle for dog playdates so nothing terrible happens. I don't have any good advice where to find this, aside from training classes, or meeting folks at the dog park, but dog park may be a well over threshold environment for her. Thank you for the response! She's reacted badly off-lead too, but she hasn't really been around other dogs off-lead much in the past...year...we did learn from our mistakes. She may be better now, I guess if I took bacon / cheese as treats she'd be much more likely to look to me than another dog, but I feel like bribery is only going to get me so far. We sadly don't have dog parks here (UK) that I'm aware of, just doggy day care (same thing but much more expensive) which for obvious reasons she hasn't gone to. I did take her past the nearest one ages ago and went into the reception area to talk about any classes they might have (none, because she's reactive - they will not have reactive dogs around in any dog day care place round here) and obv she can't be in the actual day care area either because of that. She also was terrified the whole time we were there - shaking, tail tucked, so I don't know if she was overwhelmed by the noise/smells or what  I don't want to stress her out if it's not her thing, but at the same time it'd be so useful if she could be walked with other dogs (especially since she and my mother in law's dog used to walk well together).I'll see if I can find anyone locally who has a bulletproof dog, but honestly half the dogs in this area are staffies or staffie mixes, so we're all walking around with our reactive dogs I think. I only actually know one person in the area (as a friend) who has a dog, and their dog's much worse than Wrags for being reactive. He may settle down but right now he gets muzzled because he really does try to bite...he's a jack russell/staffie cross, so you can imagine how bloody minded he can be. I don't think she's particularly lacking anything in her life, so I guess my desire for her to be ok with other dogs is mostly selfish Re: jumping up and treats - make the treats extra stinky - ours gets a few bits of smelly stuff thrown across the kitchen when people arrive, she does calm down a little faster but the treats have to be more interesting than the people so ymmv.
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Nov 22, 2016 09:46
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daslog posted:I think i know the answer to this question, but we have this kinda dumb but really friendly half Poodle half Bernese Mountain dog. Like every other idiot poodle mix, he's a bit high strung with greetings. He's the friendliest dog I've ever had, but he's got two faults. He's 19 months now. I have a strong silly desire that after we adopt a dog, to train it to bring guests a stuffed animal from it's toy chest. It would curb potential barking and may help prevent jumping because its mind is focused on doing a different job. Mostly I just want to do it because it would be so stinking cute. Good thing my husband is equally silly because he actually found the original Imgur link and suggested it for us. ...this in no way helps you with your #2. drat. No idea on that one.
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Nov 22, 2016 17:22
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That's loving adorable. I haven't had any unexpected visitors since I've got my dog. If I'm expecting someone, we'll usually go sit out on the porch. Me, the dog and a cat or two. My dog kind of boofs a little when cars drive through the parking lot but she's usually pretty quiet. In other news, my dog now has a bomber jacket because she "looked cold". She was fine but she loves her new jacket. It's like a hug she can wear. Now I'm considering getting her a set of booties or socks or something so my mom will consider letting her come inside and walk on her new wood floor. The only ones they had her size were heavy-duty and expensive and I don't want to spend a bunch of money when she might hate them. I guess most people don't dress their big dogs like idiots.
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Nov 22, 2016 17:42
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That's brilliant. Love it. Now how do I train this behavior? Have someone ring the doorbell, shove a toy in his mouth and give him a treat?
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Nov 22, 2016 19:09
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Just tune into a channel that plays that goddamn swiffer commercial twice a commercial break (HGTV  ) and your dog will be desensitized to doorbells or driven mad in no time.There's a special place in hell for ad firms that put realistic doorbell noises in commercials.
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Nov 22, 2016 21:44
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Kluliss posted:Reactive dog walking. If you want to be able to walk with a specific dog, you can approach it incrementally. If the other dog is bomb proof, start off by following them on a walk at a distance where your dog seems comfortable (starting maybe just in eyeshot, working up to walking about 10 ft behind). If this goes well, next session start parallel walking, leaving plenty of space between (like opposite sides of a two lane road). As you see that both dogs are aware of each other, relaxed in the other's presence, and not pulling towards but still mostly focused on the walk, you can lower the distance.
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Nov 22, 2016 23:01
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Engineer Lenk posted:If you want to be able to walk with a specific dog, you can approach it incrementally. If the other dog is bomb proof, start off by following them on a walk at a distance where your dog seems comfortable (starting maybe just in eyeshot, working up to walking about 10 ft behind). If this goes well, next session start parallel walking, leaving plenty of space between (like opposite sides of a two lane road). As you see that both dogs are aware of each other, relaxed in the other's presence, and not pulling towards but still mostly focused on the walk, you can lower the distance. This is what I'd like to do, but I don't know any bomb-proof dogs (thank you for the response though  advice is appreciated)Guess Wraggles is just going to be a human dog then! (not that she cares, it seems) Kluliss fucked around with this message at 11:38 on Nov 23, 2016 |
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Nov 23, 2016 11:34
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Kluliss posted:This is what I'd like to do, but I don't know any bomb-proof dogs If the other dog is also nervous or reactive, start parallel but ridiculously far apart (like opposite sides of a soccer field). Being the follower is the least social pressure, walking parallel is still fairly low, leading with a stranger gaining on them is mid to high-level social pressure, meeting a stranger head on is highest.
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Nov 24, 2016 07:30
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Kluliss posted:This is what I'd like to do, but I don't know any bomb-proof dogs On top of what Engineer Lenk has said, are there any sort of groups near you for people doing 'pack walks'? In my area there's a few on meetup.com, one especially for pitbulls but all dogs are welcome, some are for people who like to hike and exercise with their dogs but they are welcoming -- mostly they are owners with dogs on the whole range of reactive to selective to social or selective, and they're hour or so hikes where all the dogs have to be on <6 foot leashes, no face to face contact allowed, just a nice space to socialize and get exercise - and often once while the pack is moving most of the dogs really relax. Often in the parking lot before we start moving my dog will be whining and crying lunging and bowing, but after we start walking she's trotting side by side with another reactive dog even occasional butt sniffing and they're enjoying time together. If there's nothing like it near you, maybe you can even start one?
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Nov 24, 2016 08:21
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Engineer Lenk posted:If the other dog is also nervous or reactive, start parallel but ridiculously far apart (like opposite sides of a soccer field). Being the follower is the least social pressure, walking parallel is still fairly low, leading with a stranger gaining on them is mid to high-level social pressure, meeting a stranger head on is highest. Yeah that's the plan - I have a friend who wants to get her dog more used to other dogs too, Wrags is (amazingly) much less reactive than Ollie (I wish they were likely to be friends, Ollie is adorable and tiny (compared to Wraggler) so we're going to do the across the field thing and gradually get them used to each other. pizzadog posted:On top of what Engineer Lenk has said, are there any sort of groups near you for people doing 'pack walks'? In my area there's a few on meetup.com, one especially for pitbulls but all dogs are welcome, some are for people who like to hike and exercise with their dogs but they are welcoming -- mostly they are owners with dogs on the whole range of reactive to selective to social or selective, and they're hour or so hikes where all the dogs have to be on <6 foot leashes, no face to face contact allowed, just a nice space to socialize and get exercise - and often once while the pack is moving most of the dogs really relax. Often in the parking lot before we start moving my dog will be whining and crying lunging and bowing, but after we start walking she's trotting side by side with another reactive dog even occasional butt sniffing and they're enjoying time together. If there's nothing like it near you, maybe you can even start one? Thank you for this resource, I didn't know about it! Signing up and seeing what's there. As for starting one, I have been so tempted as there's just *nothing* useful that's actually close by. Would just be a case of fitting it around everything else I guess (and once enough people are doing it, it doesn't matter so much if I'm not there, stupid social anxiety.) Wraggler's ok *walking* with other dogs, it's just meeting them that's tense. She's better at the end of a walk when she's more relaxed from having done a 5k already  I wasn't expecting her to like the long walks all that much since she's almost 12, but she's a little (whinging) machine :3
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Nov 24, 2016 08:54
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Is there an age when leash training and walks become appropriate? Our Akita pupper is ten weeks old, and spent the first eight on a farm running around with no supervision before we got him. He's loved running around in the backyard, but I started taking him out for walks around the block a few days ago and while it's okay, at some point he becomes terrified and either sits down or bolts back home at full speed. It's not necessarily because of cars (which he stares down), or other dogs (which he stares down), but seems to be a function of distance. I just want him to get socialized while the window is open in places that aren't dog parks.
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Nov 24, 2016 13:29
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CmdrSmirnoff posted:Is there an age when leash training and walks become appropriate? Our Akita pupper is ten weeks old, and spent the first eight on a farm running around with no supervision before we got him. He's loved running around in the backyard, but I started taking him out for walks around the block a few days ago and while it's okay, at some point he becomes terrified and either sits down or bolts back home at full speed. It's not necessarily because of cars (which he stares down), or other dogs (which he stares down), but seems to be a function of distance. I would talk to your vet and ask about the parvo risk in the area; if its basically nonexistent, I would start asap. You're in key socialization stages and unless you're in a heavy parvo area, it's worth the minor risk vs growing up an unsocialized akita. Just dont take them through heavy dog trafficked areas(no dog parks), dont let them sniff piles of poo poo, etc. It's worth it. Also when you say he bolts home... You do have him on a leash right? Also that's pretty common of puppies when they're getting used to the outside world. Bring some super smelly treats with you and coax them into continuing to walk, or use anything else enticing, like a toy(I used to carry the sqeaky inside part of a toy with me and would use that with my shiba puppy to get her going again). Lots of encouragement, especially for staying next to you/not pulling. Have you gotten them into a puppy socialization class? If not do so ASAP. "Staring down" dogs isn't good, especially since Akita's can be prone to dog aggression if poorly socialized. A good class will balance some training with supervised play time/socialization, and also training you as the owner. I really liked the one I took my puppy to, which did all that, and also did things like had people put on weird hats for a quick portion of a lesson while greeting puppies so they learned that it was Not A Scary Thing(you'd be surprised how many dogs get freaked out by weird poo poo like that) Edit: 10 week old 'kita? Get yourself over to the prim breeds thread with some pics! http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3344325 Psychobabble! fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Nov 24, 2016 |
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Nov 24, 2016 19:06
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CmdrSmirnoff posted:Is there an age when leash training and walks become appropriate? Our Akita pupper is ten weeks old, and spent the first eight on a farm running around with no supervision before we got him. He's loved running around in the backyard, but I started taking him out for walks around the block a few days ago and while it's okay, at some point he becomes terrified and either sits down or bolts back home at full speed. It's not necessarily because of cars (which he stares down), or other dogs (which he stares down), but seems to be a function of distance. Yeah at this point i'd be more concerned about getting them into a puppy play group/light obedience course where they can play with other pups before and after classes and still get some on leash obedience/learning done. With time walks will probably become easier. They don't need to go for long walks at 10 weeks old, but learning to tolerate the leash is a good thing to do now.
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Nov 25, 2016 22:34
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Whereabouts in the UK are you Kluliss if you don't mind saying?
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Nov 25, 2016 23:47
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We'll be getting him into puppy school ASAP, he's just finishing his second week at home and is finally settled in and puppy-like after some adjustment. Pics will come!
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Nov 26, 2016 01:34
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Hound dog in a sunbeam, being majestic.  She's been guard dogging more lately. I like that she alerts me to people moving around but sometimes she'll bark a whole bunch and her big girl bark is a little intimidating. I don't want my neighbors to think I have a dangerous dog. And apparently she hates kids. There's a playground by the dog park and she's usually not bothered by it. But today there were a bunch of kids standing by the fence and watching the dogs. And there was another dog that also hated them so they both barked a bunch. I'm not particularly bothered by this.
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Nov 26, 2016 05:50
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minema posted:Whereabouts in the UK are you Kluliss if you don't mind saying? Sorry only just saw this - I'm in Newcastle Upon Tyne. I've used that meetup site and found a friendly small/medium dog walking bunch, emailed explaining Wraggler, and they were fine with that on the premise that I walk her on the lead until she's happy about all the other dogs. Just waiting for them to organise a walk where/when I can get to it so I can see if she'll behave well enough Tempted to create a meetup for dogs like her and just have it in the Rising Sun (sort of nature reserve, all dogs have to be on leads), it's a good dog-walking spot and has lots of sniffs for even the most discerning dog. It also has horse poop which Wrags loves to see if she can eat though so
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Nov 26, 2016 12:00
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Well good news is Jessie fully recovered. Turns out she'd given herself internal damage and passed a fair amount of blood for a week. I'm going to have to keep a closer eye on her and the cats to try and avoid a repeat of this.
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Nov 28, 2016 03:53
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My little idiot terrier got in a fight with a snake today!! It didn't bite her at all, but drat did it terrify me. She full on picked it up and shook it around, and only came back to me after another dog spooked her away from it. I dunno what kind it was, but being Australia it was probably poisonous. Anyway, that teaches me two things: - her recall is not as good as I thought it was - even well-trodden paths you walk every day can turn out to have snakes! So I will definitely not be letting her off-lead again until snake season is over. Terrier prey drive!! Not to be underestimated!! Dunno what I'm looking for posting here really, just real freaked out!
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Dec 2, 2016 07:40
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Meet Fancy, destroyer of worlds. She has brought me 3 garden snakes. Luckily, where I live we don't have any poisonous ones (unlike Australia, where all animals are evil), but even with that, I really doubt she cared. The only thing she never showed interest in is the one time a mouse got stuck in my house and I had to remove through tupperware.
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Dec 2, 2016 11:48
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Gluten Freeman posted:My little idiot terrier got in a fight with a snake today!! It didn't bite her at all, but drat did it terrify me. She full on picked it up and shook it around, and only came back to me after another dog spooked her away from it. I dunno what kind it was, but being Australia it was probably poisonous. Besides recall, I would also work heavily on reinforcing drop it and leave it commands. Glad it turned out okay though!
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Dec 2, 2016 14:53
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