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Instant Jellyfish
Jul 3, 2007

Actually not a fish.



The people who originally created nature's miracle separated a number of years ago and one company got the name and the other got the formula. The formula has moved to the Ecos brand name. I think it works a lot better but it's harder to find. I think costco might have it in some places?

A real deal carpet cleaner is a good idea though.

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Away all Goats
Jul 5, 2005

Goose's rebellion

Judge Schnoopy posted:

We're looking to adopt a puppy, but I'm not sure how to deal with the weather. My wife stays home, we have three pet-loving kids, so the puppy will get plenty of training and attention. However, I can't imagine the puppy will want to go out in 0 degree weather for potty training.

Should we try for garage training using a grass pad? Is this just going to confuse the puppy and we should wait for spring?

Anybody else have tips for adopting winter puppies born in November?

Your puppy will be fine to go outside in short bursts. Dogs have a higher body temp than humans do.

Judge Schnoopy
Nov 2, 2005

dont even TRY it, pal
We ended up finding a better breeder with more experience and stronger social media following of happy owners. Our puppy will be ready to go home in March, so I shouldn't have to worry about arctic cold until next year.

Damn Bananas
Jul 1, 2007

You humans bore me
Has anyone gone through the process of having your dog diagnosed with Cushings disease/syndrome (even if it was determined your dog didn't have it)? I would love to hear experiences from others, because it sounds like the way to diagnose it is to run a bunch of expensive tests that progressively say "Well we haven't ruled it out yet" over and over until they say "Yeah, it looks like it is Cushings"

What started as routine bloodwork for a dental cleaning ended up pointing out some crazy liver values.

March 2018:
ALP: 403 (normal: >120)
ALT: 161 (normal: >140)

Feb 2019:
ALP: 1,618
ALT: 226

9.5 yr old neutered beagle

Cushings symptoms: Increased water intake, panting for no reason
Random symptoms: Always licking his front paws/front legs up to the armpit despite switching foods [Taste of the Wild Wetlands (duck, chicken, sweet potato, peas, potato) to Kirklands Mature (chicken, brown rice, egg, oatmeal, barley, white rice)]. Also he has a fatty tumor on his abdomen nestled right below his ribcage center. We call it his boob. Maybe the size of a mandarin orange? They already took a sample of it a couple years ago to determine it's nothing to worry about.

So far we ran the bloodwork (above) and did a urine test to try to rule it out:

Urine Creatinine: 208.6
Urine Cortisol: 22.5
UCCRatio: 34 (the exact cutoff value for "hyperadrenocorticism is possible")

It sounds like the next step is one of two options:
1. Two more tests, I forget their names, but they are like $300-400 each and are more of the "We haven't ruled Cushings out yet" variety
2. An ultrasound with a veterinary internist specialist ($600) with possible biopsy ($200) but it's more definitive in getting answers

The prices are kind of spitballing, and maybe I misheard some things, it was a long phonecall. So I think we're going with option 2 but drat these prices are stinging. Honestly, I would jump into a volcano for my dog, so I'll do whatever is medically necessary and recommended to get back to a good quality of life. But it just sucks, because I just spent like $2,000 on my cat 5 months who didn't end up making it. And what if it does get ruled out after $1900 and now we gotta go exploring for other causes of the liver values! :( Just ranting...

**if you are a medical professional and would like to weigh in, this is of course a hypothetical dog who doesn't exist it's just a very, very specific what-if case and anything suggested is just for educational purposes for the owner to feel more educated when speaking with the vet who has actually examined him. Hypothetically.

Damn Bananas fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Feb 13, 2019

Crooked Booty
Apr 2, 2009
arrr

drat Bananas posted:

Has anyone gone through the process of having your dog diagnosed with Cushings disease/syndrome (even if it was determined your dog didn't have it)? I would love to hear experiences from others, because it sounds like the way to diagnose it is to run a bunch of expensive tests that progressively say "Well we haven't ruled it out yet" over and over until they say "Yeah, it looks like it is Cushings"

What started as routine bloodwork for a dental cleaning ended up pointing out some crazy liver values.

March 2018:
ALP: 403 (normal: >120)
ALT: 161 (normal: >140)

Feb 2019:
ALP: 1,618
ALT: 226

9.5 yr old neutered beagle

Cushings symptoms: Increased water intake, panting for no reason
Random symptoms: Always licking his front paws/front legs up to the armpit despite switching foods [Taste of the Wild Wetlands (duck, chicken, sweet potato, peas, potato) to Kirklands Mature (chicken, brown rice, egg, oatmeal, barley, white rice)]. Also he has a fatty tumor on his abdomen nestled right below his ribcage center. We call it his boob. Maybe the size of a mandarin orange? They already took a sample of it a couple years ago to determine it's nothing to worry about.

So far we ran the bloodwork (above) and did a urine test to try to rule it out:

Urine Creatinine: 208.6
Urine Cortisol: 22.5
UCCRatio: 34 (the exact cutoff value for "hyperadrenocorticism is possible")

It sounds like the next step is one of two options:
1. Two more tests, I forget their names, but they are like $300-400 each and are more of the "We haven't ruled Cushings out yet" variety
2. An ultrasound with a veterinary internist specialist ($600) with possible biopsy ($200) but it's more definitive in getting answers

The prices are kind of spitballing, and maybe I misheard some things, it was a long phonecall. So I think we're going with option 2 but drat these prices are stinging. Honestly, I would jump into a volcano for my dog, so I'll do whatever is medically necessary and recommended to get back to a good quality of life. But it just sucks, because I just spent like $2,000 on my cat 5 months who didn't end up making it. And what if it does get ruled out after $1900 and now we gotta go exploring for other causes of the liver values! :( Just ranting...

**if you are a medical professional and would like to weigh in, this is of course a hypothetical dog who doesn't exist it's just a very, very specific what-if case and anything suggested is just for educational purposes for the owner to feel more educated when speaking with the vet who has actually examined him. Hypothetically.
There are two decent blood tests that are pretty definitive in testing for Cushing’s - low dose dexamethasone suppression and ACTH stim. The first one is maybe is a little better of a test than the other. I would be surprised if either test costs more than $300-400 even in a very high cost of living area. There is no reason to do both tests as far as I am aware. (Both of these tests involve collecting multiple blood samples over the course of the day, so maybe that’s caused some of the confusion about multiple tests?)

The other thing to know is there are two types of cushing’s and sometimes additional tests are required to differentiate between these kinds. In most cases the root problem is with the pituitary gland. In perhaps 15% of cases the root problem is with the adrenal gland. The only difference between the two is when it’s the adrenal gland, it can be a nasty malignant tumor causing the problem, so if for example you would consider having surgery done on your dog to remove a malignant adrenal tumor, that can be important info to have. Sometimes the blood test results point towards either adrenal or pituitary-dependent cushing’s, but not always. Sometimes you need an ultrasound after the blood test.

With an ultrasound you can look at the adrenal glands. You can see if there’s an adrenal tumor but also sometimes the size of the of the adrenals can make you suspicious of cushing’s if you haven’t done the blood tests yet. Even if there’s an adrenal tumor, not every adrenal tumor causes cushing’s, so I don’t think anyone would treat cushing’s based off an ultrasound alone. If the ultrasound is suspicious, one of the aforementioned blood tests would still be the recommended next step. The biopsy your vet is referring to is probably a liver biopsy which would be a reasonable next step if your dog does NOT test positive for cushing’s.

So either my take on it is pretty different from your vet’s, or you may have misheard some things. I’m a little tired so hopefully that all makes sense.

Damn Bananas
Jul 1, 2007

You humans bore me

Crooked Booty posted:

I’m a little tired so hopefully that all makes sense.

Yes I think it did! I'm using your post/terms to help my googling. My vet's phones seem to be down right now, but I think I will call up later for an official estimate on all the things. Maybe the LDDS test does seem like the best next step. Poor pup though, he puts on a happy face at the vet but I can tell he's nervous as poo poo. 8 hrs is long.


Edit: Vet says he still recommends going to the ultrasound first to get a broad picture of all the organs there, since he's really concerned for the liver. It's what he'd do if it were his dog. Maybe I was under the impression that he was more convinced it was Cushings than he actually was. So the internist will be calling me later to set something up. Fingers crossed it'll be something easy.

Dog tax:

He really wanted to bark at the mailman outside but I wouldn't let him get off the bed. He was unnaturally still while listening carefully to the mailman's evil deeds so I was able to do this.

Damn Bananas fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Feb 13, 2019

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
My bloodhound (well, really my mother's dog, but I live at home) has made a few unprovoked acts of aggression. She bite my mom on the face a couple of weeks ago and has a few times cornered my my mom on the couch because she'd growl and bear her teeth like she was being threatened. The dog's never shown aggression toward me yet, but she does get possessive of her toys and I assumed that she just has anxiety about her toys and food while she was in a foster home with other dogs.

We were told that the dog was beaten by a previous owner and what several of her triggers are. She doesn't like people in hats, doesn't like trucks with loud engines (like a dump truck or a noisy diesel engine), and doesn't seem to like being around a person's feet or sudden movements. She also didn't like her paws being touched at first but I broke that barrier and she doesn't mind it at all anymore. We were told that she would bite at you without provocation sometimes, so we've just been as gentle with the dog as possible. We had some family over during Thanksgiving and I think it was her first time being around several people. She was fine and excited at first, but she bit my cousin's ear and we had to put her away in another room because of it. We figured it was because she didn't like all the stimulus. She has also peed on the floor when a stranger is around or shown aggression, so we just put her in a room with the door shut so she won't do anything crazy.

The dog's being taken to a behaviorist in Cody (150 miles away because nothing in Wyoming can ever be done without a long rear end loving commute between two towns of 10k people). I hope it's something that can be trained out of the dog with time or some kind of medication and not actually rage syndrome. Apparently the only viable solution for rage syndrome is euthenesia in almost all cases. I've just been bawling my eyes out (my face is covered in dried up tears) because it's hosed up to have to kill this dog because she's hurting in a way that can't be controlled. It's not like we're putting her down like out last dog because she was bleeding internally from a ruptured spleen and dying. This just straight up feels like murder.

Just look at this droopy faced idiot.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe
Mental health is health. Your last dog with the ruptured spleen was badly injured and hurting, and there wasn't anything you could realistically do to stop the hurting and give them a happy life. It sounds like this dog is also in a lot of pain, though it's emotional pain this time. By all means, try to help her get better. From what you've said I wouldn't want her to be living the way she does right now. But if she can't heal from her trauma, then she at least deserves to not be suffering any more.

Submarine Sandpaper
May 27, 2007


How long have you had her?

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
We've only had her for five months.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



Hi dog thread, I need some puppy advice. My wife and I have a 10 week old Mini American girl. She's our third dog of the breed, we live and die by positive training, we've read Ian Dunbar pretty much every time we bring a puppy home, etc. etc. We're just having a hard time with this one, mostly because my wife and I aren't in our 20s anymore and can't manage as much cool, zenlike patience when we're tired.

Specifically, we're trying to figure out our nighttime routine. I think we've overcomplicated it, and we kind of need to re-think nighttime from scratch, because Waffles (our pup) is absolutely exhausting us at night.

Right now:
-Wife goes to bed at 9pm, which is a normal bedtime for her.
-I stay up, usually til 12:30am-1am.
-Usually, Waffles has a crazy hyper zoomy fit sometime between 8-10pm. I try to get her to play in little 10-15 minute bits to reduce the length of these crazed zoomy sessions but she's still a little uncertain about me since I'm very tall and have a deep voice.
-After her extreme energy burst, she usually falls asleep pretty quickly, around 9-10:30pm
-I wake her up about every hour and a half to take her out. I'm not sure why we started doing this, but we did it with the previous two dogs, and they caught on to housetraining really quickly. Waffles is also pretty on top of housetraining (she doesn't like to mess inside, and is starting to understand she only gets treats if she goes outside) and when I wake her up, she goes pretty quickly, then tends to go back to sleep. I've been reading a lot, though, and it seems like the conventional wisdom is that you shouldn't wake puppies up frequently like this.
-My wife usually wakes up a couple times a night, around 3am and 5:30am, when Waffles whines because she needs to pee or poop, then gets up in earnest around 6:30-7am.

This was working okay, but the problem now is that she's awake a lot of the night. She tends to sleep a lot during the day, and we do our best not to wake her if she's fast asleep, so I'm not sure how we can help her learn to settle down and sleep in earnest at night. Right now our nighttime setup is an X-pen with a potty spot and her kennel, along with puppy-appropriate toys. She's actually very good about sleeping in her kennel about half the night (when she sleeps, that is), and is very good at keeping herself entertained with Kongs and other chewtoys. My wife sleeps on the couch near this setup, and I sleep down the hall with the door open (I've got a bad back so the couch is no-go for me). Just the last few nights, Waffles has started whining almost constantly. We ignore her when we're pretty sure she doesn't need to eliminate, but it's basically like some switch has flipped and all of a sudden, nighttime isn't bedtime.

I know that's a ton of words for a fairly simple problem, and I know she may just grow out of it, but basically we need a plan of action for nighttime that we can just stick to when we're awake at 4 in the morning and don't have good brain function (or much patience).

MockingQuantum fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Feb 14, 2019

Damn Bananas
Jul 1, 2007

You humans bore me
I love bloodhounds, there's a pair that frequent my local park and they are the doofiest boys. Such a tough situation to be in, shame on the idiots who beat her. I hope the aggression outbursts are just a matter of adjusting to a new family she can learn to trust.

CeramicPig
Oct 9, 2012


I thought we adopted an adorable puppy but we apparently got a baby shark. Puppy teeth are no joke.

Winter Rose
Sep 27, 2007

Understand how unstable the truth can be.

We are making a cross-country move (edit: in the US) in a few weeks and of course are bringing our 30 lbs mutt with us. Driving is not an option for various reasons. Any suggestions for flying a dog cross country?

Specifically, this dog:

Winter Rose fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Feb 15, 2019

Submarine Sandpaper
May 27, 2007


Star Man posted:

We've only had her for five months.

It takes like year for a dog's personality to be true for you. Whether you all are able to give her another 7 months i cannot tell you. I love hounds though.

BAGS FLY AT NOON
Apr 6, 2011

A Soft Nylon Bag

Winter Rose posted:

We are making a cross-country move (edit: in the US) in a few weeks and of course are bringing our 30 lbs mutt with us. Driving is not an option for various reasons. Any suggestions for flying a dog cross country?

Specifically, this dog:



With those ears? She just needs a running start

BAGS FLY AT NOON
Apr 6, 2011

A Soft Nylon Bag

CeramicPig posted:



I thought we adopted an adorable puppy but we apparently got a baby shark. Puppy teeth are no joke.

:swoon:

Boop!

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

Submarine Sandpaper posted:

It takes like year for a dog's personality to be true for you. Whether you all are able to give her another 7 months i cannot tell you. I love hounds though.

I guess I didn't hear things clearly enough on Wednesday night.

The dog is going to Cody and is being taken to a dog behaviorist--eventually. She's also going back to the shelter that had her in Cody as well on Saturday. She's not coming back.

BAGS FLY AT NOON
Apr 6, 2011

A Soft Nylon Bag

Star Man posted:

I guess I didn't hear things clearly enough on Wednesday night.

The dog is going to Cody and is being taken to a dog behaviorist--eventually. She's also going back to the shelter that had her in Cody as well on Saturday. She's not coming back.

I hope she’s able to find peace and eventually a good home. People who abuse dogs should be loving euthanized.

Away all Goats
Jul 5, 2005

Goose's rebellion

Winter Rose posted:

We are making a cross-country move (edit: in the US) in a few weeks and of course are bringing our 30 lbs mutt with us. Driving is not an option for various reasons. Any suggestions for flying a dog cross country?

Specifically, this dog:



Unless you want to buy your dog an actual seat on the airplane I can't imagine how flying is a better option in anyway. There are many horror stories of how dogs are treated/neglected. They are treated as cargo.

Maybe see if you can take a train?

Verman
Jul 4, 2005
Third time is a charm right?
Depends on your route/carrier but we had a good experience with Alaska airlines.

I wasn't keen on putting our dog in cargo but he was too big for bringing onboard and had to come with us.

Alaska has really good customer service and reviews for their pet handling. They drove our dog to the plane in a van and load them on the plane directly from the van. We watched it happen and they were really respectful. Its not like our dog was ever just sitting on the tarmac or in a baggage cart.

They announced on the intercom when Stanley was on board and everybody clapped cheered. The flight attendant came by and gave us a ticket confirming he was onboard.

I was a nervous wreck but our dog seemed okay. It was a 4.5 hour flight. I wouldn't suggest doing it often at all but sometimes it's the only option and its somewhat quick. Some dogs do better than others and most airlines don't take any short nose breeds.

Carefully look into the airlines though because they all differ and their reviews will reflect it. I used to work for a major airline that starts with a U and I would never fly my dog with them from the stories I've heard.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
https://twitter.com/starman_sa/status/1096736664779542528

fart store
Jul 6, 2018

probably nobody knows
im the fattest man
maybe nobody even
people have told me
and its not me saying this
my gut
my ass
its huge
my whole body
and i have been told
did you know this
not many know this
im gonna let you in on this
some say
[inhale loudly]
im the hugest one.
many people dont know that
I adopted a one year old English bulldog from my local humane association. I'm supposed to take her home next week after she gets spayed. I'm not new to dog ownership, but I am new to bulldogs.



The humane assoc people told me she gulps food, and her face is too flat to use a slow feed bowl. They're using a wobble feeder, so I plan to acquire one this week unless anybody here has better ideas.

I also want to know if anybody has any harness recommendations. At least until she's done with obedience school, I plan to use a harness so she can enjoy walks without struggling to breathe. Again, input from goons is welcome!

Look Around You
Jan 19, 2009

So my wife and I got a three month old Goldendoodle about two weeks ago, and we're having some trouble with potty training. The main issue is that she'll signal "outside" by going to the door, and we'll get her leash on and take her out and she'll do everything but go. She'll eat leaves, play chew on tiny twigs, find rocks to eat, anything other than going. After a while of nothing, we'll take her back inside and wait a minute or two before taking her back out, or if she asks to go back out, we'll go out a little sooner so she doesn't mess in the house. But it seems that usually she'll wait until we get her back in and off the leash before walking down the side hallway in the house and going there. She'll still have some accidents where she won't ask, or where she'll ask too late and we won't be able to get her leash on to get her outside in time, but mostly it's a pattern of asking to go out and then waiting and going inside after doing nothing outside. This is really, really frustrating because we know she'll need to go based on time after eating or playing or whatever, but she just won't.

Today I tried waiting her out, and it seemed to work a couple times, but it took forever and one of those times we had to come in between tries. We're also planning on starting bell training this week.

In any case, we love this dog, we just don't know what to do, and I feel constantly on edge waiting for her to go.

Dog Picture Tax:

bamhand
Apr 15, 2010
Are you giving lots of treats and compliments whenever she goes when she's outside?

Look Around You
Jan 19, 2009

bamhand posted:

Are you giving lots of treats and compliments whenever she goes when she's outside?

Compliments yes for sure, treats we’ve been a bit spotty about if we’re rushing to get her out and then we just forget to grab them sometimes.

Today she went in the house right outside the door (I guess we didn’t get her there in time; she got distracted coming down the steps) and then got riled up and started pooping in the house, and when we stopped her and took her outside in the middle of it she just sat down and looked pretty for a treat or something.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



Look Around You posted:

Compliments yes for sure, treats we’ve been a bit spotty about if we’re rushing to get her out and then we just forget to grab them sometimes.

Today she went in the house right outside the door (I guess we didn’t get her there in time; she got distracted coming down the steps) and then got riled up and started pooping in the house, and when we stopped her and took her outside in the middle of it she just sat down and looked pretty for a treat or something.

Definitely do treats, it's the quickest way to get a dog to want to go outside. We got little bags that we can clip to the leash with a carabiner and fill them with treats, so we never have to think about whether we have treats in our pockets when we're in a rush to get the pup outside. (that said, I swear every coat I own has dog treats in most pockets)

If she goes inside, she may or may not get the idea if you still take her outside after she's done, it helped with one of our dogs, but not with another.

luscious
Mar 8, 2005

Who can find a virtuous woman,
For her price is far above rubies.

I got Sherlock (Boston Terrier) the BOAS surgery to help him breathe better. Life changing for him. You should see if it's appropriate for your lady.

Your username is apt. You are in for all the farts.

fart store
Jul 6, 2018

probably nobody knows
im the fattest man
maybe nobody even
people have told me
and its not me saying this
my gut
my ass
its huge
my whole body
and i have been told
did you know this
not many know this
im gonna let you in on this
some say
[inhale loudly]
im the hugest one.
many people dont know that

luscious posted:

I got Sherlock (Boston Terrier) the BOAS surgery to help him breathe better. Life changing for him. You should see if it's appropriate for your lady.

Your username is apt. You are in for all the farts.

Thanks for the tip. I'd heard of airway surgery for these flat-faced dogs, but I didn't know what it was called. I'll ask my vet about it.

And yeah, looking forward to some beefs. Already got treated to one at the pound during our visit.

luscious
Mar 8, 2005

Who can find a virtuous woman,
For her price is far above rubies.
The only other thing that I can tell from her pic is that she is going to have expressive ears. Same with my dude. You ALWAYS know what is up once you learn the ear signals.

Enjoy her!

Damn Bananas
Jul 1, 2007

You humans bore me
Update on my beagle boy with liver enzymes/Cushing's scare:

Pee test said "maybe Cushing's, maybe not!" so we went to a specialty vet clinic that did an ultrasound on his entire abdomen. Adrenals were fine but they found a big mass on his liver and also some nodules. That's probably the cause of the enzymes so we aren't thinking Cushing's anymore. The mass is on the right side of the liver which is apparently tougher to operate on because it's the side with more blood vessels. They did a fine needle aspiration of the mass and it came back "maybe cancer, maybe not!" so we went to ANOTHER vet (surgeon) where he went in for exploratory surgery and biopsy. She said the mass wasn't as far to the right as they thought, so she was able to go ahead and take the thing out and is pretty confident she got it all. She only got the biopsy on the nodules, though, and the lab should get back to us in "3-5 business days" so I'm going to go ahead and fret about that all weekend. He's staying at the surgery center for observation/recovery the whole weekend because he bled more than she thought he should have.

Good vibes appreciated. Lost my kitty less than 6 months ago, I really need this to end up okay.

HungryMedusa
Apr 28, 2003


Me and my doofus dog are giving your pup all the good vibes. Hoping he heals fast and the test results are good.

Blinkman987
Jul 10, 2008

Gender roles guilt me into being fat.
My 9 year old Boston terrier mix has a luxating patella grade 3 with a possible partial torn cruciate ligament. He’s on day 3 of crate rest and even when doing our potty time, he walks around ok but usually ends up limping a bit on that leg with a few times completely lifting the leg.

He had TPLO surgery on his other leg this past summer. I’m wondering if I should wait until this current injury gets worse or if he needs TPLO surgery on that knee.

Essentially, I don’t want to do two surgeries on this leg. I want to do one. I don’t want him spending two surgeries worth of recovery time, and I’ll be honest— after this surgery I’ll be $10K into this dog (rescue, no insurance, all pre-existing conditions) and I can do this surgery, but two is basically a no-go. On the other hand, I do want to protect that surgically repaired knee and I don’t want months of extra stress going on that leg. Even with PT it was noticeably weaker than the currently injured leg.

Blinkman987 fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Feb 25, 2019

CeramicPig
Oct 9, 2012
My puppy is coming up on 2 months and loves to bite. Not like chew on shoes but bite and chew on fingers, feet, toes, legs, arms, my face, the cats, literally anything living he can fit into his vicious little maw. He bites hard enough to draw blood and no matter how much redirecting to toys or trying to hide our limbs so he can’t bite them, there’s been no improvement. Even when he isn’t all riled up he bites. I could wake him up from a nap to take him out and he’ll start nipping at my legs as we walk. I am desperate for suggestions.

wilderthanmild
Jun 21, 2010

Posting shit




Grimey Drawer
Yeah I could use the same suggestions. At 3 months our puppy is still biting a lot, specifically nipping at calves and knees. It's bad enough that it's resulted in a bunch of ruined clothing. We use the general suggestions I've seen for nipping like ignoring him, walking away, etc but while that seems to have decreased the biting while playing, it doesn't seem to have curbed attention seeking bites at all. He's just escalated them more.

Additionally, how do you stop a puppy from trying to get up to counters/tables? We try gently getting him off but he'll be right back up as second later. Is it just be persistent and hope it clicks and he gives up?


Puppy Tax. He's much bigger than the last time I posted photos.



MF_James
May 8, 2008
I CANNOT HANDLE BEING CALLED OUT ON MY DUMBASS OPINIONS ABOUT ANTI-VIRUS AND SECURITY. I REALLY LIKE TO THINK THAT I KNOW THINGS HERE

INSTEAD I AM GOING TO WHINE ABOUT IT IN OTHER THREADS SO MY OPINION CAN FEEL VALIDATED IN AN ECHO CHAMBER I LIKE

Biting is generally a phase, every pup I've had (and family/friends), has gone through it for anywhere from 1-3ish months. Sounds like you both are doing the right thing, it will just take time to click and instill that it's not ok.

Obviously this anecdotal so maybe someone else will have something else to say.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



I just asked my veterinarian mother-in-law about biting the other day because I couldn't remember how these phases time out. She said most dogs will start seriously teething and getting their adult sets around 14 weeks, which is right around the 3 month mark, so that may be part of it. Make sure your dogs have access to something to chew on that will help with the process and redirect them to it when you're able. Kongs are great (there are some that are labeled as puppy or teething Kongs, might want to stick with those as the Adult kongs can sometimes be painful for puppies) and there are some Nylabone sets specifically directed towards teething puppies that are also very good.

As for behavioral biting, we've had luck doing a couple of things: first, getting hands/feet/arms/whatever out of reach is good, and if the pup doesn't get the idea we just leave. A lot of times puppies bite because they want to play or want your attention so if they start getting the opposite result, it can sometimes dissuade them from biting, though this will take time and stubbornness. Don't allow any kind of mouthing or playing with hands, even if it's gentle.

Another thing that works surprisingly well with our dogs is whimpering. If our pup bites us, even if it doesn't hurt at all, we'll let out a high puppy-like whimper and it will usually get her to stop (and look very confused). It's about as close as you can get to speaking the dog's language and letting them know you don't like their teeth on you. It doesn't work 100% of the time, though, especially if she's in a very amped up mood, in which case leaving her by herself is kind of the only option. We did the whimpering thing with both of our other dogs, though, and they have the gentlest mouths possible as adults.

None of our dogs were really ankle/foot biters though, so I don't have good advice if they like to nip at you while you're walking, though I'd imagine stopping might be the first step. If they bite at your feet and you move as a result, you're sort of giving them what they want (play).

So yes, biting is a phase that most dogs usually grow out of, but it's a really important time to try to redirect them towards chewing on appropriate toys and dissuading them from biting people, since if they get (inadvertently) rewarded for the behavior, it's more likely to stick around after they're done teething.

Flaggy
Jul 6, 2007

Grandpa Cthulu needs his napping chair



Grimey Drawer
Hello. Everyone meet Wilson!





He is a 2 month old Daschund/Lab Mix. Currently enjoys sleeping and chewing on everything.

We have tried re-directing when he starts chewing stuff and that usually works, but alot of the time he just goes right back to chewing everything. I tried the vinegar mix and found out he loves vinegar. Besides re-directing when he starts chewing my desk, is there a spray or something I should be using? I don't know about cayenne pepper thing, unless I need to do it, seems like causing a puppy stress through cayenne would break my heart.

Otherwise this dude is a sweetheart, loves cuddling, playing, and sleeping. He is so goddamn cute its unreal.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
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Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe
Have you tried bitter apple spray? I've had decent luck with this stuff with my dog.

It's not gonna hurt them to taste something unpleasant. Really the biggest issue with this, as you've already discovered, is that not all dogs are averse to the common flavors. IMO that just means it's a matter of finding a flavor your dog doesn't like, and hoping like hell that they aren't just "HOORAY A TASTE" for literally everything.

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Flaggy
Jul 6, 2007

Grandpa Cthulu needs his napping chair



Grimey Drawer

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Have you tried bitter apple spray? I've had decent luck with this stuff with my dog.

It's not gonna hurt them to taste something unpleasant. Really the biggest issue with this, as you've already discovered, is that not all dogs are averse to the common flavors. IMO that just means it's a matter of finding a flavor your dog doesn't like, and hoping like hell that they aren't just "HOORAY A TASTE" for literally everything.

I tried a homemade version of that since the core ingredient of a bitter apple spray is Apple Cider Vinegar. I did 1 cup white vinegar, 2 cups apple cider, he loved it.

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