Boxman posted:

This is so lovely, jesus.

I realize this is way too late, and COVID protocols may have fallen apart anyway but - for future reference (and for anyone reading), I highly recommend finding a service who does these things at home. They're more expensive than taking your friend to the vet, obviously, but the cost is pretty reasonable, even without being compared to the amount of money we usually end up spending on these furry idiots near their end of life.

I didn't know these existed until recently, and being able to say goodbye to Bear at home, where he was comfortable and we could spend our last minutes together in his yard, was just tremendous.

Tayter Swift posted:

So... Tater.

Tater’s been an unhealthy dog all his life, with constant hotspots and more recently some very resilient ear infections. I think we’ve finally found something that works for the ears, but the skin problems have morphed into something else entirely.

First are the cysts. Huge, ugly, awful cysts which burst and discharge unspeakable evils. He had a few removed surgically a couple years ago but it was a bad experience and I promised I’d never put him through it again. They’re not cancerous and don’t seem to be painful until they’re just about ready to blow but yeah, they’re a pretty drat scary sight nonetheless. They get bloody often when he scratches them too, to the point where I've had to wash the walls of the blood splatter.

But worse is his rump. He has something that was called ‘sterile nodule panniculitis,’ which for the past 18 months has presented itself as, like, some pocket of blood welled up on his rump. Every few weeks it erupts, covering his backside in blood. I need to put a diaper on him to keep the house in order. At least the black diapers look good on him. After a few days the bleeding stops and his backside starts fills up again.
We'd been seeing a dermatologist since October to try to get to the bottom of this, but treatment has not worked, and in the past couple of months it’s gone from ‘sterile’ to ‘not sterile at all,’ and the staph in there is unfortunately a strain which is incredibly resistant to antibiotics. He’s been on a couple dozen medications and just about every antibiotic out there, and simply put nothing has worked.

In April, after by my count 28 vet/specialist visits and somewhere north of $7k, we decided to stop treatment. His dermatologist is stumped and we’re simply out of reasonable options. Without any effective treatment… let’s say I’m not getting my hopes up long term, and I think even the treatment he’s had has aged him. I don’t know how I made it home from that visit, sobbing while trying to drive in the rain. But we’ve been beat, and it’s time to admit it.

The six weeks or so since then have been relatively stable. He has good days and bad days, some days where he doesn't need his diaper at all and other times where it just gets soaked after a couple hours. I struggle daily with whether I should be putting him down or not, but he still doesn't seem to be in pain -- he tends to den himself when he's feeling that bad, and rarely does so unless he's licked his backside raw.

Anyway, that's where we're at. Sorry about another sad rant but it does feel good to get it off my chest.

Tayter Swift posted:

Instant Jellyfish posted:

You need to be really careful with any sort of aversive training (even if its "just a buzz", you aren't the one who decides what is aversive your dog is) with any sort of anxious or reactive dog. They can start associating whatever they're afraid of with getting corrected which just makes their anxiety worse. It can also mask any of their early warning signs of getting overwhelmed so when they do snap, because you haven't changed how they feel just how they react, it seems like it comes out of nowhere. Personally, I wouldn't trust any sort of chain trainer without outside certification. I want a trainer that's skilled enough to have different tools in their toolbox to adapt to the dog in front of them. A lot of the sit means sit and other trainers who just use e-collars that's their only tool and they just use it on everything and have no idea how to train anything without it.

Here's a page on how to find a good trainer: https://avsab.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/How_to_Choose_a_Trainer_AVSAB.pdf

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Awww

I'm a big fan of giving dogs names that have way more gravitas than most dogs ever even consider having. As a kid, the family dog was named Newton Descartes Rachmaninoff (plus like 20 other names that we kids assigned him, but he only responded to "Newton"). My current dog is named Pavlov. Might I suggest trawling your favorite branch of science for name ideas?

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Awww

I'm a big fan of giving dogs names that have way more gravitas than most dogs ever even consider having. As a kid, the family dog was named Newton Descartes Rachmaninoff (plus like 20 other names that we kids assigned him, but he only responded to "Newton"). My current dog is named Pavlov. Might I suggest trawling your favorite branch of science for name ideas?

Basic Poster posted:

I did consider Pavlov for obvious reasons...but I figured that would be a bit over done

cailleask posted:

I’ve worked with a trainer who does use aversive collars, but combined with heavy heavy positive reinforcement for desired behavior. I find that my dog does need to know her boundary of what I do NOT want, along with what I do want. Every dog is different, though.

Instant Jellyfish posted:

I don’t think there is one currently but feel free to post training stuff here!

Harvey Mantaco posted:

"I know, we'll feed the cat on the table where the puppy can't get"
Dog: *grows, gains incredible leaping power*


Ah, poo poo.

Sab669 posted:

The very first day I brought Bonnie home from the shelter, she saunters into the kitchen and jumps right up onto the kitchen table very "wtf have I done" moment

Basic Poster posted:

I'm an EE so my touchpoints there are like oiler, Nyquist, reimann, Maxwell, faraday, etc.

single-mode fiber posted:

Originally I was going to name my dog based off something to do with his physical appearance, but after bringing him home and seeing how he liked to stick to me like a magnet, I ultimately decided on Max, as in short for Maxwell, for the same reason as above. Of course, most of the time I don't even use his name unless I really want to get his attention or get him interested in something, so I probably ended up spending more time trying to plan his name than really necessary.

HootTheOwl posted:

I can't tell, are you sure it's not a tick? Kinda looks like a tick.