worst pets

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Psychobabble!: Jun 22, 2010; Observing this filth unsettles me

porkswordonboard posted:

I love dogs and work with them, but for me it's pugs, and improperly trained German Shepherds. Pugs are often desperately unhealthy, almost always wildly obese, and they're the toughest nail trims by far. It's like trying to wrestle with an angry squirming potato. Their personalities are ok and many are quite sweet, but they're all dumb as a bag of rocks and their constant struggle for breath unnerves me. No thanks.

GS are lovely dogs when trained but lately there's been a spate of young, first-time dog owners buying a puppy (often with already apparent health issues; ie knock-knees) and then just...not training them. Or they think one puppy class is enough, and never do any reinforcing. I've been working with THREE such couples at my job recently, and one bit the owner, a highschool-aged girl, in the hand so hard she bled. She was just like 'yeah he does that.' I'd say 80% of our highly reactive dogs are GS where I work.

I guess that's really way more about the owners then the dogs, but I decided a long time ago German Shepherds are at the bottom of the list (with pugs) as to dogs I'd ever consider owning. Good for you if you have one and care for it though! They are beautiful even if they're not for me.

I love GSD's a ton and grew up with GSD mixes but yeah they're not right for everyone or even most people unless they have the time and energy to give a poo poo about training and working them. Same with any high energy breed.

Agreed that ferrets are awful but hilarious, except when I owned 3 and my friend and I were irresponsible pet owners so they had the run of the house, and we found out one of them liked to burrow in the couch. I got a text saying "I FOUND A POOP GRAVEYARD. THERE IS POOP EVERYWHERE OH GOD"

# ¿ Oct 28, 2016 04:24

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 21:11

Psychobabble!: Jun 22, 2010; Observing this filth unsettles me

porkswordonboard posted:

^ That bit about the ferrets is HILARIOUS, good god. A Poop Graveyard sounds like a good username.

But yeah, GSDs seem to rarely be owned by someone who knows what they're doing. When they are, they're amazing. When they aren't, they're not only annoying as gently caress but also super dangerous. It just makes me so sad to see a dog that would blossom in another environment being crated 9 hours a day, taken for one 10-minute walk, and grossly overfed/under trained. It's not specific to GSDs (high energy breeds all have this issue to some degree) but where I live they seem to be the poster dog for this sort of behavior between owner and pet, and unfortunately it's colored my entire opinion of the breed. Not proud of that but it's also saved my rear end a couple times when I blatantly disregard the owners (he's fine! He's just *anxious*) to muzzle the dog for a nail trim because gently caress no, being bit in the face once was enough for me.

I just came home and the couch was gone. There was no salvaging it.

The rescue I got my husky from in SF has a TON of huskies and malamutes because SF is a tech company cesspool and people get them because ~it looks like a wolf~ and don't realize that they need a lot of exercise and work, which isn't really compatible when you're a computer nerd who wants to stay inside mostly(not that they're all like that obviously). I lucked out and my pup sleeps approximately all day and is content with a couple trips outside, brief bursts of playing and a bone to nibble on. Otherwise he's out like a light. Laziest dude ever and isn't the typical destructive type, which is nice.

I used to live with a guy who was your stereotypical moderately lovely GSD owner. Wasn't abusive but never did any kind of training with him, and he was an intact male that never, in months of living there, went for a walk(but there was a fenced in concrete industrial yard attached to the property that when the business was closed he was let out in, so that's cool, right?). He would regularly take off for days at a time and leave us with him with no explanation, but we kinda let that slide since our dogs were bros and hey, sometimes they watched our dog when we went out. He was just as neurotic as you'd imagine a pent up intact male to be, and felt the constant need to police everything, from the dogs playing(there were 7 dogs living at the warehouse, but 2 of them were kept separate), to also policing us. Like if I would tell my dog to leave something, he'd fly onto his feet and bark his head off. Or if people stood up too fast. Anything really. It was super obnoxious and basically reinforced my feelings about how most people aren't good for GSDs. Punk warehouse living spaces: not even once.

Anyways, more on topic, birds are great but I don't think I could ever own one. Same roommate that I had the ferrets with I mentioned got a green cheek conure. We worked staggered schedules so I got home earlier than her, and the drat bird demanded attention the second I walked in. It was a constant melody of the bird squaking, the ferrets chewing on the cage, and her fat cat meowing. So I started taking him out just for some drat quiet and hanging out with him, where he would proceed to quietly creep down the couch and pull out the hairs on my neck, then run away tittering. And poop on everything. He would bite my piercings when I wasn't paying attention. Birds are buttholes.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2016 08:30

Psychobabble!: Jun 22, 2010; Observing this filth unsettles me

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

I love my GCC to bits but it is hard for me to imagine a clingier animal.

I love birds but I'll continue loving them from afar. Of course said roommate didn't do any research on them before buying it and eventually gave it away to a friend(who now apparently has another bird friend(cockatoo maybe? Not sure), and run of the entire trailer with branches running the ceiling :3:

. Seems like a much better set up and he's probably a lot happier.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2016 22:12

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