General dog chat

[BiteyShark]

Anyone fancy a general dog chat thread?

BiteyDog is now almost 15 months old and it's about time we ditched the puppy survival thread for general chit chat but it's still nice to chat about our doggie dilemmas and days so if anyone wants to join me in wittering on saves BiteyDog having the listen to my incessant talking at him then welcome aboard.

How's all the dogs coping with the snow in the northern parts? I am sick of the rain and I guess fortunate enough that BiteyDog doesn't like it much either so apart from a 20 min ball run we are snuggled up in the house today.

Oh yes I am expecting the same trick. Although I thwarted his plans for today by hosing away all the bird poo from the patio that he was eyeing up. I suspect when I pick him up from daycare later in the week he won't smell as nice

Labby is a sock collector, but her current favourite is my DS’s model of a spinosaurus ( despite moving onto Xbox he won’t let me get rid of his dinosaur collection). She hasn’t chewed it yet, perhaps she knows not to.
She is another chewer and spitter so no risk of a dreaded blockage. Her ability to reduce a cardboard box to a neat pile of small pieces is legend. I am thinking of hiring her out as an eco friendly paper shredder. All our labs have been paper shredders, the first one used to carefully tear pieces of paper into neat strips.

Steppemum, so pleased to hear of dog cat breakthrough...my old lab and recently deceased cat were best friends and it was lovely to see. Cocopup probably hastened old cats end but that is another story.
Our groomer recently changed shampoo I think, she comes back smelling of perming solution, don’t blame her for finding some Fox poo or horse shit to roll around in!

I don't get the stare, I get the nudge. He nudges my elbow and sticks his his nose under it, especially when I am typing.
It is incredibly difficult to keep typing when he does it!

I also like to type sat on the sofa and BiteyDog has a habit of suddenly leaning right across my laptop so I can't type at all . The stare though could make it into any horror film as he just sits and stares as wont move until he gets what he wants. It's very disconcerting.

I am jealous of the dogs that chew but won't eat stuff as I am too nervous that BiteyDog would become one of those sock obstruction statistics if left to it.

thegirlsallgrowedupnow hmmm not sure I would like that shampoo smell either .

PestDog did decide to eat DFriend's best suit, when he belonged to DFriend. I don't think this went down too well. His forays into the bins were thwarted by putting a dumbell weight at the bottom so he couldn't tip it out

Apart from those past incidents, he's got a remarkably well developed sense of what is and is not his - and he won't touch anything that isn't his. I can leave laundry, shoes, and so on with him unsupervised and he won't touch it.

What was really weird though was when I ordered him his first ever Kong. He'd never seen one before, but when I opened up the Amazon delivery box, which contained several other items, he shoved his head in, picked out the Kong and walked off with it, packaging and all. Still don't know how he knew it was meant for him.

Cocodog doesn’t touch our stuff either. She sleeps in the kitchen but usually has a cuddle with me in the morning before I get up. A couple of months ago I was involved in a book, realised how late it was getting, jumped out to go to the bathroom. When I came out she was very gently nibbling away the corners of the pages. It was a library book😏 Told her off quite calmly cos to be fair she was hungry but she is a bit sensitive and hid under the bed(too much poodle in her) . DH and I are pretty calm humans to live with, god help her if she had had to live through my daughters teenage strops in the distant past🙄
If coco is bored she will stand with her nose on the recycling box lid hoping that we will give her a box to rip up, she is very good at shredding too. All in all she is easy in the house bit more of a handful outside though😬

BiteyDog won't go looking for things to chew but socks and pants at nose height or on the floor seem fair game to him .

At least it means we keep things tidy

Eric will shred cardboard and paper but only if he's given it so a cardboard box can stay within his reach untouched but if I stick a markie in it and give it to him he will make confetti of it but doesn't swallow any of it. Exh is convinced he would swallow it given the opportunity so funnily enough, if he is here, Eric does elaborate chomping noises so exh will buy the small bit of cardboard from him for a piece of ham He is definitely not daft .
We have bad boy here today as it's dd's birthday and he will have to join in all the celebrations. He gets more excited by the cake than anyone else and "sings" louder than the rest of us purely because he expects a bit afterwards.

What do people do when going to dog friendly cottages that state they should not go on the furniture?.

BiteyDog is allowed on sofas at home so keeping him off those in a cottage is not going to be easy. I am not one for rule breaking but my thoughts were to take sheets and blankets and put them over the sofas and let him on so the furniture stays protected? Is that a bad idea? Would I be committing holiday cottage faux pas?

We take throws because Eric is allowed on the furniture here and I don't fancy spending the whole holiday trying to keep him off or making him get down when he has got up the minute my back is turned.
Never had any complaints so wouldn't imagine that any owner has realised tbh. Eric doesn't shed and the throws ensure he gets no dirt on anything. I suspect a lot of dog owners do the same tbh.

That's what I am thinking but DH wonders if we should mention it to the owners but I am more in the mindset of making sure nothing is dirty or damaged and then everyone is happy.

As you can see Eric doesn't believe in sitting on the floor and claims my footstool as his own. Bit scruffy today as it's the day before he goes to be groomed.

I'm going to have the same joy as you @Bitey in a couple of months. Strange environment, strange people, I'm going to pick my battles.

I'll ensure he's bathed if there's even a speck of mud on him post-walk, cover the sofa with a blanket / have him on my lap and when he sleeps in my bed (no way he'll stay off, he's used to snuggling up to the point of spooning me!) I'll strip the bed prior to leaving as then they'll just shove the sheets straight in the wash without noticing the short black hairs.

I've paid an extra £30 to have him allowed through the doors, so I'm sure they can cope with a bit of fur; with three primary aged children also going I'm sure he will be a relatively tidy guest.

There would be no chance of keeping Bluepuppy off the furniture. As a whippet he’s genetically programmed to seek out comfy spots (especially if a human has just been sitting on it). On the other hand whippets only just count as dogs really so it might be okay

Went to drop him at his home boarding today and he jumped straight from the floor onto her kitchen table I swear he’s part mountain goat.

Does anyone else worry if they are a ‘good enough’ owner for their dog? It doesn’t help that he has some behaviour problems. Then there’s the food issue. I’ve been feeding him super premium food but the expenses are starting to add up with his training, medication, vet bills and day care. I need to save money but want to make sure he’s still well looked after and happy.

blue no ones perfect. I often think 'I hope BiteyDog is happy' but really he has a good life even if he thinks he is hard done by as I don't tickle his belly all day and hand feed him chicken

He should count himself lucky he doesn’t have to go to work like I do. It’s cruelty against humans I tell you

I couldn’t start packing for my trip until he was out of the house. Losing a flip flop or ballet flat to his chewing is one thing but I would not be happy if he damaged my ski boots. They’re by far the most expensive pair of shoes I own!

My dog and cat are playing me

Whenever I'm around, madam will chase Toots. Toots winds her back up by rubbing herself all over madam. She will chase madam and Toots will chase back.

Today...I went out. Came home and looked through the window...to the cat and dog laid next to each other.

Little fuckers. Soon as she saw me, madam chased Toots away and was all "you never saw that"

Oh and we took throws and blankets for our no dogs allowed on furniture cottage.

We did also take a play pen with a water proof mat under neath it for night time though as the dog I had at the time was never fully house trained. He went when he wanted, no matter what

I used throws to cover sofas when we took coco to Cornwall last year, at that point she wasn’t allowed on sofas at home so was a big treat. She doesn’t shed either and I did it because it was open plan and I thought she might hop up there at night. She didn’t , stayed firmly in her basket at nighttime 😁 At home we have a throw which covers one half of one sofa, when it is on she is allowed up and when not she isn’t. She seems completely unfazed by this arrangement so far and doesn’t attempt to jump up even when I am elsewhere in the house and she is in the living room.

Thanks all, so think we will just cover the sofa and make sure we leave it clean etc. Fortunately he is allowed on one bed but not ours and seems to understand he has to stay in his bed in our bedroom so I only have to worry about the sofas.

I also plan to get him groomed just prior so hopefully that will cuts down any hair and mud

For complicated reasons, SquirrelDog and I are going away next weekend, and I am sharing a room with friend's 3 year old. In a top bunk. No dogs allowed. I'm not sure how I'm going to explain this to SquirrelDog, who like PestDog is used to sleeping in my bed (and I do mean IN my bed). I'm planning to take an air bed so I can decamp to the living room (or the hall. Or the car), and deliberately avoiding thinking about it too hard. It's only one night.

(SquirrelDog is currently bouncing between the back door, the front window and the bedroom window upstairs. There's a lot of whining and barking and scrabbling going on. I am choosing to deal with this by repeatedly saying 'calm down, SquirrelDog, come over here', because I am tired and I want to twat about on the internet. Did someone say something about feeling like a bad dog owner?

@Squirrel I'm afraid my childhood bedroom was tiny, so DF invested in one of those 'platform beds' which is basically a bunk bed without the bottom bunk and allowed a desk to be installed underneath it so I could do my homework. Little has changed since I left home my GCSE notes are still there.

When I'm not there and DF dogsits, PestDog will happily sleep in DF's bed. When I am there, this is an option that PestDog tells me I WBVU to consider. I've been sleeping on an airbed on my own bedroom floor every time I have taken PestDog down there, including for >a week at Christmas / NY (for a dog that wasn't mine at that point, he spent a surprising amount of time with me at my DF's / being dogsat by DF!)

Luckily I find airbeds surprisingly comfortable, but they're nowhere near as wide as a proper single mattress and it gets a bit cramped when you're sharing with a terrier. I put up with it for a while, but now I've adopted PestDog and he'll be there whenever I am (and I'm never likely to move home again, moved out aged 19 and haven't been back since except university holidays) I think it might be time to review arrangements and sell the platform bed in favour of something more practical.

They don't tell you about all these hidden expenses of dog keeping!

Also feeling like a bad dog owner! We have our sons engagement party on Friday a few hours drive away. Coco would normally stay with a friend who happens to be a dog home boarder and is happy there. Friend is away and cocodog is going to kennels...I keep telling myself...one night only fgs.