General Dog Chat 5

[BiteyShark]

A thread for general chit chat about our wonderful but sometimes pain in the arse dogs.

New or old, feel free to join. Everyone's welcome.

I went to a wedding yesterday, and my friend and her husband came over to look after SquirrelDog. They went for a long walk, then to the pub with some other friends where he apparently helped 2 random children not to be scared of dogs (), then I came home and we all stayed up later chatting and drinking wine. Then he got up and had a bark at something at 5am.

I took him out for a short walk at 9, and he’s been asleep ever since. I’m going to go out and leave him more often.

Then he got up and had a bark at something at 5am.

That made me laugh

no proper sleep due to karaoke... and cotton eyed joe on repeat

I'd have to check, but I'm fairly sure that goes against the European Convention on Human Rights.

Luckily for Squirreldog, waking your owner up for a bark at 5am is not!

Just woken up 😬 ordered pizza as can't be arsed.
Yes human rights act. Article 3 I believe. ( only know this after presentation at uni 👍🏻)

Why do dogs make that whimpering noise when they don't get their own way. Mugdog does it all the time especially around human food time, brew time, bath time (mine) . You would of thought she's abused, starved, denied walks they way she creates! She's now sulking as I told her we will go for our evening run after tea

We don't get the whimpering noise but we do get the sad face and lots of huffing.

I find the huffing quite funny, but I can’t stand the whining he does when he’s got a chew he thinks someone might steal and is looking for somewhere to hide it.

He also does huffing, followed by flouncing off and lying down if we’re training and he doesn’t understand what I’m asking him to do. That’s hilarious.

GrouchyPuppy is still being a fecker every second night. I am so tired. We had just got all the children sleeping through!

When our pup doesn't know what we want from her - or just plain doesn't want to do it - she stands there staring at me, stock still like she's a statue.

She has also taken to whining when DH and/or the children are upstairs (where she cannot be) and not paying attention to her. Does she care when I, her loving owner, am upstairs? Does she fuck.

Hi everyone can I join in? I am having problems with my dog at the moment. She is generally a nice dog with a friendly nature but a few months ago she got into a fight with another dog and since then she has had a few other fights. Most of these fights including the first one she did not start but reacted defensively to the dog being aggressive to her, but now she has become quite quick to react if there is a bit of aggression or even if the dog is annoying her by being too bouncy or something. The problem is she is still very friendly with most dogs and she really loves to play with the friendly dogs we have got to know at the local park. She can also really do with a run and her no 1 thing in the world is playing fetch. So we were worried that keeping her on lead all the time would be a problem and many of my dog walking friends who know her (and some are quite knowledgeable about dogs) said it seems unnecessary. So I consulted a dog behaviourist I happen to know and she said she thinks it will be fine to let ddog off lead as long as we keep an eye on her and introduce her to unknown dogs carefully. Ddog has good recall and tends to stay close so she can play fetch so I can generally get her back and put her on the lead if I see an unknown dog but of course its not 100% guaranteed.

My dh was happy with this advice as it confirmed his feelings on the matter and he is happy to walk her anywhere now just keeping an eye out. He even lets her play with unknown dogs if they approach in a friendly manner and so far this has worked out for him.

But I have become really anxious about this and I have never enjoyed a walk for ages. I am on edge the whole time looking out for unknown or difficult dogs. It does not help that I met the man with the dog who she had the first fight with recently and he was very rude to me. This dog had run up to mine in an aggressive way when she had an injury and she did hurt it so I can understand he was upset. He often walks in the same places as me so now I always have to avoid him too. Other dogs run up to us if ddog is off lead and sometimes even if she is on the lead. If I do put her on lead my dog walking friends clearly think this is being overly careful which is awkward. I try to act confident and not let ddog know I am worried about anything. She has seemed to be enjoying her walks with me so I am not sure if she has noticed anything about me being nervous.

Recently dh changed his hours at work and I have had to do more of the walks also it has just turned very hot. I started walking at slightly different time and missing a few walks when it was very hot. So I would play fetch in the garden. Ddog loves this and now she doesn't seem to want to walk. She just drags me back to the house if I set out walking. The garden is quite small and not ideal for playing fetch for hours plus I am worried about upsetting the neighbours with the noise. But at the same time I do find it a bit of a relief not to go out walking. I am sure dh thinks this is just an excuse and I am being lazy by not exercising her enough and gets a bit annoyed when she appears with a ball wanting to play when he gets home after his long shift. The thing is she will sleep all day, refuse a walk and then want to have a play in the garden in the evening. This happens even on the milder days now.
So that is all my dog worries but she is a very sweet dog really, and is snoozing on the sofa as if she is no trouble at all right now

Welcome teacake. I don't have any experience of reactive dogs I am afraid but I do tend to walk where there are few dogs because he is very timid.

As for not going for a walk I often don't take mine outside as he prefers ball play in the garden (plus he gets several walks at daycare). We are fortunate that we have a large garden but even so I remember my gundog trainers say you can provide exercise by simply throwing a ball about in the garden as you can on a walk. Then you provide mental stimulation through other means such as recall, agility, scent training etc.

Here she is we played for about an hour and I only stopped because she seemed a bit hot. You can see how small the garden is but she seems to enjoy it.

Aww she's very cute teacake

We do a few mins of running about and chasing balls and BiteyDog is shattered. It's HIT for dogs

Evening all . Mugdog has a new toy she runs outside with it an whimpers as she doesn't want to get it wet and when I tell her to take it inside she runs past me back to her bed.
Having some food issues with her due to people feeding her scraps at work. She now won't eat her food only human food so husband banned anyone feeding her. She's lost weight due to this and is refusing all food in her bowl. I have to sit and feed her it by hand! Not impressed. It's wasting her food as I'm having to throw it away. Husband says she will eat when she's hungry but she's getting snappy due to being hungry. Any tips?

Drinks if she is hungry she would probably eat it even if she does prefer human food. Are you sure that is the only problem? Could she be sick or the food has something wrong with it?

BiteyDog is a very fussy eater. We have mostly cracked the not eating but didn't do it intentionally. I had a few weeks where he would only get something special if he attempted to eat a little bit of his food.

Now he looks at me, I look at his bowl to see if he had eaten 'enough' and if I walk away he eats a bit more and we do the same thing until I decide he's made a good enough effort and then he gets a treat which is usually a raw carrot as he bloody loves them.

I didn't actually 'train' this but it kind of happened a few times and he was smart enough to work out how to get the carrot. I guess it's the equivalent of 'eat all your greens and then you can have pudding' for a child

Don't think she's ill. Eating out of a bowl has been a long standing problem with her. It was if she didn't know how! Reports were that she ate off the floor at twat heads house as no bowl. She will go all day without drinking and if she does it's a puddle not clean fresh water. I've tried using a plate , didn't work. Don't want to resort to feeding her off the floor !
The odd occasion she does nibble out of the bowl we have to stand next to her when she starts eating as if we walk away she follows.
That bastard of an old 'owner' ( using the term very loosely ) has a lot to answer for 😡

It's just exhausting. That prick ruined a beautiful dog and I'm trying my best to fix her.
I have no clue about dogs . Never wanted a dog . Got a dog . Love her to bits. We seem to take 2 steps forward , 3 back. If no improvement by end of the week it's a vets trip. She's still running around like a nutter , full of energy. She's just broken.
Don't think it's the actual dog food, yes she is fussy. We are on Caesar atm the food she was on she wouldn't even sniff. So I thought she didn't like it anymore. I've spent a fortune on different brands until I heard she likes sausage rolls and meat pies!

Don't worry Drinks I am sure she will be fine and you are doing great with her even if she has a few quirks! She does look a bit like a bat though, maybe she would like to eat some of that eco dog food made of insects?

I wonder if a tea tray (non ceramic) might be closer to the floor than a plate?

PestDog appears to have decided that recall is for mugs Nothing has changed except the weather. He's 3, and much too old for this nonsense

Just tweeted b&m . Got mugdog some meat filled hooves to munch on. They splintered and stuck in her mouth! Cue me frantically trying to extract them. She's still hacking now but drinking . Taking the bastards things back

.

Hope MugDog is ok. When BiteyDog choked on a dried cows ear it scared the hell out of me. We actually never feed him anything that he could choke on anymore.

Avocados, I don't think they ever really grow up

Just been Park with mugdog. She saw one of her doggy friends and pelted up the pitch to him. Slipped in the wet grass and hit him. Him being a 55kg brick wall of a chocolate lab. She's not even 15kg. She's banged her front leg. Other owner all concerned . Told him it was an accident which do happen. She's walking/running on it. Let me feel it and didn't pull away or whimper. Lucky for her as she has twig legs . Going to see if she will rest it though

Oh no MugDog is having an unlucky time atm. Hopefully no major damage done but so easy to do as they have two speeds, stop and go, with nothing inbetween

They seem to go through spates of being 4 legged disaster zones to a run of a couple of weeks with no injuries or mishaps.

Ddog got attacked by a cat the other day... and I mean viciously attacked! The cats round here are as tough as old boots - you see them out all day hunting in the fields, in all weathers, and they have no fear. Have always admired them. Ddog likes to chase a couple of our neighbour's ones (they live with dogs who also chase them, with no malvolence) but this cat is one that she won't even walk past. I had her on the lead and the owner was outside the house chatting with friends. They saw that Ddog was scared and wouldn't walk past and sat down quietly on the lead, so the owner picked the cat up and put it inside... but didn't shut the front door and the little bugger ran straight back out and straight over to Ddog (we were a few metres away) in full on frenzied claw mode After a few seconds I realised it wouldn't let up - and the owners were trying to shoo the cat off but clearly didn't want to get their hands in amongst the clawing - and let the lead go so Ddog could scarper. The cat chased her for a bit then gave up so I could go and rescue Ddog - whilst having to edge my way past scary cat - who was so distressed she wouldn't even eat the treats I was offering her, and that's when I knew it was bad because nothing can put Ddog off food. I really love cats (we can't have one because DH is really allergic) but, gosh, it took every inch of willpower not to literally kick it off Ddog when it was attacking her Couldn't see any physical effects of the attack (apart from a runny tummy for the rest of the walk... literally shitting herself!) fortunately... and only took half an hour or so for her to get her appetite back