Show off your pets thread

[spike021]

Originally Posted by Atmo

Hey, when you need a nap...

When my current dog was a puppy he used to fall asleep while walking and hit the deck asleep. I though he had narcolepsy or something but it was just one of his quirks that he outgrew after a few months.

Haru will play hard for a while and then once he calms down a bit, he'll just let his legs crumble to the floor from exhaustion and then he pretty much knocks out lol.

[wbradley]

So many cuties, including the lizard. Can't tell, but the tail resembles a Chamelion.

Oreo turned 1 year last month and has been living here since April. He is a spoiled and happy boy.

[dpfarr]

Haha chameleon jokes, his face is there it just blended in.

Here’s the other half of him. One of my coworkers left but made me a parting face mask gift.

[spike021]

Still having issues getting Haru used to riding in the BRZ. I've tried basically everything. The box booster thing in the passenger seat and having its tether clipped to Haru's collar or harness. He's able to halfway or completely climb out and onto the center console and then tries to get into my lap or the back. I've tried just a seatbelt tether thing buckled into a backseat and clipped to him but then he can get into the center console area and tries to climb into the box.

He shakes a lot, won't stay in one spot. I've tried to treat him when we're just sitting parked but he's too scared to accept a treat. Pats don't work either.

Anyone have any tips? I want to make drives a positive experience :/

[MuseChaser]

Originally Posted by spike021

Still having issues getting Haru used to riding in the BRZ. I've tried basically everything. The box booster thing in the passenger seat and having its tether clipped to Haru's collar or harness. He's able to halfway or completely climb out and onto the center console and then tries to get into my lap or the back. I've tried just a seatbelt tether thing buckled into a backseat and clipped to him but then he can get into the center console area and tries to climb into the box.

He shakes a lot, won't stay in one spot. I've tried to treat him when we're just sitting parked but he's too scared to accept a treat. Pats don't work either.

Anyone have any tips? I want to make drives a positive experience :/

I don't have much to offer; we've been lucky in that five of our seven dogs (over our married life... not simultaneousy) have really enjoyed riding in the car. The only one that didn't like it at first, acting kind of like your Haru, was our chihuahua, but he grew to love it and look forward to road trips. .. he'd get incredibly excited whenever he saw us packing anything.

Some guesses/hints as to what might work...

1. Frequent short trips. Like, at least every day, even if it's only around the block.
2. Favorite treat/activity immediately after the drive is over, but prior to shutting off or exiting the car, so Haru doesn't associate the treat with getting OUT of the car.
3. Be excited at stuff out the window, especially the front window, and keep a window slightly cracked so Haru can sniff all the cool smells. Two of our dogs used to get carsick because they'd look out the side or back window. Keeping their attention forward really helped.
4. Take Haru places by car that Haru loves, not just the vet. We take our dogs everywhere we possibly can; they love CountryMax (they have a lot of DOG TOY aisles, and DOG FOOD aisles. Dogs think in capital letters), hiking trails, swimming holes, several of our favorite dog-friendly pubs (BEER LICKS FROM DAD'S FINGER! and CUTE WOMEN WHO PET AND LOVE ME UP! and OTHER DOGS WITH GREAT SMELLING BUTTS!).. etc. Make the car the THING THAT TAKES ME TO COOL STUFF!
5. This one's tough to describe. Our natural desire is to want to soothe our dogs when they are worried, but overdoing that by constantly petting, cajoling, and giving them attention can have the opposite effect and actually reinforce their worried behavior; by acting worried and scared, they get the attention they're looking for and crave. You need to act completely confident and unworried; the dog will draw strength from your attitude, and is looking to you for reassurance that all is well. EVERY dog is a little different here... you just sort of have to find the line, and give just enough comfort to let the dog know THIS IS FINE AND NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT, but not so much that THIS IS A PROBLEM; EVEN DAD SEEMS CONCERNED. The more dogs I have, and the more experience I get, the more I tend to do a little less comforting and a lot more simple projecting of a lack of worry... pretty much ignore almost all scared or worried behavior, and just compliment any sign of confidence I can find in a scared dog.

Just some thoughts. Our Kelpie continues to humble me daily, and reminds me I still have no idea what I'm doing.

[soundman98]

watching the brothers dog this weekend.

he took up his standard F.O.B. on the top of the couch, where he could properly assess and react to inbound threats at the front line, err, sidewalk.



he's still tired from going on a 2 mile bike/run yesterday.

[Atmo]

Originally Posted by spike021

Still having issues getting Haru used to riding in the BRZ.

That's a tough one I've been dealing with for the past nine years with mixed results.

MuseChaser's suggestions are spot on. I do all of the same drills except #2, especially the daily immersion part. If I miss one day taking Mika for a spin, it's two steps back.

Before getting in the car he's had his breakfast and walked over two miles. Both help calm him a little.

I drive him to his favorite place, my neighbor's pasture, to stop and look at the horses. On arrival it breaks his focus on whatever is stressing him and calms him for the rest of the nine mile rural loop.

He rides in the passenger seat with the front air vents pointed at his face and the blower on high so he can sometimes stick his nose to the vent to smell all the great things going by, another distraction.

Drive like you're hypermiling a Prius, gentle control inputs in Normal, not Sport, mode. The only time I hit EPA numbers is with Mika in the car.

I keep media off for the training drives. His hearing is so sensitive that certain sounds agitate him.

Only when he's in a calm state and sitting facing out the windshield will I gently stroke his back and say "good boy" for a few seconds. I make him sit almost all the time, it keeps him from standing and fidgeting in his seat.

On longer trips over an hour the vet approved a certain generic Benadryl administered an hour before departure and up to 4X daily. It lasts about four hours in my 40 lb. dog and have only dosed him at the start of the trip. I don't know if it's suitable for a puppy.

I'd take Mika everywhere in the car but sometimes have to leave him home especially if I feel like exercising the car on mountain roads.

[spike021]

Haru received his last puppy shots today. He had an absolutely horrible time at the vet, even with me there and *holding* him. He even bit me harder than he ever has and just went wild. Fortunately no actual injury from it, though. But I think it scared the two cute techs. Ah well.

I'm still planning to find a new vet now that we're done with the pre-paid shots, I don't love how the doctor does things. Even today there was something he insisted on doing to "avoid giving Haru a traumatic experience" and I feel like it was equally as bad, tbh. Not gonna go into detail, just that it was ridiculous and won't help the situation at all.

We had a puppy social scheduled for right after and I almost decided after the vet that we should just skip it since last time the social trainers were being extra careful with Haru since to them he seemed "reactive"; they kept him in a separate fence within the play area for physical separation :eyeroll:.

But I decided, let's just power through it and I will personally convince the trainers to let us try it out with him physically with the group and we can put him inside a fence if he causes problems.

Convinced them to try it after the lead trainer took Haru on his leash and walked him around to all the dogs behind held on leash by their parents without any problems. They then had me and another person hold our puppies for the first couple minutes of play time just to let things calm a bit first. Once they gave me the OK, I released him and he clearly had the time of his life. No issues, played extremely well with almost all the dogs, didn't get reactive/defensive at all.

Only thing to work on is that the trainers will sometimes say to call your dog, collar grab and treat, when there is a potty incident to be cleaned up or w/e. So I would do that and Haru would come over, but he wouldn't let me collar grab him because he thought it was a game lol. So the lead trainer got on me about making sure we practice that, lol.

[Stephen W.]

I haven’t posted anything about our English Cocker Spaniel for some time. I’ve been waiting until we had all the info and plan in place. Our Precious has a heart defect that requires an expensive operation.

Diagnosis:
Pulmonic stenosis – severe, valvular

Comments/Recommendations: The echocardiogram revealed the presence of severe pulmonic stenosis. This is a congenital cardiac malformation. The stenosis is valvular. This creates an obstruction to flow of blood from the right ventricle to the pulmonary artery. Secondary to this, pressure builds up within the right ventricle stimulating it to hypertrophy. The main potential complications of this disease include exercise intolerance, syncope, sudden cardiac death (generally due to a fatal arrhythmia) and right sided congestive heart failure (ascites, pleural effusion).

In Precious’ case, the disease is severe and it is likely that she will develop complications in the future. The treatment option we have chosen is called balloon valvuloplasty. This requires catheterization of the right heart to place a catheter with a balloon across the pulmonic valve. This balloon is rapidly inflated to tear the valve leaflets apart. The goal of this procedure is to decreases the pressure gradient across the valve by at least 50%. If successful this could improve the long term prognosis allowing Precious to have close to a more normal lifespan.

I’m not familiar with gofundme but a page has been set up to help us raise the needed funds to save our Precious. If you are so inclined or know people or animal groups who would like to help the wife and I we would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.
https://www.gofund.me/b7356adf

[spike021]

We're starting to venture into the complex grassy areas now that Haru has all his puppy shots.

So naturally we're meeting neighborhood dogs and Haru is learning to play with them.

Today he met a 1 year old full bred german shepherd and a... I'm guessing malamute?

Neither of them were in the mood to play, lol. Haru kept jumping up to the shepherd and it was literally like the phrase about when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object :






Over the past couple days we've met some other very friendly dogs and Haru loves playing with them.

Unfortunately the puppy social we were supposed to go to tonight was cancelled since last Wednesday someone went and then tested positive for COVID.

[Atmo]

Great progress with Haru! Spitz breeds aren't usually outgoing with other dogs. All of the adult Shiba's I've met are aloof that way but Haru is in his excitable stage for awhile longer.

Those other dogs look well groomed and yes, it's a Mal. I'm glad they're calm, it's sometimes impossible to predict big dog behavior toward a little dog, especially GSD's with their strong prey drive.

Is Haru housebroken already?

[spike021]

Originally Posted by Atmo

Great progress with Haru! Spitz breeds aren't usually outgoing with other dogs. All of the adult Shiba's I've met are aloof that way but Haru is in his excitable stage for awhile longer.

Those other dogs look well groomed and yes, it's a Mal. I'm glad they're calm, it's sometimes impossible to predict big dog behavior toward a little dog, especially GSD's with their strong prey drive.

Is Haru housebroken already?

Last week at the puppy social Haru had a great time with just about all the dogs, and hasn't had a bad experience so far with any we've met at my apartment. Have heard the same things about shibas being fairly anti-social, so I'm trying to see if continued meetings, even random ones outside, will help with that as he gets older.

Yeah the GSD was just like "huh? What are you standing against me and getting in my face for?" And super nonchalant lol.

Still working on house breaking. It was tough because I was being so careful not bringing him outside before he had all his shots. But he's getting much better at it just in the past few days. He's already starting to whine at the door if he needs to go. Early this morning he did that during a meeting for work that I couldn't step away from, so he peed on the carpet instead of waiting for me lol.

A bit more practice and I think he'll be good. He's also gotten much better over the past week with crate training. A huge difference. Partly because I finally moved the divider in the crate to give him more space, so it's also easier to get him to fully go inside for training games and such.

[Atmo]

Originally Posted by spike021

My wife asked if you could please show more photos of Haru's cute face instead of his anus.

[spike021]

Originally Posted by Atmo

My wife asked if you could please show more photos of Haru's cute face instead of his anus.

I can't remember if I've shared these: https://imgur.com/a/E6ZZHT5

Do those work?