Dog Owner Chat v3 ~Open!~

[ferretjuice]

this is my purebred german shepherd, her name is brooklyn! if you want to see more pictures of her, the instagram account for her is, just_a_germanshepherd

[Maisy and me]

Hi dawg owners,
Can someone send me a quick picture/link of decent dog nail clippers? When we got Maisy's Vaccinations the vet nurse mentioned something about the right and wrong clippers but didn't go into full detail, Thank you!

[lesbian]

Do you own a dog?:

I doooo, she's called Meg, and she super cute and playful!
Favorite dog breed?:

Oh goodness, it's difficult to pick a favourite, but it would have to either be an English Bull Terrier, a French Bulldog, Corgi or Shetland Sheepdog. {I am terrible at picking favourites}
Tell us about your dog(s), if you have any!:

I have one, Meg, she's a rescue pup, and she's a brown collie. We're not sure if she's pure but we don't care either way. She's around 10 and so she'd getting old now, but despite her arthiritis and age, she's as playful as a puppy and loves to play with bottles! owo
Pictures of your dog(s):

doot - this was her a couple of years ago, her face is much more grey now lmao.

[Temper]

I didn't think I'd ever have to ask this, but does anyone know how I can get Geyser to stop barking at other dogs when they bark? It's gotten to the point where I hate taking him on walks. As soon as a dog barks, he goes into a frenzy. And he has even started barking at sudden noises; like on our walk this morning he barked at a man getting his garbage cans. I want to try a correction with the clicker because none of my efforts have worked so far.please help

[FlynnEugene]

@Lon'qu Whenever there is a distraction that you see coming, redirect his attention with a treat. Click when he looks away from the noise/ distraction and looks at you, then give him a treat. If he has already started barking before you see the distraction do the same thing, redirect him with a treat, click when he looks at you and treat. Preform that until you guys walk past the distraction. Eventually you can work up to "watch me" whenever there is a distraction and he should ignore whatever he usually bark at.

[Day Of Silence]

I didn't think I'd ever have to ask this, but does anyone know how I can get Geyser to stop barking at other dogs when they bark? It's gotten to the point where I hate taking him on walks. As soon as a dog barks, he goes into a frenzy. And he has even started barking at sudden noises; like on our walk this morning he barked at a man getting his garbage cans. I want to try a correction with the clicker because none of my efforts have worked so far.please help

I had this problem with Epic yesterday, but it was at a stuffed pillowcase on the clothes line, about two dogs (who she knows), a little girl and her doll and something random in the house.
Yesterday was not a good day for us.
For Epic, it seemed to be out of fear, and I'm thinking that might be Geyser as well.
If it turns out to be a regular thing with Epic, we'll be working on counter conditioning and desensitizing. If she notices anything scary/exciting/weird, really anything that would be a trigger, she gets a treat. If she goes over threshold (bark/lunge/growl), we make distance and continue.
Here's a video on it.
Eventually he should see the trigger and look at you.

@fascai
Such a cute face!
Does the knotting in the long lead work?
------------------------------------------------------

Something happened the other day that's really weird and sad.
A lady found a black lab mix who had been hit by a car, it had a collar with a tag holding a couple's name and a phone number in a different country. The dog was taken to the vet where they said they found he had a broken pelvis bone.
They found the lady who's name was on the tag, and she says it was the collar of her old dog, which she had given to her employee for their dog. Their dog was a brown pitbull mix, who had been stolen earlier.
Now they are going to another vet's office to look at a dog matching their description of Tyson (employee's dog), who had been thrown out of a moving car.
I don't know why anyone would steal a dog with a collar. There could easily be ten dogs in one neighbourhood without collars wandering the street.
And why would anyone steal a dog? They're probably going to say 'dog fighting' as he was a pitbull mix.

We're on a schedule now, Epic gets a bit of food in the morning so she doesn't get the hunger pukes, we go out for a little walk to let her do her business, we come back and wait till Honey's out, then we take the two dogs to the field and let them run around.
Epic's catching on really fast. Instead of her usual barking and growls that go to any dog outside our door, she did her high pitched barking whines. She never got to see Honey outside her door, but she knows Honey's handler's voice. Epic was so excited, it took a couple minutes to actually get the leash on as she was going all over the place, but I wasn't going to chase her. She had to come to me and sit.
There was barely any barking on the way to the field, but she was still pulling. And leaving the field, we got a could tense leashes as she wanted to follow them, but then she was fine, no barking, no lunging or anything.

And her heeling is doing really good. I think yesterday was like our fourth or fifth training session, and she's getting it pretty good.
Honey's handler made a comment about 'treating her out', and I took it that he didn't think positive reinforcement was the way. But I want a heel with no tension on the leash and with Epic paying attention to me.
They've been doing a heel with almost constant tension to keep honey at his side, and some jerks to get her attention (which only lasts a couple of seconds.
Everyone has their own way though.

[Fascai]

@fascai
Such a cute face!
Does the knotting in the long lead work?

it works perfectly! I like still being able to have control over how far he can get without having to hold 30+ft of it in my hand. It's much more manageable. I had to get my boyfriend to do it though, haha. I didn't have the patience to knot such a long lead. he was in boy scouts so he got through it with little complaining.

just a quick question, has anyone here done any of the petsmart/petco training sessions? I've considered it with Opie just as some reinforcement. I'm the only one in the house who trains him so I'd like to be able to pick up on some ideas as well. I know the particular location I plan on going to has a friendly, knowledgeable trainer so I'm not concerned about that. I just want to know if you'd consider them worth the time. I don't have many issues with Ope, but we have some small problems with him confusing basic commands. He won't "lay down" on command unless it's on a bed or sofa, and it usually takes a while to get him to sit on command unless he absolutely knows there is a reward in my hand. He'll lay down when I ask him to "sit" sometimes as well. I know it's just small confusions but considering this is something I'm not getting any help with, I don't know how to help him make the connection. We also have issues on pulling on a leash sometimes and when he sees another person or dog it's usually "HEY LET ME MEET THEM NOW THANKS".

I've looked into local trainers first, but most of them are pretty pricey. I was just wondering if the sessions with the chain stores would be considered worth it to anyone who has already went through one/many with their dog.

edit; dog food opinions?
Ope was on Purina I think from the shelter, but I want to switch him to Merrick grain free raw infused. thoughts? I've heard it's some of the best. I don't trust Blue Buffalo so that's not really an option.

[silky.moth.is.gone]

I just recently got my first ever dog! She's a golden Labrador retriever (purebred and pedigree) and is called Biscuit! She's crazy but quite sleepy sometimes, ill post some pictures soon!

[{ℓєσραя∂}]

My dogs are about to drive me up the wall!! We have woods behind our house, and they will often go into them. There's a pond back there somewhere, and they will come back soaking wet. So we got them a kiddie pool to play in so they at least had clean water and didn't smell like pond water, but could still play in the water. They will not go near that pool. We've put them in it. Given them treats in it and everything. They hate it. And don't even get me started on when I try and bathe them. The oldest dog is okay with it. She aint happy about it, but will deal. My dog turns into a huge baby. He'll whine and shake and cling to me. I try and soothe him, but nothing works. Our other dog, she is terrified of baths. She's so scared that I hate to give her one, and try to only give her one when necessary.

If they love going and getting the pond so much, why do they hate all other forms of water? Is there anything I can do to make baths a little better for them?

[Transkitty]

@fascai
Such a cute face!
Does the knotting in the long lead work?

it works perfectly! I like still being able to have control over how far he can get without having to hold 30+ft of it in my hand. It's much more manageable. I had to get my boyfriend to do it though, haha. I didn't have the patience to knot such a long lead. he was in boy scouts so he got through it with little complaining.

just a quick question, has anyone here done any of the petsmart/petco training sessions? I've considered it with Opie just as some reinforcement. I'm the only one in the house who trains him so I'd like to be able to pick up on some ideas as well. I know the particular location I plan on going to has a friendly, knowledgeable trainer so I'm not concerned about that. I just want to know if you'd consider them worth the time. I don't have many issues with Ope, but we have some small problems with him confusing basic commands. He won't "lay down" on command unless it's on a bed or sofa, and it usually takes a while to get him to sit on command unless he absolutely knows there is a reward in my hand. He'll lay down when I ask him to "sit" sometimes as well. I know it's just small confusions but considering this is something I'm not getting any help with, I don't know how to help him make the connection. We also have issues on pulling on a leash sometimes and when he sees another person or dog it's usually "HEY LET ME MEET THEM NOW THANKS".

I've looked into local trainers first, but most of them are pretty pricey. I was just wondering if the sessions with the chain stores would be considered worth it to anyone who has already went through one/many with their dog.

edit; dog food opinions?
Ope was on Purina I think from the shelter, but I want to switch him to Merrick grain free raw infused. thoughts? I've heard it's some of the best. I don't trust Blue Buffalo so that's not really an option.

Merrick is a pretty good quality good, definitely better than Purina! There's actually a nutrition thread here that goes into a bit more detail about what's in dog food and what to look for when you're getting it!