Dog Owner Chat V. 5

[vivvar]

Just coming here to rant. I've got 3 dogs. Well actually the 2 of them (jack russells) live with my mom but I visit them weekly so they're still kind of mine as well lol. And I wanted to get myself my own personal dog as well. So last June I adopted an Aussie. He was 9 months then already and hadn't really been trained or anything like that but I didn't think it'd be an issue as our Russells have turned out absolutely perfect. Boy, was I wrong. His energy levels are absolutely insane and he is also dog reactive, which we've already been working on for a while now, but it's still so difficult. I love him to bits, but sometimes I wonder if getting him was the right decision.

So if anyone has any success stories regarding their reactive or difficult dog, I'd love to hear them

I feel your pain! It's super hard having such a great experience and then your world gets turned upside! All dogs need training, I made that same mistake when I adopted my rescue pup.
My boy became very aggressive and reactive when I was in covid lockdown. I'd say counter conditioning works great for reactivity, start at a distance and slowly work up closer, lots of reward for even simply looking at his triggers. As well as finding what tires him out. I've found lots of dogs need different outlets, could be swimming, decompression walks, something like training that pushes him mentally, maybe it's a flirt pole since he's a herding breed, food puzzles, etc. I totally questioned myself after getting my first dog, you're not alone at all! I just needed to find that putting in the work and finding what worked for the dog you've got pays off big time.

Yeah, we've been doing the counter conditioning for many months now and I do see progress. Of course there are better and worse days, but I just sometimes wish there would be an easy fix Thanks for your answer!!

[Lights.Out]

Just need a little advice on getting my baby to take his meds! Yesterday I rushed him to the vet because he had 2 seizures in under 24 hours, and they prescribed him some medication. The only problem is, I can never get him to take meds. He has to have trazodone before his appointments because he can be pretty mean, and it’s so hard, and it takes us forever to get him to take it. Now that he has permanent meds I need help giving it to him. We’ve tried putting it in cheese, strawberries, and pill pockets and nothing works. At work, whenever a dog doesn’t take its meds we have to pill it, but my little man likes to lock his jaw and we can’t get it open. Are there any others who have the same problem? What do you guys do?

[Angelx3]

Just need a little advice on getting my baby to take his meds! Yesterday I rushed him to the vet because he had 2 seizures in under 24 hours, and they prescribed him some medication. The only problem is, I can never get him to take meds. He has to have trazodone before his appointments because he can be pretty mean, and it’s so hard, and it takes us forever to get him to take it. Now that he has permanent meds I need help giving it to him. We’ve tried putting it in cheese, strawberries, and pill pockets and nothing works. At work, whenever a dog doesn’t take its meds we have to pill it, but my little man likes to lock his jaw and we can’t get it open. Are there any others who have the same problem? What do you guys do?

First of all i would also make Sure that when your Dog does Take a pill, He also swallows It. Our previous one Had The Habit of hiding The pill under His tongue or Back cheek and Then spit It Out where we wouldnt See.

Now for solutions:

1. Get The Same Medication in Powder Form, most medications are actually available as such but might be pricier/ difficult to aquire.
Alternatively doing It yourself.

2. Chicken Hearts, boil Them Then Put The pill in The capillar, works best for oval pills. Ideally your Dog wont chew on Them and as such Not realize a pill is in Them.

3. Learn to give them your Dog directly, by opening The mouth and placing Them at The throat. Works best for middle/large dogs that you dont fear Putting your Hand Into mouth Region.

Hope one of These 3 is viable.

[Lights.Out]

Just need a little advice on getting my baby to take his meds! Yesterday I rushed him to the vet because he had 2 seizures in under 24 hours, and they prescribed him some medication. The only problem is, I can never get him to take meds. He has to have trazodone before his appointments because he can be pretty mean, and it’s so hard, and it takes us forever to get him to take it. Now that he has permanent meds I need help giving it to him. We’ve tried putting it in cheese, strawberries, and pill pockets and nothing works. At work, whenever a dog doesn’t take its meds we have to pill it, but my little man likes to lock his jaw and we can’t get it open. Are there any others who have the same problem? What do you guys do?

First of all i would also make Sure that when your Dog does Take a pill, He also swallows It. Our previous one Had The Habit of hiding The pill under His tongue or Back cheek and Then spit It Out where we wouldnt See.

Now for solutions:

1. Get The Same Medication in Powder Form, most medications are actually available as such but might be pricier/ difficult to aquire.
Alternatively doing It yourself.

2. Chicken Hearts, boil Them Then Put The pill in The capillar, works best for oval pills. Ideally your Dog wont chew on Them and as such Not realize a pill is in Them.

3. Learn to give them your Dog directly, by opening The mouth and placing Them at The throat. Works best for middle/large dogs that you dont fear Putting your Hand Into mouth Region.

Hope one of These 3 is viable.

Thank you for your help, he’s a stubborn little guy lol!

[payno.]

[Fierce Wings]

Most basic training components you can teach yourself pretty easily, ie -sit- lay - down - stay-. Heel is nice, but not totally necessary. A board and train will most likely teach dogs one on one, resulting in the behavior issues with the others not going away. board and trains also can be pretty risky if you don't know what red flags to look for. There's tons of lawsuits on them as well as some dogs coming home pretty traumatized due to the trainers using methods not approved by pet owners.
edit: as in one on one without the other dogs involved. if they used other dogs, it would probably be their own/ calm dogs that would not correct to avoid liability issues

as asalizia wrote- crate training/ crate rotating is a good idea. for food- either feed them in their crates or feed them in separate rooms or one outside and one inside

the dog whimpering is most likely trying to tell the other dog they are in pain- but some dogs will start targeting/attacking the other dog which sounds like what is your case. as for the females ganging up and being the aggressors it is a possibility it is because they aren't spayed. i always suggest spaying or neutering if you cannot train your own animals (ie need to pay for a trainer) as that can make life with them a bit hard since they often act different from fixed/altered animals.

i'm not fully sure what your situation is- ie if the females are older/been together for awhile and the male is the newer one etc.

It would be best to walk the females separately, train them separately and just try to have them not be as attached to each other.
when i worked at a dog daycare we had a few pairs of dogs from the same household that would target dogs together. Best solution was always just to seperate them. Never had incidents from those pairs after.

God this is a super late reply, I'm sorry. ^^;

We do feed the three of them in separate rooms from each other and no issues with feeding have happened since we've started doing that. We are definitely also going to be getting our girls spayed as soon as we possibly can but we just don't have the money at the moment. They're both sisters from the same litter of seven puppies we fostered a few years ago and are extremely close with each other. Whenever they are away from each other for too long, like when one goes to the vet, they get separation anxiety. We really didn't know that was going to be a problem when we adopted them until later on.

Then we rescued our boy about a year or two after the girls and they got along really well when we introduced them. Though the youngest sister did get a smidge jealous of him at first. The three are usually very friendly with each other and they play constantly as well as sleep with each other in the same room every single night. There's just the occasional fight that is triggered by either a scrap of food, a toy, an empty plate or food bowl, or if one of them gets hurt and they yelp.

We're just a bit overwhelmed. Our boy runs out the door every chance he gets and the girls have a bad barking problem. They don't like to listen very much so training almost feels like an impossibility. This is probably not the right place to ask or talk about these kind of problems but I just thought I'd test my luck here for some opinions or recommendations. Sorry for the info dump. ;w;

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Some pics of them as well. The girls are nice and photogenic.
Clementine on the left. June on the right.



Then there's Cash-







(Please ignore the couch. The leather is peeling off)

[payno.]

Dex <3

[aequilibrium]

Hey everyone! I just need to vent a little and I guess some reassuring words from other dog owners would also help if anyone has some ♡

So like in the beginning of the week there were concerts late at night nearby and my dog doesn't like loud noises. My mom went to put him outside to sleep as she usually does but she tends to overthink these situations like "oh, there's noise outside, he's not gonna want to leave" and you know dogs pick up on that stuff real quick and the way you approach things when they react really sets the way things are gonna go from there. I have no idea what my mom did but I'm pretty sure she started stressing out and all and she had to go ask me to put him outside. He went out with no problem with me, but the next day the same thing happened and it was way harder for me to put him outside. So the next day I spent the afternoon asking him to go outside and leaving him for a few minutes and made sure he got a lot of pets and all when he came back and later at night he went outside with no issues again. Today I didn't do any of that because I was busy with other stuff so it was a whole drama again... I'm gonna spend the weekend away and I'm leaving tomorrow and my mom doesnt have time or patience to train him and I'm afraid it's just gonna keep getting worse.

It's just so frustrating how things go back to step one in a heartbeat and like when he misbehaves or doesn't follow commands it makes me feel so bad because I know we're not giving him what he needs and it's like I just wish I could apologise and ask him what he needs to be comfortable but I also know it's hard because he's a rescue and he wasn't properly socialized and he's super anxious and anything outside of the house is way over his threshold...

He's been doing super good, it was just this situation, I think I'm just too emotional and the frustration is getting to me...

[bnom]

We're just a bit overwhelmed. Our boy runs out the door every chance he gets and the girls have a bad barking problem. They don't like to listen very much so training almost feels like an impossibility. This is probably not the right place to ask or talk about these kind of problems but I just thought I'd test my luck here for some opinions or recommendations. Sorry for the info dump. ;w;

you were right about the girls being photogenic!! beautiful pups!
Sounds like a bit of littermate syndrome perhaps with the sisters? For my boy also running out the door, I had the same problem for a long while. I found the best solution was giving him more freedom, although it sounds counterproductive. Once his recall was good enough, I let him walk out the front door on a longline, therefore he knows what's outside and doesn't feel the need to rush out incase there's something incredible out there for him. You could always practise your recall while outside your door too. This combined with stimulating him (excercise or training or mental games) made him tired enough that he was content in staying inside and didn't feel the need to find his own way to stimulate himself.

[EzraSol]

I don't have much to say, just wanted to share my guy who just turned 9 years old back towards the end of March! I made him a peanut butter doggy birthday cake with shredded carrot and blueberries in it and he loved it <3