Part of having a dog is becoming part of a select group of people... nay, not just mere humans, but
elites:
People who talk about their dogs with other people who have dogs. Especially at the work place.
This thread is for talking about the joy of having something furry and alive that loves you unconditionally, thinks you were gone for uncountable eons when you just went to check the mail, thinks every new occurrence is quite near the best thing ever, and will run into your leg at full speed and not remember it 5 seconds later*. Or maybe its about the joy of picking up poop in small plastic bags, that special brand of stupid and smart that causes them to try to eat practically anything, or sad stories about your dog that loved you unconditionally right until the end.
So... This is Eisley**, and he is my dog. I love him. He was adopted about 8 months ago now after likely being abused/neglected.
Spoilered for being rather depressing/rage inducing:
He was apparently thrown out of a car on the highway and was taken to the adoption agency by the people who almost ran him over.
He was rather nervous at first, but acclimated to us rather quickly. He was then really nervous around new people... but now hes really curious and tries to trip them by smelling their shoes while they are walking. Its an amazing thing to have this little living thing who's daily high point is me coming home. Probably because hes hungry... he pretty much only eats when both my fiance and I are around.
* This happened this morning. I love my dog - hes full of dumb.
** Yes. A wretched hive of scum and villainy.
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I'm sure my wife will be on soon to post pictures. :P
Edit: Here's mine;
She doesn't always look like she's just suffered some major personal tragedy, I swear. Just when we try to take pictures of her.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
But they are getting better. Yours seems to be slowly figuring out that there is more than one emotion in life. And mine has learned several nanoseconds of self control. You can post pictures and stories about your own dog :P
We first adopted a different dog (a cocker mix that we named Merlin) who hadn't been neutered yet so they were supposed to do that the day after we signed the papers. We were supposed to get a call on two days later to come pick him up. Instead we got a call to let us know that he was dying of parvo. We rushed up to the pound hoping to be allowed to say goodbye but he died before we got there.
The pound people were really nice and looked through their system for another similarly sized dog. They didn't have any up for adoption but they did have a purebred cocker that was supposed to go to a rescue that night. However, they felt bad that Merlin died so they offered us this other cocker even though he wasn't up for adoption. Optimus walked to the nearest drug store and bought a leash and we walked the poor dog home 5 miles in 90 degree weather the day after he had been neutered.
This is an old picture but still one of my favorites. Next week we will have had him for 3 years.
Even though it was kind of sad that our old dog died, I'm really excited about it, we haven't had a new pet like a puppy since I was in primary school. It almost makes me wish I still lived at home so I could help raise it, but oh well.
He's pretty much a dumbass, but he's my dumbass. I'm horribly allergic to him, so I take an Alavert and then love him up for a while, then wash my hands. He loves to perch on the furniture, but he sheds so he's not allowed to. He does it anyway.
I'd say to go with the Australian Shepherd. They're great dogs, and really smart, but they don't have the sheer volume of crazy you're going to get with the BCs. Unless your folks routinely herd sheep, that dog is going to get bored and might develop personality issues.
Here's a better picture of my little girl;
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Do your parents have a job for the dog to do? BCs tend not to do well without something to do. Examples could be herding sheep, jogging for several miles with your dad everyday, playing agility or flyball, or something along those lines. They are amazingly sweet and cuddly and smart dogs but they have a definite need for a physical outlet.
Aussies tend to be more laid back in the physical needs department. However, they also tend to be slightly reserved with strangers so they won't be the dog that greets everybody who visits (it is in their breed standard).
Herding dogs aren't necessarily smarter than other dogs. However, they have been selected to pay attention and respond to human body language and voice cues in a way that many other breeds haven't been. This tends to make it easier to teach them tricks than most other dogs. And they definitely learn words better than many other dogs.
He was a rescue, his mother was put down before he was weened and he is ridiculously loveable, which means he is useless as a guard dog.
He's a special needs dog, due to being deaf. We are teaching him hand signals and he is full of fantastic funny stupid win.
Well, my parents do live way out in the country, so it would conceivably have lots of room and wouldn't go stir crazy, but the only other animal around the house is the cat, so there definitely aren't any herd-type animals for it to fool with. My dad's pretty set on an AS anyway, and he knows where to get some, so that's probably what we'll get.
We really need help with names, though. My family is horrible at coming up with names for pets, because it seems like we've used all of them up. In the past we've had a dog literally named "Pup" (who we called Pup even in her late teens) and a cat named "the kitty" (the only pet we currently have). If they do get a new puppy - they're supposedly going to look for one after the summer is over and they can devote a lot of time to it - we'll definitely need to set up a H/A topic to come up with something halfway decent.
EDIT: Kistra - well, my mom says she's really looking forward to being active with the dog (training it and stuff) since she doesn't have any kids at home anymore and she gets kind of bored, but they don't jog or anything, so I guess a shepherd would be the best after all. They mainly say they're looking for an intelligent dog that will know not to bother the cat, respond to commands and basic stuff like that.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
She is simply the best dog in the world. She understands a great deal of English, and pretends she doesn't when it suits her purpose. Sweet, loving, and has been my constant companion for almost 15 years. My sister brought her home when I was 14 after finding her and her brothers and sisters in a cardboard box outside of Safeway. She is supposedly purebred lab, and to be honest, she looks the part. She is gentle, hates conflict, and is assertively protective of those whom she deems family. One time another dog was visiting our home and began growling at our cat. Jae stepped between the dog and the cat and growled a polite warning to the other dog who backed down. She was also the last one to see my Grandfather (who pretty much raised me) alive, and was the only one to be with him when he died of a heart attack on a snowy December morning. Oh, and she hates squirrels.
Last week was when she could finally stand no more and when we had to euthanize her. Aside from my Grandpa dying, nothing else has wrecked me so much.
He is insanely cute!
To Duffel: A good breeder to support your parents is worth sacrificing a lot of minor breed considerations for. Please post lots of pictures in the H/A thread when you make it 8-) (obviously all just to help us suggest a good name...)
So do your dogs have weird favorite toys?
We thought my dog was broken when we first brought him home because he refused to touch dog toys but loved to fetch empty soda bottles and tug on socks. He has since learned to love tennis balls and cuzes for fetch, but he still doesn't tug much with anything other than an old sock.
My heart goes out to you, bro.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
The 3rd one my parents bought for my sisters birthday. He was real skitish, real hesitant about meeting new people. The first day my parents had him, he would hide from the family. I was away at the time and when I came home he immediately ran up to me. That's when I knew I was going to like that dog. He was real protective over the family, and I used to tease people that he was a commando do: that he'd run away and approach you from the behind real slowly and quietly, scoping you out. He would chase people in our yard, I imagine over the territory/herding instincts, but he was usually a very good and obedient dog. The thing I always remember about him is how, whenever we came home he'd be sitting on the stairs, looking down at us, and then would run over to the entrance of the stairs and lay on his back, belly in the air. He'd also then put one of his paws over his eyes which came to be known as "greetings".
On July 4th 2007, while I was deploying to Iraq for the 2nd time, I called home to speak to my parents. They where heartbroken and demoralized. They told me they had to put the dog down. He had a stroke, fell down the stairs while they where at work, and was paralyzed from the waist down. They came home wondering where he was since he wasn't greeting them only to see him crying and trying to walk over to them with just his two front legs. Even the neighbors across the street where crying, especially their little girls. My parents at that time vowed not to get another dog until they retired, saying that their work schedule just doesn't allow for it.
Well that lasted all of 15-16 months. My mother started researching online about getting a german shepherd puppy and found one about 4 hours away from their house. Apparently some german shepherd champion just sired a litter and the owners where selling them for cheaper than normal, just trying to get the puppies out.
Her name is Sophie and in September she will be 1 years old. She's a real hyper puppy and when she wants to play she'll have you play. She'll bring her toys right up to you and set it next to you, waiting for you to throw it. If you refuse to play with her, she'll go to someone else before finally chasing her tail or playing with two toys at once. She'll have her rope toy in her mouth and then chase around a ball and bat it with her feet like a soccer ball.
We're a bit worried because she refuses to eat her food. If we put anything into the food to coerce her into eating it, she'll garble it down too quickly and then throw up. When she does eat, it's in very small amounts. Recently, my sister came home and brought her german shepherd home. When we fed her, Sophie would go and eat all of her food to keep it away from her, and then come back and eat all of her own food. She also likes to keep my sister's dog's toys away from her.
Pictures!
At a few weeks old:
3 months:
10 months:
Thanks Zed.
Dogs are special because they love you so unconditionally that it makes you want to be a better person. Who hasn't felt guilty when your dog wants you to play with him, only to tell him "I'm sorry, I don't have time right now" only to change your mind once you get the sad eyes?
Evigilant:
I absolutely want to get another dog simply because I have this floppy-eared shaped void in my life right now, so I completely understand what your parents are going through. I unfortunately have grad school starting in two months and it would be unfair and selfish of me to raise a puppy during that time. You better believe once I am out of school I am finding another lab pup to call my own and to watch it terrorize my house.
Here is a pic of him and one of his favorite toys. Taken a month earlier:
Got two Shiba Inus! The red is Kisa and the black-and-tan is Yuuku.
Kisa's full name is 'Asa Hanna's Da Kisaki'...I showed her when I a youngin' and she ended up with a championship. Which is awesome. She's my favorite. She had three litters of puppies and a bunch of those went on to be champions too. She's a good looking dog.
She also once caught a bird in her mouth...*out of mid-air.* That poor thing didn't stand a chance.
We thought about showing Yuuku when she was a puppy, but after her first show when she tried to pick a fight with a full-grown Saint Bernard (he could had swallowed her!), we decided she was better off as a house dog.
Her new favorite hobby is running free outside and finding cow patties to roll around in.
I won't upload pictures because I hat e dealing with photobucket.
My Dog is a 13 year old Beagle named Jewel( named for the white jewel shaped spot on her back. She's mellowed in recent years but she was a terror as a puppy.
She once ( much to my surprise) ran into a neighbors yard while I was playing with her. The neighbors dog was fairly vicious and of course I went to save my puppy.
She comes running back to me with a giant clump of Dog hair and an expression I can only describe as " Yeah I bit the fuck out of that bitch.". I was then presented with a dog hair trophy.
The other dog was fine if a bit shocked no broken skin and my neighbor just laughed it off.
PJ is our puppy, a rescue who came to us by way of a busy highway and The Emergency Animal Rescue Society. He believes that he who has the most toys wins, and that he is invincible as long as I'm between him and whatever he's about to seriously tear up.
I loose at imbedding images, apparently. Ah, well.
I understand completely. When I moved out of my parents house years ago I've wanted a dog of my own. But with school and Army, I can't find time to really care for one. The only time I could see the dog before we put him down was whenever I came home to visit. I remember all the times I both played with him or ignored him.
When I do eventually settle down, I want to get a puppy and a kitten. I can't decide on what kind of dog though, I really like the look and breed of a Shiba Inu, Siberian Huskies, and German Shepherds. I thought about getting a wolf-hybrid but I don't know how well that'd go with the plans to have a kitten as well.
I have always had a preference for true breeds of dogs. I am not against mutts as a rule, finding many of them to be adorable and wonderful companions, but as a rule I prefer the specific type of temperament and personality that you usually find amongst certain specific breeds. Now cats, I could care less what kind of cat I have, probably because they all have the same basic "I love you, but only around feeding time or when I want something, or on my terms" personality.
But I am liking cockers more the longer I have my dog and the more other cocker I meet. So that may never happen even if we do ever have tons of space.
Its pretty true. My Shibas figured out (somehow) to open doors.
They're like raptors.
My wife is pretty firmly a cocker spaniel person at this point, though. So any future non-spaniel Inus are going to be mine.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Also, a flashlight or laser beam could keep her occupied for hours.
Getting non-puppies worked well for us. There is no way Optimus and I could have gotten a baby puppy that needed to go out every two hours. But a 9 month old and a 6 months old were both young enough to be impressionable but old enough to learn a lot faster and to be home alone for several hours at a time.
He's a Jack Russel X Kelpie named Tim, we got him second hand from some friends that live on a farm, they were having problems with him going out and rounding up the neighbour's cattle without being asked to, and with the neighbours threatening to shoot him if he saw him again he got shipped off to live with us. First night we had him we put him out on the back deck, when we woke up in the morning we had no dog on the back deck and an annoyed looking dog at the front door, now this is a fairly serious 2 story drop down to the yard so he didn't just go up over the railing and down to the ground, as far as we can work out he took a run at it, went up over the railing and from there leapt over to the neighbours yard which is about level with the deck, so that he could go play with their dog.
Had him since he was 1 year old and he's coming up on his 11ths birthday now and he's starting to go gray around the edges (and managed to lose an eye from running into a tree at full tilt), if you can get one (based solely on him) they're a really awesome mix, he's generally really quiet at home and is content to just sit in front of the fireplace and sleep for most of the day (he gets a big walk in the morning) he's cool about visitors and never attacks other dogs (but has kicked the shit out of everything bigger than him that's tried to push him around in the park).
His only real problem is that he gets really paranoid that when people are visiting the house that they're going to try and steal the dog biscuits out of his bowl, and for some strange reason he refuses to eat the biscuits straight out of the bowl, he picks up a mouth full of them, carries them out into the lounge room and stands on the rug to eat them before going back for another mouthful. So when we've got visitors the dog is furiously doing laps to make sure he eats all of them before anybody else can steal them.
I'm at work now but will try to scrounge up some pictures. In the meantime, this is my brother and one of his dogs, Nicholas, in an ARG video made by his employer:
Whiskey and the Brain
* A fairly inappropriate name since the little guy was scared of EVERYTHING.
No, it was a rescue. At least the Shiba I was looking at was in a rescue.
Tomanta: Doxies sure are fun dogs. Wicked smart, stubborn as hell, and enough solid muscle to surprise you when they do (and they will) decide to do their own thing on the leash.
We are pretty sure hes part corgi, part american eskimo. Or part corgi, part shiba (He has the shiba inu "scream"). Something corgi and spitz for sure - he has the tail that curls up over his butt.
I tend to like the spitz like dogs for their fox/wolf like faces, but the corgi part makes him ridiculously cute. Something about those short stubby legs.
My fiance's parents have a dog named Boo. It is very accurately named. Shes scared of her own shadow. Although, while I was dating my fiance (she was living at home during college), Boo would see me come in the front door and dash away and cower under a table. On our first 'anniversary' Boo dashed away, got about half way to the table, stopped, looked back at me, and dashed back to flop over at my feet.
Oops, we probably should have been more clear.
I agree with you in regards to purebreds and puppies.
With adults I can meet their adult personality so I think there is a lot less chance involved in picking out an adult dog. Well, at least in theory. In practice I want to do agility with all my future dogs so they need to look purebred so I can ILP them but that is more of an AKC requirement than a personal one.
I like to think Tim brings a quiet dignity to trying to nuzzle his way under your hand so you'll pat him while breathing putrid dog breath in your face.
On the other hand, I'm not a fan of raw sewage, either.
The urge to make him run the art museum stairs is overpowering.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.