Post pictures of your pets!

[Warudo Ecksu]

I love Korats/Russian Blues. They are some of the most tempered cats in general. I've always referred to them as "nursing home cats". Never have met one that was scared/didn't want to be around strangers.

Arya is really good usually with most of my friends. She doesn't like Scunsion (the ex) though. He came over and she just like fought to get away from him. I picked her up and was like AW HE WAS ALMOST YOUR DADDY BUT THEN MOMMY AND DADDY GOT IN A FIGHT AND NOW IT'S JUST ME AND YOU. MOMMY HAS TO LIVE ON WELFARE TO SUPPORT YOU BUT IT'S OK WE'LL MAKE IT. (not really on welfare lol)

I love Siamese cats (like Link awwww). I planned to get a lynx point, but my roommate works at the humane society. I went to her work one day to see all the kittens, and Arya sat in my lap and hissed at a black cat. I said AW SHES RACIST and brought her home.

[Pikarya]

I love Siamese cats (like Link awwww).

Link is an "Applehead" Siamese. More similar to the Burmese in terms of bulk/strength and build.







Its insane how white he was when he was young. Like a bleach blonde white. After the 1st year his pigment changed drastically (from my understanding their color changes depending on climate & environment). In colder temps, black to absorb more heat and in warmer tropic temps white to reflect/along with shorter hair.

We call him our resident Raccoon.

[Day]

haha she's a badass, loves rock and roll (lays next to my bass amp), and hates my ex gfs.

[Isawa]

Adopted a kitten yesterday :3

[Warudo Ecksu]

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww is it coming out and playing much or still hiding a lot

p.s. this kitten is at my roommate's work. Well, theres 2 lynx point and one flame point, and a million other kittens but omfg I wish I had her job

[Isawa]

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww is it coming out and playing much or still hiding a lot

He's still hiding, under the bed atm. He's came out once or twice, but not for long.

[jinkazama]

Anybody here have experience with an aggressive dog? When my Aussie was a pup my wife's corgi would always muscle him outta the way and take his food. It stopped for a while but now my dog lashes out when the corgi gets near his bowl, his ball or sometime even my wife or I. Any clue on ideas to correct this?

Btw my Aussie is intact and the corgi isn't. Could this cause any problems?

[Pikarya]

Become Alpha. Your dog thinks everyone around it is a little bitch. Show it some Cesar Milan and it will learn to respect you and others. Not the other way around.

inb4 someone posts CM techniques are too pushy or "abusive" towards obedience training.

[Celestialstrife]

when he starts acting up, flip him on his side and hold him down. Crazy how fast that works. Went to my moms house a couple weekends ago and she had rescued a dobey. Well he was trying to bite my little neice and when he tried my mom flipped him on his side and had my niece come over and pet him while she held him down. He didn't try to nip at her at all for the rest of the weekend.

[Amelya]

Neutering could help but it probably won't solve everything. I'd implement NILF (nothing in life is free) and I'd also keep a short leash on him. When he does it quickly grab the leash, tell him NO! very sternly and make him sit, and then put him in another room away from you for 10 minutes or so (assuming he thrives on human attention like most aussies). You can google search for "resource guarding" and find a lot of articles as well.

Believe it or not, throwing a dog on its back is not the solution for everything. Or most things, actually.

And since I'm here, best engagement pic ever:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v70/westwood/037.jpg

[miokomioko]

put him in another room away from you for 10 minutes or so (assuming he thrives on human attention like most aussies).

Probably the best solution for shitty in-home behavior for most dogs as they usually thrive on being social/getting attention. So, immediately marking the bahavior with a distinct word/sound and then completely removing them from what they enjoy and putting them in a dim, quiet, isolated environment for a short amount of time will quickly get them to associate doing stupid shit with getting shut in a room, bored and lonely.

This works great for dealing with obnoxious behavior around house guests. It's just very difficult to do this outside the home as there's usually enough stimuli to distract them from associating their behavior with the fact they are heading back to the car or something because they did something stupid a quarter mile into the park.

[TacoTaru]

So I've kind of ran into an annoyance with my Shepard (Lily). She's a puppy (5mo) so obviously she's in play mode from the time she's up until the time she's down. Our other dog (Maddie) likes to play with her, but when she gets tired of it and Lily's not, Maddie won't put an end to it. So what ends up happening is Maddie is trying lay on the couch and relax and Lily will just continually chew and bite at her. Most of the times it just comes off as an annoyance and Maddie will move around until Lilystops, but occasionally Lily does go to far, and even then Maddie won't correct her. Last night was kind of the tipping point for wanting to solve it because Lily and I were in the living room and Maddie came in to lay on the couch, but she locked eyes with Lily, they stared at each other a few seconds, then Maddie bowed her head and went back in the other room with my wife. I'm not even really sure what I'm asking other than is there a way to put a stop to the constant chewing Lily does on Maddie and/or (somehow) give Maddie confidence? We have TONS of toys (nylabones, stuffing and stuffingless ducks, raccoons, etc) so it's not that Lily has a lack of things to chew on. We've tried telling Lily no and redirecting her with toys, but it never holds her attention. She'll either just bark and go back to chewing or play with something else for a few minutes and then go back to trying to chew on Maddie.

*Edit*
Somehow I missed the last two posts. Would a no and then isolating her the best way to handle this problem?

[Amelya]

That is how I would handle it. A sharp NO or EHHH noise and redirect to the toy, and if she persists on bugging the other dog I'd firmly say "ok, time out!" and put her in the other room. You may have to do it a lot at first, I won't lie lol, but be very consistent with it. And with a puppy, make sure the room you put her in is fairly safe so she won't get into anything (we use the laundry room). There isn't really much you can do to boost the confidence in your older dog and I will assume she'll end up being the submissive one, but you can still teach your puppy that she still needs to respect the other dog's space.

You could also try giving her more exercise to tire her out.

[TacoTaru]

We've started walking her but I guess we haven't socialized her enough, so I've been a little hesitant about taking her out around strangers' dogs; she loses her mind and starts pulling at leash and bringing out the deep bark when she's around other barking dogs. So we're going to take her around some friend/family's pets and see how she does there and try to get her more comfortable and then start the walking more. We're considering the Petsmart/local group obedience course, but I'm even hesitant about that now since I'm not sure how she'll do around strangers' dogs and a 45lb German Shepard barking and tugging at her leash doesn't exactly put other people at ease lol.

[Amelya]

Well to be honest she's kind of past the socialization window. I believe it's usually the first 16 weeks that are really crucial. I'd highly recommend getting her into some puppy classes; if you have an actual training facility in your area that would probably be better than Petsmart. Better to try and get a handle on it now, then when she's even bigger. It's not going to get any better or easier.

How much does she get walked? At her age she should be going at least once every day IMO, for around 30 minutes. Twice a day would be better. She doesn't need to have good dog manners just to go on a walk.

[jinkazama]

Thanks guys! I've been needing to get him neutered anyhow so maybe that will help a little bit. I've also tried telling my wife to use the NILF method, but she caves in and gets pissed later when my dog gets bratty.

I just don't wanna have to give to give up my dog because he's rightfully protecting his food after the corgi bullied him at a young age.

[Pikarya]

Only the first few weeks of its life is needed to understand what is what.

If you dog has anxiety around other dogs in terms of whether its aggressive. Its because it was weaned and kept alone during that early cycle. Either that or it was abused and forced into the mindset at an early age to Fight always and not flight. I'm not going to go with the latter in this situation. A dog that is raised alone, with only humans and no other interaction with any other type of animal/etc. is by default going to have fear the first time it encounters these things at an older age. What really matters is how the dog reacts the first time. If its bad then you can expect it to not get better unless you turn it around quickly and assert the dog things are okay.

I have friends that took their kids to fireworks for the first time this year and the kids cried/hated it. I kept telling them to tell the kids ahead of time things are going to make big noises and make pretty sparkles. Hell even go on youtube and show them what they will be like to set in stone in their minds its safe and no one is going to get hurt.

They didn't bother to explain to the kids ahead of time to prepare them and are now scared shit less of them. Raw, basic fear only exists when an organism doesn't understand what is currently happening at hand. In return instincts take over. This applies to everything in life, especially dogs. Get them out on the front lines early and they'll be bulletproof when they get older.

(I can't say that with a complete straight face) because our Dogo Argentino is scared to death of Possums. He has to check the entire shitting area outside now before unloading. It's also even harder to let him learn they won't mess with him because they only come out at night randomly. And usually aren't friendly enough to let you get close to them in the first place to break the fear.

Imagine having a kid and it knows the stove makes things hot. But the kid doesn't understand it will extremely burn their ass if they touch it. They don't know by default because they've never touched it before. The second they get burned without being warned of the consequence. They'll probably have a fear of it in the future. Not the best example but almost any general situation with children can be applied to dogs.

If the canine is playful and wants to just have fun with the other dog then this is just normal behavior. What do kids do when they're around each other on a playground. They want to play, when you're walking the dog they're in play land. What needs to be maintained is when its time to play and when its not. When you're kid is on the playground you wouldn't let them run around chasing other kids (even if its just for "fun") or horseplay. Sooner or later someone is going to get hurt out of fear/stupidity/or by and accident (such as playful dog nipping getting turned into a dogfight because one of the dogs weren't acclimated that its just a game).

Use harnesses, not a leash, not even a collar. A harness surrounds the dog and controls all their weight at one tugging point. The dog will learn and feel as if you were holding them back. (Remember, in an alpha mindset the feel of you personally holding, touching/etc. to the dog make it learn its place). I can't stress enough using a harness. Choke chains are useless in 99% of scenarios since most people don't understand the purpose, or how to use them effectively (even though as the harness does, it teaches the dog its place of what it can and cant do when the leader of the pack tells it so).

Also Amelya is dead on again. It sounds stupid but depending on the breed they can be more needy for exploration/walks. Our Dogo Argentino is not meant to be a 80% indoor/20% outdoor dog. By nature its bred for hunting, it wants to go outside and shoot the shit. By doing this often you're dog will blow off steam and anxiety. Along with built up energy. Also don't let dog size fool you. There are obviously smaller breeds that have 50x more energy than larger canines (Jack Russell, Daschund) the list goes on.

When the dog is out of line you physically with the leash and harness tug to give the dog a signal on what it can and cannot do in public. If the dog does not take effect then as I call it "short leash the dog more and more until your less than a few inches away from their neck. When they begin to straighten up give them a little slack at a time till they realize what they need to stop doing.

TL:DR

Sorry if this shit is long/doesn't make sense. I'm slightly hungover and just trying to be horrible in explaining things as usual.

[Amelya]

Do you have crates? You could just feed them in there if you do. I feed my two on opposite sides of the kitchen from one another and "stand guard" until they're finished. I would suggest standing near your aussie while he eats. If your corgi starts to get close, correct him and use your body to block him and move him away before the aussie has a chance to snap. The aussie will learn that you are going to "protect" him while he eats, and the corgi will learn (hopefully, stubborn ass dogs) that he is not allowed near the aussie's food bowl.

[Caiyuo]

This suggested behavioral problems can be curbed if spay/neuter occurs around 6 months or before puberty, but I don't know how concrete that is aside from having one veterinarian's opinion:

[Pikarya]

This suggested behavioral problems can be curbed if spay/neuter occurs around 6 months or before puberty, but I don't know how concrete that is aside from having one veterinarian's opinion:

Its a pretty dead on fact. Same applies for even felines. Definitely more effective vs. males than females for sure though in terms of T-levels and energy.