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What PET(s) are you PETTING?

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18 Oct 2016 11:28 - 18 Oct 2016 11:31 #236397 by Jexik
A day after I moved in with my fiancée in June we got a dog. A 1-year-old lab mix named Luca, whose previous owner was the charge nurse on my SO's unit at the behavioral hospital. Luca is golden/yellow with a black muzzle- from the eyes forward she looks kind of like a German Shepherd but with a slightly wider face like a boxer. Lots of people think she's a boxer.

We didn't like the name Luca, in part because it seemed like a male name to us. I always wanted to name a pet Gibbous, so we toyed around with calling her that (since she's got a little bit of darkness around her mouth, but mostly a golden color). "Gibby" for short. But we didn't like that either very much, so we eventually settled on Luna since it was close to Luca and had a similar meaning to Gibbous. Maybe I'll name a cat Gibbous someday.

We kept thinking of her as a puppy, but two weeks after moving in she went into heat! When I first noticed it I thought someone had spilled hot sauce on the floor. The previous owner hadn't gotten her spayed yet, because she had thought it might be nice for her kids to "see the miracle of life." Blah. What a mess. We got her those little doggie diapers, but she started eating them and tearing them up. I had to start picking really weird hours to take her for a walk because every dog and his brother would be trying to holler at her. We read online that heat could last from 3-17 days! 17. She was probably around 12-14 or so.

Did I mention that it falls upon me to walk the dog? 45-90 minutes a day, I'm walking her around the blocks and some local parks (while I guess also hatching some Pokemon Go eggs). She's only about 50-60 pounds, but she is strong and energetic. There's no way that the 6-year-old can handle her, and my 5'3" fiancee nearly gets her shoulder torn out now and then. Luna wants to chase every squirrel, bird, etc. She is overall pretty nice though. Early in July a little brother and sister that were probably about 4 and 5 years old asked to pet her. I was a little hesitant but I got her to lie down and kept a good handle on her leash. She behaved herself. A similar incident happened in the park. Ever since then, when she sees people who seem to have dogs at home, she'll plop down on the ground, expecting to be pet. When I brought her to my brother's assisted living facility, some of those people in wheelchairs and stuff LOVED the opportunity to pet a dog like that. She seems to know when people are anxious around dogs though. If there's a kid who seems to be hesitant at a distance, she'll get extra rambunctious and bop around. Sigh.

She's kind of a pain in the butt sometimes. She likes chewing up cords and anything plastic that you leave on the floor. And one time recently she chewed up a flip-flop. So we try to keep everything like that in one of the bedrooms and close those doors. We've gotten her bones and chew toys, but I guess those aren't as fun as the cord to my bass amp. I've found that she likes fresh air and looking outside, so I started leaving the screen door to the balcony open for her (not so she can walk out, but with the screen closed and the glass part open).

Will she outgrow some of this stuff? We still haven't spayed her. We need to get on that ASAP before heat round 2. I read that it happens 2-3 times a year, so if she's on the 3/yr schedule, it could happen in the next month or so. Will that calm her down? Should I invest in some dog training? She has started barking at us more lately and nipping at the boy.

What pets do you guys have? I know that Barnes has had cats and a penchant for saving lost bunnies.
Last edit: 18 Oct 2016 11:31 by Jexik.
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18 Oct 2016 13:34 - 18 Oct 2016 13:36 #236401 by metalface13
I've got a mini poodle/bichon friese mix we've had for almost 10 years, a male named Neville. We got him neutered as soon as we could and I suggest you get your dog spayed as soon as possible. Our dog was a "mistake" puppy. My sister-in-law's boss was watching his dads dog and they thought their dog was too young to go in heat. It did and they wound up with a load of puppies. Lucky for them bichpoos are pretty popular so they sold all but one. The woman who had put a deposit on our dog never paid in full and he was sick of taking care of it so we got it free. Yes, your dog will outgrow some of the energy but a big dog like that will require plenty of walking. I used to walk my dog two miles a day, then we had kids and he's lucky to get a half mile in now. I suggest you go to obedience school with your dog. You will learn how to train your dog and interact with it. It's hard work and you have to keep it up (we haven't) but for a while it did help with the dog pulling our arms off on walks. He's little, but strong.

For the chewing I highly recommend getting some bitter apple spray or some other anti-chew spray. You spray it on whatever your dog tends to chew on that it shouldn't and it because it tastes bitter and gross your dog will stop. I can't remember which brand worked for us, one of them my dog actually liked and would then lick it off the object.

Introduce your dog to all kinds of people. Kids, babies, old people, people in various types of uniforms, etc. This will help them get used to strangers, delivery men, etc. Our dog was never exposed to little kids until he was a couple years old and they were frightened by his energetic nature. So he's not really all that good with kids. He barely tolerates ours. Constantly growling at them when they invade his space. They don't care though, they think he's the best.
Last edit: 18 Oct 2016 13:36 by metalface13.
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18 Oct 2016 19:31 - 18 Oct 2016 19:35 #236431 by Michael Barnes
Two eldery Shih-Tzus, Pixie and Posie. Pixie has had a rough couple of years- she had pyometra (look that shit up) and we just about lost her but she rebounded. She has pretty much ALL of the Shih-Tzu genetic issues. Hips, eyes, etc. But she's still keeping on, she's 14 this year. Posie is way healthier but way smellier, she has some kind of weird skin oil issue. Love, love, love my dogs. Except that they still, after all of these years, believe that the corner of the dining room is their personal toilet.

We have two chickens, Dolly and Lucy. Lucy has never laid an egg, Dolly lays mint green ones. We had three chickens, but a fox mistook our chicken pen for a buffet. We've lost a few over the past couple of years to possums and hawks- Bellina, Hermione and Gertrude. It's tough to keep a free chicken dinner in your yard. I think we've got the predator problem licked (at last), an electric fence and a network of fishing line to keep the hawks out. I did catch a hawk just sitting on top of the chicken house a couple of weeks ago, I ran and got a Nerf Stryfe and ran it off.

And of course, we have two new bunnies...Luna and Unnamed Rabbit. They live in the chicken pen, which is sort of a case of strange bedfellows for them I'm sure. They get on OK, but Dolly gets sort of ill with them. We got them a nice house (thanks in part to a generous donation from the Grudunza Foundation), but they won't sleep in it. They'll laze around in it, but at night they just want to post up behind the chicken house. It makes me nervous, but try getting two "free range" rabbits into a house. They've started excavating, which is not good so we have get that licked.

We had a Betta, but it died last week. Probably getting another.

We're looking to another farm animal option, so possibly goats or pigs. We live in town, so there are regulations or whatever but we have plenty of land and our pen is pretty big so I think we could do pygmy goats for sure.

And bees. We have one of those fancy Flow hives, I just need to build the brood box and get some package bees.

We also have a family farm so those animals count- five horses, three pigs, two other rabbits, two dogs, two roosters, eight hens, two donkeys.

Animals are very, very important to us.

On spaying- for most dogs, it can actually be very beneficial health-wise so don't shirk from it. It reduces certain cancers and other health problems. We never spayed Pixie and this pyometra thing hit. Not to get too graphic, but one day I found part of the lining of her uterus on the couch. And then she leaked what looked like tomato soup non-stop for days. The only remedy for it is actually spaying, so we had to have her spayed at an advanced and inadvisable age. So if you are not intending for her to breed, do the spay.
Last edit: 18 Oct 2016 19:35 by Michael Barnes.
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18 Oct 2016 20:00 #236434 by ChristopherMD
I have a cat. She always greets me at the door when I come home and is super-friendly to everyone.
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18 Oct 2016 20:42 #236437 by Shellhead
I adopted my chocolate tabby from a no-kill shelter where he and two other normal cats shared a small room with a gigantic cat that could probably beat up a human midget. Either that cat or maybe the original owner may have abused my cat, because he is still very shy and skittish around almost everybody. He was one year old when I adopted him and is now seven. The shelter said his name was Rutchie, but I adjusted it to Archie, after my grandfather. The folks at the shelter warned me that he might never show me any affection, and he did spend most of the first three weeks hiding behind the clawfoot bathtub. So after a couple of days, I just ignored him but made sure to feed him regularly, change his water, and clean the litter box. After three weeks, he decided I was okay and has been super-affectionate to me ever since.

I was a dog owner when I was a kid. Nikki was a badass poodle mutt who feared nothing, even after some redneck shot her in the head with a bb gun. That injury left her blind in one eye, and eventually led to her demise more than ten years later when she got literally blindsided by a car. This was back when free-range children and dogs were always running loose in our neighborhood. I could never be a dog owner again. After living for a couple of years in a house with two dogs back in the '90s, I will never again live with barking. And walking a dog a couple of times per day in Minnesota is no joke in the winter time.
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18 Oct 2016 21:55 - 18 Oct 2016 21:56 #236441 by Disgustipater
I got a malamute about 10 years ago and he chewed on everything as a puppy. He would just lay on the floor and gnaw on the baseboard trim. But he mellowed out a lot as he got a bit older. Then I met my wife and she had a boston terrier and a cairn terrier, so now we have 3 dogs, all around the same age, all reaching old age at the same time. It's gonna be rough.

Turn down your speakers, as I'm blowing into a squeaker from a destroyed toy, freaking them all out.

Last edit: 18 Oct 2016 21:56 by Disgustipater.
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18 Oct 2016 22:51 - 18 Oct 2016 23:03 #236443 by Grudunza
This picture of my Chief and Tigger is also a perfect display of the difference between dogs and cats. The dog, looking up with eyes wide open, sweetly saying, "I love you, Daddy! Thank you so much for the food and affection and home you give me." The cat, eyes sternly and hypnotically looking down, saying, "Human, you WILL feed me and pet me!!"



Here are my chickens, Parm and Patty. They're not very outgoing, but I do pet them now and then when they come meet me on the porch for treats. One of my previous chickens, Noodle, was super friendly and would come right up to you and let you pick her up, bracing herself in a funny way when you did. (Sadly, Noodle escaped my yard before my fence was fixed and had an unfortunate meeting with a neighbor dog.) Regardless, I like to see these two ladies out in the yard, and we get some eggs from them every day or two.



My daughter has had two adorable pet rats, but one died strangely a couple weeks ago... looked like he was strangled or choked while chewing on his hammock... and the other seems to be getting sick now, too. They do make great pets, though. She had girl rats previously, which were more tame than these boys. We'll probably get another pair of girl rats at some point.
Last edit: 18 Oct 2016 23:03 by Grudunza.
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19 Oct 2016 00:21 - 19 Oct 2016 00:24 #236444 by SebastianBludd
Sixteen years ago my wife and I adopted Zoey, a medium hair cat - black with tan tortoise shell stripes on top, white on the bottom - from the Milwaukee animal shelter when she was about a year old. She's very vocal with a ton of personality but never weighed more than 8 lbs. at her heaviest.

A year later we adopted an orange female tabby, Twinkie (she had a white belly, so yellow with a "cream filling" = Twinkie). Both of them moved from Milwaukee with us to our apartment in Iowa, and from there to our first house. One morning in about 2006 I found a broken window in the basement and both cats missing. The weird thing was, the window was at the top of the wall yet it was broken outward (with a little blood on one of the pieces of glass and a few drops in the driveway), and we never did figure out what happened. Regardless, Zoey was still hanging around outside but Twinkie was gone, never to return.

A couple years later my wife's boss quit, so we inherited the cat she kept in her commuting apartment where she would stay during the week. My son insisted on naming her Twinkie (though, other than short hair she looks nothing like Twinkie 1), so she was dubbed Twinkie 2. Due to a typing accident this summer in chat, about 75% of the time we now call her "Twonkie". She was found, as a kitten, underneath a porch, in a hole, in the rain. I don't think she was ever properly socialized, or maybe she's just naturally odd, but she's not really affectionate and prefers solitude most of the time. She purrs like crazy if you manage to catch her, but she can't really meow so you'll never know she's there unless you see her.

Last year Zoey disappeared while outside and, being 16, we presumed she'd gone off somewhere to die. After five weeks we gave her up for dead and adopted Pixie from the ARL. She's another medium hair and she can't really meow, either. We adopted her on a Saturday and on the following Wednesday Zoey returned and was waiting outside after my wife got home from work. We suspect she'd gotten locked into the house next door while they were doing renovations after evicting the previous owners.

Zoey is the most expressive cat I've ever known with facial expressions that are almost human-like, and I'll never forget the look of betrayal on her face when she got up to the door and saw Pixie. I felt like a cheating husband in a bad Tyler Perry movie: "It's not what it looks like, I swear!", and meanwhile Pixie thinks that Zoey is the interloper, and it turned out they never got along and Pixie had to be quarantined at night for a couple months until she learned to stop being a bully. So for about a year it was three cats and our family of five in our little house.

About 9 months ago the hooks on Zoey's tongue finally wore down (it's an age thing, apparently) so she was unable to properly groom herself, resulting in lots of knots. Coupled with the weight she never gained back after her absence (she went down to about 5 lbs. and never gained it back) and she was starting to look a little rough. Anyway, we moved to a new house this last June and after an accident or two - including Pixie peeing all over our bed at 2 AM for some reason - the cats were confined to the basement during the day and at night. Zoey has never liked litter boxes and I think sharing one with Pixie made it worse, so in the new house we'd keep finding where she'd peed and pooped near the litter box, but rarely in it. A couple weeks ago she even pooped on the upstairs bathroom floor.

I always have to carry her to the basement so the night after the bathroom pooping, Oct. 6, I couldn't find her in her usual spot and I finally located her underneath my daughter's bed. I got her out, carried her to the basement while I rubbed her chin and cheeks, and it was the last time I saw her alive; my wife found her dead in the basement the next morning.

Even though she was seventeen and I knew she could die at any time, it still blindsided me and sometimes I still look up from what I'm doing, expecting to see her sauntering toward me the way she used to. I'm grateful that she went quickly without a drawn out illness and I'm also glad that she hid from me that last night so that I'll always have a distinct final memory of holding and petting her for the last time. My wife covered her in a placemat-sized "test" blanket she made while she was learning to crochet and that Zoey liked to lie on, and I wrapped her in my Onion t-shirt with a picture of a kitten on it ("Kitten thinks of nothing but murder all day."). After a short service we buried her in the back corner of our yard, and my mother-in-law found a ceramic cat we're going to use as a marker. All in all, she was a good cat and I'll always miss her.
Last edit: 19 Oct 2016 00:24 by SebastianBludd.
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19 Oct 2016 07:22 #236453 by Black Barney
I eat animals

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19 Oct 2016 10:06 #236471 by ChristopherMD

Black Barney wrote: I eat animals


You're a monster.

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19 Oct 2016 10:33 - 19 Oct 2016 11:13 #236472 by Mr. White
I grew up in a house with dogs and my wife and I had a rat-terrier, Moose, prior to our kids being born. He loved life and lived large. We'd take him to the lake, camping, etc. All the sorts of things bigger dogs got to do. He was my wife's first dog, previously being a cat person, but she's now converted to canines. Unfortunately, he grew calcification along his spine and loss control of his rear legs, then moving his neck became painful. We had to make the difficult decision of putting him to sleep.

We'll probably get another in the near future.

In the meantime, we live in the country off a golf-course so have had plenty of wildlife living in our backyard that we've taken care of. Favorites being three batches of bunnies in a burrow that we refuse to fill in as well as a flock of doves in one of our trees.

On the flip side, we've had our share of snakes. In the first few years we had like 9 snakes over a two year period...with 5-6 being rattlers. Now, we get the occasional snake and I simply herd them out...except the rattlers. Those I take out. I'm sorry, but I can't have them thinking they have a safe nest anywhere near our property...not with young kids playing around. My son knows the drill and goes to the garage to get the hoe...he's an old hand at it. Unfortunately, my daughter isn't. Three weeks ago I had to kill a baby rattler and the whole family was in the backyard. I've done this so often, I didn't think much of it. My son got the hoe while I kept an eye on it...then off with it's head. Daughter wasn't impressed. It was traumatic... I felt horrible and had to have a talk with the her. I take no pleasure in it, but don't have the means to trap one and go release it in the wild somewhere.

It's likely if we get a dog or cat at some point their noise or smell will keep the rattlesnakes away, but until then we have to be a little vigilant. Texas!

EDIT: Until we get the dog, the kids have been asking for a guinea pig or hamster or the like. I've held off. Too often I've seen pets like that be neglected. Kids seem to get all excited about the idea of these sort of pets, but the appeal seems to wear off as they realize these pets aren't super interactive and end up requiring more in upkeep (frequent cage cleanings) and little in companionship. We'll pass on these sorts of 'first pets'.

We've considering being one of those boardinghouses for service dogs in training, but haven't had the time to actively move on it. We do allow pets to stay over when friends go out of town though. We figure constant TLC from the kids is better than being boarded. Plus, the kids get some pet time without us actually having a pet that holds up travel or what not. Win-win so far, but again...the pressure for our own is mounting...
Last edit: 19 Oct 2016 11:13 by Mr. White.

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19 Oct 2016 10:47 #236473 by jeb
Replied by jeb on topic What PET(s) are you PETTING?
anki.com/en-us/cozmo is our closest thing to a pet right now. This or the Roomba that cleans our kitchen.
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19 Oct 2016 11:09 - 19 Oct 2016 11:29 #236474 by Jexik
Replied by Jexik on topic What PET(s) are you PETTING?

Black Barney wrote: I eat animals


Me too. I forget which stand up comedian it was, but there was one who suggested that dogs and cats just got lucky because they probably taste bad.

Talking about past pets...

We had a cat named Tiger (yay for 4 and 6 year olds naming cats) before I was born. She was okay. She died when I was fairly young, and she had originally been an outside cat that they had found, so we often let her out. She always came back. When I was 8 years old I got some of her hair stuck in my eye and found out that I was highly allergic to cats. My eye swelled up until I couldn't close it. I went to the ER and spent the next few days on Benadryl and using an eye cup to rinse it out. So it turned out that my chronic allergies may have had nothing to do with pollen or mold or whatever.

When I was 3 I started telling my parents about my imaginary dog. I didn't have him anymore. I had had him "when I was in heaven, while I was waiting to be born." I said he was a golden retriever, but when I pictured him he looked more like a german shepherd. My parents got the hint and we got a black lab mix, "Ellie," from the shelter (they suggested maybe she was part chesapeake bay retriever- she wasn't quite as thin or as tall as a greyhound, but she looked kind of like a black santa's little helper from the Simpsons). They picked her because she was the only one there that wasn't barking. She was a very quiet dog, and somehow managed to seem very affectionate without ever licking us much at all. My brother taught her to "speak" one day using turkey deli meat. So whenever we'd have turkey sandwiches, she'd bark. She was "about 2" when we got her, and she continued to stay thin and energetic until she lost her hearing, became incontinent, and we put her to sleep at "about 14." It was my sophomore year in high school and it hit me pretty hard. Even that last winter, she would go CRAZY in the snow and run all over the place. I'd have people think she was a puppy right up until about a year before she passed.
Last edit: 19 Oct 2016 11:29 by Jexik.
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19 Oct 2016 11:48 - 19 Oct 2016 11:52 #236478 by Colorcrayons
This is Blue. She says : "Sup?"


Why yes, Sam I am, I would kiss a fox on a box whilst wearing socks.


My gf's cat, Max, is slightly internet famous. At least as a kitten.




My gf is also a huge frog fanatic. I used to breed poison dart frogs, so I built her a vivarium worthy of its own blog post. It has taken me a year to complete.
But here are a couple pics of the Dendrobates Auratus (1 green and bronze morph, and 2 turquoise and bronze morphs) that we have raised from tadpoles, named 'Freyr', 'Loki', and 'Tor':


Last edit: 19 Oct 2016 11:52 by Colorcrayons.
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19 Oct 2016 11:51 #236479 by Cranberries
We had rats. They were great. Then they developed pneumonia and spinal tumors, and began biting and suffering. I had to retire those little replicants. It made me sad. I'm allergic to cats and dogs. I like to go on vacation and not have to worry about pets. My girls want a pet, however.

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