DOGS

Shiba Inu stans can vote Akita Inu if they want, it will be counted. I went via images on Wikipedia so obviously the whole size thing got a bit confusing.

i'm not going to stan for small yappy lapdogs but i feel they often get unfairly slated cuz of their rep - cuz they're such girly dogs, and have those associations w/being kept in handbags etc

way prefer them to pitbulls or whatever

See, okay, that ridiculous beast is actually a puppet/mask from The Dark Crystal. Look, you can almost SEE where the hairs were glued on around the eyes. DQ.

lol laurel

Yeah I hear you Lex but I've just never really met a little yappy one that I loved whereas I have met some really awesome pitbulls (who also get unfairly slated).

English Bull Terrier is surely the worst dog. I saw someone walking a huge one the other day, it was about the size of a small pig.

http://mywhitepaw.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/bull_terrier_h03.jpg

I also automatically assume that everyone who owns one of these is a racist.

Small dogs: I really really hate the lack of dignity in the small dog that insists on bullying and shouting down all other dogs. Some people think this ridiculosity is "cute," apparently? I think it's repugnant, and my first reaction is to want to hurt them until they get a better idea of their place in the world.

I also think "ugly" means "ugly," and not, "Gather round and pity this creature before we put it to death for its own good."

Yeah Yorkshire Terriers are nasty little shits.

http://www.greatdogsite.com/admin/uploaded_files/1191990474pembroke_welsh_corgi.jpg

Corgis though, all the awesome. Too good to be associated with the Queen.

lack of dignity in the small dog that insists on bullying and shouting down all other dogs

Yeah, I know. I don't think I'd ever really noticed this before recently but it's pretty horrible when they do this. I hate Yorkies.

Also I know you hate ugly dogs but the thing is that I don't think pugs, frenchies or bulldogs are ugly at all - I think they're adorable. You want ugly?

This is ugly:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/12/16/article-1339113-0C81AC84000005DC-395_634x908.jpg

I really really hate the lack of dignity in the small dog that insists on bullying and shouting down all other dogs. Some people think this ridiculosity is "cute," apparently? I think it's repugnant

i think it's sweet!

i like bolshy attitudes

re: pitbulls — There's this awesome pitbull I would visit every day in the summer who lives down the block who would always have his head stuck through the bars of the metal fence in front of the building. Once I was walking to the bus stop and I saw his owner walking him and the doggie recognized me instantly and jumped onto me, mortifying his owner.

"i hate yappy dogs" is just a bit of a let-me-prove-my-manliness/coolness cliché to me

It's Little Man Syndrome. If they were human those dogs would be like particularly repulsive contestants on The Apprentice.

I think it's more that people dislike things that show their fear so blatantly. Like a giant Great Dane is probably the most loving thing ever but probably not afraid of anyone.

Stayed with a friend in Spain who had a Yorkshire terrier, a German Shepherd and some kind of bloodhound, and the Yorkshire terrier was the undisputed leader. It was weird but possibly not uncommon.

http://www.we-love-dogz.com/boxer.jpg

Repping for boxers here. They're like a pug's older cooler brother. Manly without being thuggish.

I LOVE boxers (but the pug is just as cool ;p). There is one who lives next door and he's the cutest thing ever.

I esp love boxers with normal flappy ears like that one. :)

Love boxers as long as they belong to other people. :D I just couldn't make room for that much drool in my life, but I'd like to visit it occasionally.

Like when they've just been at the water bowl and then you sit down and they trot over to put their chin on your knee and gaze up at you...and that's the end of whatever your knees are wearing.

I think it's more that people dislike things that show their fear so blatantly. Like a giant Great Dane is probably the most loving thing ever but probably not afraid of anyone.

― mauricio kagel exercise (corey), Friday, December 17, 2010 10:03 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

otm

Since moving in with my gf and her Dane I am continually amazed what a giant lovey doofus he is, but some people are just fucking terrified of the dude. I don't know if it's possible to be licked to death but that's probably the extent of the damage he could willingly do. He does tend to knock things over occasionally.

also otm wrt drool

and yeah write in vote for Great Danes, I mean look at this guy

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs033.snc1/2593_1077365584842_1547316516_208999_4396073_n.jpg

My parents had to put their all-black standard poodle down yesterday because of lymphoma and total system failure, at only about 6 years old. He wasn't the best dog in the world, but he is grieved.

RIP Jackaroo.

Great Danes are fucking amazing. My uncle breeds them and has raised two regional champion dogs; they're just the best dogs.

my favourite BIG DOGS are newfies

http://www.jklgrooming.com/Images06/Photo22/Newfie_After_Groom.JPG

(American) Cocker Spaniel. I had mine for fifteen years, spanning my childhood through adulthood, and he was just the sweetest, most personable dog. Little lacking in brainpower (had problems with concepts like "glass is transparent" and "things that fall on the floor aren't always food", but he made up for it in temperament.

http://www.dogcastradio.com/images/AmericanCockerSpaniel.jpg

i grew up with shiloh shepherds, they are the fucking bomb

http://www.shilohshepherdtssr.com/images/Chewie-1.jpg

also huge

Yeah, have always liked the looks of your family sheps, gb.

Would bro down with that newfy. It'd be like having a small domesticated bear round the house.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1016/1286957573_671bbcd91a_o.jpg

motherfucker @ 6 months

no way

way

http://lossmaignewfoundlands.co.uk/images/family_144.jpg

OMG!!!

He's great.

<3 newfies too

awwwwwww they love each other

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5249/5268490339_e4f9489916_b.jpg

aaaaand here he is on thanksgiving

awwww

Would bro down with that newfy. It'd be like having a small domesticated bear round the house.

when i was 13 or so we stayed in vancouver w/family friends with a newfy puppy, and it kind of was!

I want a tiny house bear.

newfie = house bear
dane = house horse

I like dogs that galumph. I'd also like to be able to put lamps and ashtrays and things on tables, though. With a Great Dane, do you pretty much have to give up on things on tables?

food things (unless you are there to keep watch): yes
other things: mostly OK, his tail is not the destructor it could be, but there are infrequent collisions

keeping him off the couch/bed is a pain in the ass, esp since he grew up with a dedicated twin mattress to chill on that we don't have room for these days

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_LTWqGVqO5uQ/TNhXBVUY6SI/AAAAAAAAADc/7oh0wwS1VJ8/s1600/Afghan_Hound.jpg

This dog is such a loser. I bet it likes Vampire Weekend.

http://www.thecinemasource.com/moviesdb/images/Sarah_Jessica_Parker%20-%201%20-%20The_Family_Stone.jpg

my old dogs basically just hung out outside all day, tbh. my parents were really good about training them not to beg or get crazy food ambitions, so the only time they ever sniped food was if you really made it easy/tempting.

the only time it ever seemed like an issue was when they'd get all riled up and start jamming through the house, back and forth from the kitchen to the porch, because my mom had a china cabinet and i swear i could hear things breaking whenever they'd go by it. clancy, on several occasions, also beelined right for it if you made the mistake of putting a toy in front.

NB---we only had one dog at once, if that wasn't clear

http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00226/16-foonew-ashdown_226884t.jpg

also tully, the new one, is really dumb, esp compared to the old dog (who figured out how to open the back door). plus i honestly think he might have some bizarro brain damage. he refuses, REFUSES, to use stairs (really), and is occasionally terrified about passing through doorways. i actually turned up a possible neurological explanation for this while studying for school once but forgot it :-/

he's a sweetheart, though

Most favouritest dog breed

those vacuum cleaner dogs are a flippin' menace! i had to pry a rotten fish chunk out of a dog's gullet one time, getting stabbed under the fingernails by fish bones in the process. you'd think i'd at least gain some zombie werefish powers but no, all i got was a lousy infection (and what kind of person is just strewing fish parts through the park like johnny fishyseed, that is extremely uncouth)

and there are dogs who eat rocks!?

we are once again contemplating placing our younger dog back in a rescue.

while he is a silly lovebug and very affectionate towards all people, none of the training we have done has helped with his dog aggression. this means, in essence, that we cannot bring him anywhere— every time we leave the house, we have to check around to make sure there aren’t any dogs within a block or two. we cannot travel for more than a day or two without placing him in expensive dog boarding, and when we do travel with him, we need to bring a portable crate and tons of dog sleep aids because he will growl at every sound if we stay in a motel.

he is also strong enough that when he pulls, he has started hurting me— i am an active 39 year old, athletic and “jacked” even, and this motherfucker has really done a number on my shoulders.

weighing the positives against the negatives is just becoming more stark.

we also initially got him because we wanted our older pitbull type dog to have a friend— but now he is her only friend, because we can’t meet other dogs due to his aggression.

that's so sad.

have you seen a behaviourist at all? we did for our dog's aggression issues with mixed results but i do know other people for who it has been a game changer. we were also lucky our pet insurance covered most of it.

i'm so sorry, table, that's really hard. wish there were some surefire fix for traumatized dogs (and animals, and people), especially when there's so much love in them that gets short circuited by that fear response

sorry to hear that table, I can sort of relate, I hope it works out for you and the doggo.

it makes my doggo problems seem as trivial as they are, also wish you + the doggy gl, table.

yesterday my dog found a bone in the park. I was furious that there was a bone in the park - like what kind of scruffy bastard discards a steak bone in the park. Once he gets a bone I have to cut the walk short because there is no way he is going to relinquish that bone and he will growl at anyone who approaches while it is clamped in his gob. Which makes tying him outside the onestop while I get an ice cream milkshake not really an option and he becomes so hyper focussed on guarding his bone, the walk is effectively finished for him. I had to drop him back at home and venture back out again, after reminding him that he is not a vgb, he is in fact a bit of an arsehole!

I am fortunate that any bone Widget grabs in the park can be prised from his mouth in seconds, because he won’t listen to ‘drop it’. At this point I don’t even break stride during a removal. But this does mean that he can’t go off lead in our local garden squares, because they are full of people with picnics/lunches, who either litter or throw away huge amounts of food, which crows, foxes and gulls pilfer from the bins and wind up strewn across the park. Or there are bread morons leaving crusts for birds, who can’t read the many signs forbidding it.

We need to work on his selective reactivity on lead: there are a few local dogs he HATES and two of these dogs are owned by complete schmucks who think leads are for other dogs, or that it’s OK to follow us when we are obviously trying to avoid an interaction.

"Or there are bread morons leaving crusts for birds"

disgusting savages, I have nothing but contempt for these idiots.

"I am fortunate that any bone Widget grabs in the park can be prised from his mouth in seconds"

used to be able to do this, but now I could lose fingers - I guess he has won, but I'll get the last laugh when I finally drop him off to vets for castration. It has taken me way too long to make this decision but it is DEFINITELY happening now.

that pair of swinging troublemakers are history!

WRT bread morons, people confront them ALL THE TIME about ‘feeding the birds’ because rodents are the true beneficiaries plus you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a giant fucking rat just moseying through a central London park. Inevitably one of the foxes kills the rat, and Widget finds the desiccated corpse, circle of strife etc.

also putting food on the ground for birds, even if it is bird appropriate food makes them vulnerable to furry predators - especially this at the idiots who throw bread over their back fence in my local park - where there are always cats lurking about. And also I end up with a spoiled walk with my dog clamping a weeks old french bread loaf with green mold in his gob, like his life depends on it.

managed to get a castration date at the vets - one day before my birthday. This dog castration is my birthday present to myself!

tabes thats rough i hope it turns around for ye

thanks yall. we are just discussing it at the moment— like all aggressive dogs he has good days and bad days. he wants to be good but the animal fear/stimulation feedbacks he gets into are intense and hard to deal with.

but for example, this morning we had a lovely walk.

It's tough, for sure. I have a friend who works in a dog rescue, and the last two dogs she had were long-termers from that rescue. She gets up at 5am to walk her dogs every day when there's nobody around, then spends her free time thinking up enrichment games and toys for them so they can have at least some happy life. She and her partner never go away together.

The only fortunate thing is that there's been a bit of a mini-boom in privately owned dog parks here, where you can pay an hourly fee to run your dogs in a couple of acres with no other dogs around. They're expensive, and only accessible by car, and the rules around them are really strict, but they seem to be constantly booked up.

Yesterday Widget had a blast with my friend C’s tripaw Staffie girl who was happy to chase him across Hampstead Heath. She is really fit despite the lost leg and I’m so glad he’s found a dog of that breed that he likes.

Widget’s faves are anything shaped like a Pointer (Dalmatian/Vizsla/Weimeraner), other sighthounds, lurchers, Dachshunds, Jack Russells, Poodles, Border collies and Bernese mountain dogs. He is variable on spaniels (Tracer Hand’s Springer good, neighbour’s wayward cocker bad), cockapoos, Schnauzers, and Chihuahuas. He loathes bull/mastiff breeds, most Shepherds, retrievers on lead, and EBTs.

Nora has a new game. "I'm going to grab the other dog's toy and play keep away. For an hour." Like, she won't drop it, won't respond to commands, and the other dog just gets more and more agitated and heartbroken at her ruthless toynapping. If the other dog starts to lose interest, or feign interest, Nora gets this smug look on her face and starts squeaking the toy in her jaws. What a mean girl!

Ha, Teddy does that to Howie’s toys too… “that’s mine now, gonna play with it and make you sad!”

Widget showed me a new talent yesterday: he runs off with a small stuffed French bulldog toy in his mouth, and will play keepy-uppy with it, tossing it in the air and catching it over and over while going off at top whippet speed. If he does it next time, I’m filming it.

That sucks, table. I know there are some sites & apps for pet sitters and house sitters that will come to your dog while you're away, unless you don't trust them to keep your dog away from other dogs.

I also have an extremely problematic rescue dog, he's a little psychopath and has been one for the last 8 years. Has issues with other dogs, sure, whatever, although he's been able to make friends with small dogs with repeated exposure. The real issue is he's violent with people, especially us. Triggers include moving the wrong away, letting him sit on your lap, asking him to kennel up at the end of the night, doing any number of activities that may lead to other activities that signal the end of the night, and of course any sort of grooming. He's burned through every groomer in town and last week once again only got half-groomed, even loaded full of drugs (the resultant haircut is admittedly hilarious though).

We've tried behaviorists and lots of training approaches, but he'll always be crazy. Of course he's incredibly sweet when he's not being murderous (and two seconds after he's done biting he acts like nothing happened), but it feels like being in an abusive relationship.

Luckily he's only 11 lbs, if he was a large dog he surely would have been euthanized by now.

One of our dogs is a long-haired Patterdale terrier. The kind of dog that's more a type than a real breed. In Ireland at least, you still mostly find them killing rats on farms or going out hunting rabbits and whatnot. You can tell they're a serious kind of dog, because auld lads are always looking at Bittser admiringly and telling me what a grand little dog he is. "I bet he's a great ratter," they'll say. Or, "I bet he keeps you on your toes." He does not. He has his run around off the lead for about an hour in the morning, and sometimes he'll chase pigeons in the garden for a while in the afternoon, but otherwise he snoozes all day in our ancient cat's bed, and then cries at me if I don't put a blanket over him in the evening. I was saying this to a woman today and she said, "You obviously have the other kind of Patterdale. Probably why he was dumped." Her sister had a Patterdale for a while and had to give it away because it attacked her red setter and almost killed it.