DOGS

Yeah from what I've read it seems like the danger zone is kind of 8-12 months. They discover their love of the hunt and lose their instinctive need to be next to you.

Woody has done absolutely everything we've asked of him so far, he's been great overnight, he's pretty much entirely housetrained, sleeps in his crate, etc - EXCEPT for an addiction to biting - which we are trying to address.

Hopefully we can keep him onside once he turns into a surly wandering teenager

Obviously bitey puppy is connected to teething - give him frozen carrots and occasionally a frozen raw chicken wing on top of the usual ow! then turning away that trainers recommend.

yep frozen carrots is the best for teething bitey pups. My boy Douglas still eats carrots, although not frozen these days.

It also sounds like some play with dogs his own age would do Woody the world of good so he can learn that biting's not cool. Although, some dogs just lead with their mouths forever. Calzino will tell you that this is something labs love, in particular. They will just put your whole hand or your arm in their mouth and hold it there. Sometimes give it a little squeeze. Our terriers like to play biting games with us too. They don't do it to other people, just us.

What do you mean with the carrots? Like, when he starts biting you, give him a carrot? He would eat his weight in carrots in an hour!

I used frozen carrots as a regular in between meals thing to help with his teething + as a healthier, cheaper alternative to the processed chews. But perhaps not as a reward for biting!

yep Dougie loves a bit of arm in his huge mouth, but it's never a bite it's an expression of playful affection - he doesn't have a bite in him unless he's got a hambone. When he's got a hambone I don't interrupt him till he's finished, he gets a bit primal and edgy chewing on a hambone!

I wanted to get a good tug toy for Kitt, because he can be quite bitey, but decent rope toys seem to be hard to come by at the moment. I knotted up some lengths of old vest for him to yank about the place, but they don't last long.

Giving a bitey puppy a frozen carrot to bite is distraction/redirection and a totally normal part of training. Always do a yipe/no! and distract them with a toy or a permitted chewy thing. Also seconding any suggestion to socialise with other dogs who will tell Woody off the minute he annoys them with bitey face.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ei7hPYaXkAEViDt?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

rolling most 2020 dog images

I'm getting a bit of a bad rep as a foulmouthed yob in my local park amongst the posh people that drive there in SUVs. I keep telling these pricks that I'm not going to put my dog on the lead when he is neither a threat to people nor other dogs and just because their very poorly socialised dogs that never get let off the lead because they are a piss poor dog-owners - well that doesn't mean all the other dogs shouldn't have some free-running fun in this public area. I probably don't make the situation better by telling them to fuck off as my opening response and calling them entitled middle-class pricks, but I'm no good at responding calmly to arseholes. Buy your own fucking park if you want to make up the rules you fucking arseholes!

In most parks where I live, that is the rule. Still people sometimes let their dogs play off the leash. I don't make a big deal about it. My dog certainly couldn't be trusted to go off the leash. He was adopted from a shelter and was apparently not well socialized as a pup. But if other people let their dogs run around it doesn't bother me, assuming people are pretty good judges of their dogs, and the other dog can be trusted to not react if my poorly socialized dog decides to lunge and snarl (while on a leash of course).

For years, we've had dogs who walked quite happily off the lead. We had good control over them (not flawless, but really pretty solid), and we deliberately moved to a quiet area where the beach tended only to be busy during school holidays and weekend afternoons in summer. It was all great. Now that's all changed. Our beach is full of people all the time. They make faces at off-lead dogs, even though the local by-laws specifically state that dogs are permitted off the lead at our end of the beach. Worst of all, little Kittser, our newest dog, can NOT be off the lead around other dogs he doesn't know. He's wild, he shouts up into their faces, he doesn't come back, he is generally extremely annoying. It's not that he's bad with other dogs, because he's not. He's just bad at meeting other dogs. And he has absolutely no interest in learning any other way of behaving. It's usually fine, because I can spot other dogs coming before he can and get him back on the lead, but now that we're all locked down again and everyone is doing their 100 Days of Walking or whatever, the beach is just full of dogs all the time, most of them disappointingly leaded up and not wanting to play with any other dogs, never mind a crazy little Patterdale.
tl;dr: I deliberately moved to a quiet area so my dogs could have off-lead fun, and now everyone has followed me, I feel very hemmed in and walking my dogs is no fun.

I get so angry because this is happening in places I have previously been frequenting for ten years without any problems. Another bad result of the lock-down is a massive influx of new dog owners no doubt all calling me a cunt on some neighbourhood FB page! But life is shit enough as it is rn without having to get annoyed with annoying arseholes on a daily basis.

"little Kittser, our newest dog"

lol great name is that, I had a great Uncle from Kilbrew named Kittser!

the other day this arsehole got very upset that my dog and another free-running tiny Springer Spaniel he was playing with ran up to her dog - ffs! they just saying hello and she's yelling at me to keep my dogs under control and I can't be civil when people yell at me and I will tell them to fuck off 10 out of 10 times so it's never really going to get any better!

I know some dogs from shelters might have problematic behaviours and not be trusted to go off the lead or some dogs are just a bit stir crazy, but I've met owners who have brought them up from puppies, and it seems to me like they've had a bit of a mare one day or two and never let them off the lead since. For the first year with Douglas I was having multiple mares a week with him off the lead, but if you persist they get there in the end is my philosophy.

Yeah, I can't deal with any of the stress around Kitt's bad behaviour, from the noise of his constant barking to the worry that he'll try it on with the wrong dog and get hurt, or get a kick from someone, so I work very hard to make sure we don't have a mare. But then, I am a catastrophiser anyway.

I figure in another year or so he won't care so much.

But life is shit enough as it is rn without having to get annoyed with annoying arseholes on a daily basis.

Yeah, you're right. It is nice to have somewhere to have a whinge about it, though.

One thing that is quite cute is there's a guy who has a fancy radio-controlled car, and obviously his way of unwinding and getting the hell out of the house is to bring it to the beach and run it up and down at top speed. He is very happy to let my two small dogs chase it, too, so if he's down there, that'll give us a good high-speed five minutes. And there's a small kid called Jake who we meet sometimes. Jake is two, and he likes to chase the dogs around and fall in the sand. They bark at him whenever he falls over. He absolutely breaks his hole laughing at this, which is great fun for me and his mam.

lol I've bumped into a friendly big kid with high powered remote control car recently as well, although he was knocking on at least 30! On two of the days when Dougie had a mare he learned two important lessons the hard way, he learned that running into barbed wire or electric fences is neither big nor clever nor any fun.

Oh, Douglas. You prawn.

lol I had to keep him on the lead today because the fucker ran off on me twice trying to follow a little springer pal of his that was being kept on the lead due to a leg injury. When the other dog's owner said ffs! can't you keep him on the lead I was in full agreement this time. But at least she was a friendly face and added that when her dog has recovered they'll be both having a runaround together again. From now on I'm going to walk a bit longer to go where there is less chance of bumping into people, it's a bit of a pisser in the ice, mud and freezing cold conditions rn, but I think it will be worth it to avoid the dreaded humans.

the problem is there’s so little else to do. the walkers be walkin. woody is still a puppy so literally every other dog he sees he wants to play with for the rest of his life. going 50 yards can take half an hour.

thing is I'd never complain about an enthusiastic pup running around my dog, even if it is causing mayhem. It's these entitled wankers that yell with attitude about keeping your dog under control that get me on a war footing. Shit if anything I'm always delighted to see daft young pups running around like crazy!

yeah completely agree.

My dog is a big lad for a lab but he is very soft and 100% sociable off the lead, although he likes to act tough on the lead sometimes but it's a show, he will never attack another dog and more often than not he gets bullied by smaller dogs so I don't any reason he can't have a free run in the park.

Only two weeks to go before the whiplet can join the madness!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsYlAcDW4AA_3yw?format=jpg&name=large

it was nice to get away for a few days in Greenland last week.

Today's walk saw the return of the Miserable Old Couple Who Hate Dogs, who I haven't seen in ages (and had actually forgotten about). They hate anyone who has multiple dogs and/or loose dogs, so they will deliberately change direction in order to walk up the middle of your pack of dogs and then complain about the dogs "touching off" them. Today they left the path they were on and crossed to the path I was on with my dogs, and as they walked past me, the woman told me that Tess, my Jack Russell, had growled at her. Tess had not growled at her. They really are a miserable bloody pair.

people are so insane

the miserable arsehole quotient in the park has gone off the charts recently and with me not being very good at quietly walking from situations I've stopped going for a while now. Thankfully out further afield the paths are so muddy only fellow wandering weirdos seem to venture out that far and the few times I've stopped for a brief chat the main topic of conversation has invariably been: isn't the park full of miserable entitled dog-hating wankers these days.

there is an entire anti-dog subreddit, it is absolutely bizarre

I was thinking some of these people are so quick to mouth off and it often seems a like well practised routine they are going through, that they must have some kind of miserable arsehole group chat thing going on.

Sad story in the NY Times a few days ago about an unleashed dog in the Catskills that attacked another dog and had to be put down:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/well/family/dog-attack.html

sad story but really going in on "dogs should be leashed" when the story is about a clearly dangerous dog that was just left outside unsupervised in an unfenced yard as far as i can tell from the story?

Clearly there were other issues going on with the dog. It's sad though that dogs can be all sweetness and love with their families but turn into deranged killers with other strange dogs.

my dog's approach to other strange dogs is so nervously cautious and longwinded and polite. Some dogs are violent but when you have one that has never attacked another dog in it's entire life - you do feel it's worth putting some trust in them.

the one's he knows - then he just happily bounds up to them and runs around with them for a few minutes.

I wouldn't even bother getting a dog if my intention was either to keep it the lead all the time or like my arsehole neighbour - keep the poor boy in a cage.

I was terrified of dogs as a teenager because I was chased by one every other day as I walked to / from school across some fields. Now I have had my own dog I don't feel at all like this, but still think the farmers whose dogs chased me in the 90s were at best inconsiderate pricks.

I got savaged by a farm Alsatian when I about 6 years old in Ireland. It left scars on my hand and chest for years. I just happened to be walking past it when it was eating a scrap of bread and the fucker just went for me. My da's reaction was apologetic to the owner - because it must have been my fault and I never even got a fucking TB jab! That was one from the memory bank I used as additional justification not to go the cunt's funeral!

when I was a kid in the late 70's - early 80's there were a lot of feral dogs about. My mum used to carry biscuits in her pocket going off to work as a please don't kill me offering to them so she could make it to the bus stop!

I've been bitten by a few dogs, one that I loved and knew me well and just got to aggro when we were playing.

Even though that article in the Times contains a caveat at the end, it will inevitably lead to more anti-pitbull sentiment, and for that reason alone, I say fuck that article.

No one ever mentions the breed when it isn't a pitbull-type dog, and the reasons behind that are classed and raced, afaict, and I'm not having it.

The first Google results of articles about dog breed attacks in the US also utilize erroneous and falsely-construed statistics from an anti-pitbull propaganda site.

I'm not making this up.

That times article is fucked.

It’s a horrifying story. I live in a place (London) where dogs are only really leashed on sidewalks and footpaths and the rest of the time they run around. It seems to me that leads to better socialization. The author seems to be implying that all dogs should be leashed... whenever they are outside and might encounter another dog? That seems like a recipe for really poorly socialized dogs who are MORE prone to unexpected behaviour? Anyway I was shocked that the author casually mentions her brother actually KICKED the problem dog the first time he met him?! Because the dog “came at” hers. I dunno them whole story is a little weird. After this attack that has left her dog covered in blood the pit bull’s owner just.. brings the pit bull back inside? Everybody goes home? No conversation about insurance? Anyway I guess I’m biased because I love letting my spaniel run around off the lead but the idea that you can live in a cabin in the Adirondacks with your dog and need to keep him on a lead at all times feels absolutely mental.

when a dog is on the leash they develop an on the leash psychology are way more likely to bark or act aggressive at other dogs, off the lead is the only way they learn to socialise. Mine likes to occasionally act tough when he's on the lead but is much more cautious and friendly off it.

Where I live the only place where dogs are allowed to go off-leash is in a dog run. Not sure if they have those in London. It's just a fenced-in area inside a park for the purpose of dog owners bringing their dogs there and letting them off the leash. Outside of that, it's fairly rare to see a dog off a leash. Some people do let their dogs off the leash in other park areas, usually to play catch or something like that. There are also a few particular dogs who I sometimes see walking without a leash. One of them is a three-legged dog, I've seen numerous times with his owner. But those dogs always seem very well behaved and not at all threatening. It doesn't personally bother me, and I imagine people know their own dogs well enough to make the call. Where I live is a very dense urban environment though, where sidewalks are often narrow, congested and near busy streets with lots of traffic, so I imagine most people would want the extra control of a leash in any case. I think for most dogs who've been raised from puppyhood in an urban environment like this, who are used to meeting lots of strange dogs on the street, and who have probably almost never been in a serious dog fight, this is not at all unusual and the chances of anything more happening than the occasional heated exchange of barks and growls at the dog run are extremely low. For dogs raised in a rural environment or for dogs who spent some of their formative years as strays, who maybe have never worn a leash, who are naturally wary of any strange dog, I think this could be a very strange and threatening environment, and chances of a mishap are much higher. But people who adopt rescues kind of know what they signed up for.

You would hope, but it's often not the case. Some rescues are so keen to get the dogs off their books that they will give them into unsuitable homes, causing trouble for everyone. But that's one good thing about COVID: there are more people looking for dogs than there are dogs, so rescues can be a bit choosier.

There's a guy who lives near me who has a Malinois (Belgian shepherd) dog, the ones that are definitely the dog of choice these days for people who want to prove they can own a potentially dangerous dog. He did all the things you do with a dog like that when you want it to be antisocial: wouldn't ever let it near anyone while out walking it as a puppy, and shouted at it if it ever tried to interact with another dog. Now the dog is a young adult, and he walks it on crowded narrow pavements between his house and the beach by cycling on the path and letting the dog run behind him off-lead. Every time it stops to sniff something or somebody, he roars at it until it follows him again. One of these days it's going to run into the road to avoid someone coming out of their driveway, or another dog barking at it, and it's going to get hit by a car. And then he'll just get another one, because he's the kind of guy who only cares what his dog says about him, not what's best for his dog.

:/

my uncle had a belgian malinois named fiona but he lived way out in the middle of absolutely nowhere. apparently they are very loyal and their instinct is to protect their owner. he let it run around in the woods in his property and we asked him one time if he was ever worried it would just run off and he laughed and shook his head, like, that's the last thing in the world that would ever happen. he couldn't get the dog to ever leave him alone. but yeah they are huge and anybody who ever came close to my uncle would get some aggressive vibes from fiona (her name) until he told her to calm down. my kids lived in fear of fiona. and this was a very normal, socialized dog. can't even imagine what one who hadn't been treated well would act.

I should say, the dog is fine. I don't think he beats it or anything. Its attitude when following him is very much "I'd love to stay and chat to you, but I have to follow this clown around to make sure he doesn't hurt himself."

We took home this buddy last week. Though he needs some training, he is a very good little guy (8 months) and gets along famously with out 8 year old American Staffordshire very well— she's happier (and more tired) than she's been since we lived in the woods.

His name is Wiz Wit'.

https://i.imgur.com/5EvxZQB.jpg

good lord that’s an adorable photo.