DOGS

shut up, cat lover ;)

Just putting facts on the table.

you clearly don't understand this revive

Studies show that dogs reduce stress, anxiety and depression, ease loneliness, encourage exercise and improve your all-around health.

^^

It might be some boilerplate spiel quoted from a Big Canine propaganda site, but this is all basically true. I didn't properly realise how crucial my dog was to me keeping together until my last one passed away. They don't do statistics on how many people are saved from bad mental health predicaments by dogs. The number of unlucky fuckers killed by them is statistically negligible. It's 40 odd a year in the US.

really been feeling this as I take care of the house while my wife is gallivanting around being retired, if the dog wasn't here I would be a mess

Pets in general do good things for your wellbeing (I would say they do the above bar encouraging exercise) but looking at the Real England thread posts from last week this morning tells me there is a dark side to dogs.

The brackets meant to say cats do the same bar exercise

There are some days where it feels like at least half of my total steps were getting up to let the cat in or out every five minutes or sprinting across the room to stop him yeeting a full glass of water into oblivion

Not that I would recommend this course of action but one time I accidentally split a bag of cat litter because I was thinking about Pedro Martinez pushing Don Zimmer over and it took me ages to clean up (and it was a 20kg bag too, no bueno).

I mean that and all the hoovering you have to do to keep their fur from taking over your house.

xp btw we did have a cat fountain for their hydration but after they would routinely come and drink from cold water glasses set down for dinner, we replaced it with a regularly refreshed glass for this purpose and I’d say they prefer it

We had a fountain for Richie and he would just monomaniacally dismantle it and then tip it over the second he saw it, I've rarely seen any mammal more obsessively committed to a single task, it was just destroy on sight

Regular human drinks are a relatively simple paw in the glass and hoik it to wherever its fate takes it for him. He just wants liquids to be free

the battle against fur can never be truly won. If I don't vac up at least twice a day it's a hair pit with doghair managing to get into everything including dinner. At least I won the battle against fleas. I had a recurring problem with them during the mad heatwave summer, fleabombed their asses out of my home.

a good brush twice a week withone of them metal toothed brushes can do a ot of good during the worst of the season ime

Nora sheds copiously, even with brushing. I brung her over to a friend's last week and even two hours in the space meant a sweep-up as we left.

looking at the Real England thread posts from last week this morning tells me there is a dark side to dogs.

All that news event showed to me is that there is a dark side to humans, that guy should never have been allowed to own a dog let alone several

I try to get 12k steps daily and Widget is very good for that.

xp my aquaphiliac runs to watch me do the washing up every evening, it’s very cute. He’s crazy about bubbles.

Calz, our vets said there was an unusually stubborn group of fleas doing the rounds which they blamed on fox fleas (?) indorex yr only man ime

bloody fox fleas!

I do the flea brush every morning before I feed him. If I find one I'll put a Nitenpyram tablet in breakfast. Have not seen one in over 6 months now. He used to seriously growl at me when I flea brushed, but now he associates the routine with getting fed and wags his tail when I get the flea brush out.

"All that news event showed to me is that there is a dark side to humans"

otm. Some dogs can attack people without warning, but most dogs will warn you by growling if you if you are crossing a boundary, like for example stroking them while they are eating. The common denominator with dogs that kill people seems to be that the owners are brain dead macho arseholes.

Yeah, but they happen to own dogs specially bred to be aggressive who are nearly impossible to get off a person - or animal - that they’ve locked onto.

no bad dogs, only bad dog owners

I'd like to think if I brought up an XL Bully from puppyhood it would grow into a very good dog and NOT kill anybody. But tbh I wouldn't do that because they do make me nervous.

And yeah it’s not their fault they exist in that form, that’s 100% on humans for breeding them. Goes for every pedigree animal with features that makes life difficult for them too. 😞 They’re scary irl just cos you know what they can do.

I've met the loveliest pitbulls, German shepherds, rottweilers etc. And I've met others that I've known not to go near. Dogs reflect their owners.

Meeting a lot of dogs at the beach, I'm convinced that the deadliest ones would he the tiny mean blokes if they were transmogrified into the size of a German shepherd for a day

I had a brief encounter with an XL walking past my neighbour's garden when she was having a bbq, someone had left the gate open and there was a guest with one strolling around the garden and it looked out the front at my dog, briefly. My dog was barking and acting like an arsehole and the XL was the chill one in this encounter. The owner quickly shut the gate while my dog was acting up. Nothing happened, yet still they make me nervous.

I've got a sweetheart Staffie that I adopted about a year ago. She's small for a pitbull but sometimes when we're out for a walk people still cross the street to avoid having to walk near her. I just have to laugh because she's an adorable little cuddlebug who's incredibly gentle with humans.

https://i.ibb.co/kQbyDbg/IMG-20230520-141010563.jpg

Staffies epitomise the bad owner/bad dog vice versa example! Thankfully 99% of people are good owners and can confirm most staffies are lovely cuddlebugs (if a bit intense about it). Lovely looking girl!

https://i.postimg.cc/5NpmJYTM/20240213-083525.jpg *Peach's bored face after hitting her daily killing quota*

The worst part is all the clean up.

I showed her your posts xyzzzz__ and said she could have one more spite killing today in recompense for your bad manners on this thread

My daughter has a Staffie, she's such a sweetheart but she looks fearsome.

Our pittie/German short-haired pointer mix looks a little intimidating as well, but she's so gentle and, well, old.

Pix are all so lovely you have to really work hard to find a dog that isn't adorable in some way. (Please don't post ugly Chinese cresteds unless they're yours.)

Here's my boy in a characteristic pose

https://pasteboard.co/8wdvU99umpAi.jpg

Dag nab it

https://pasteboard.co/8wdvU99umpAi.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/d0WfnyYc/Larry.jpg

looks like a black lab

.. and adorable obv

Appearances can be deceiving, but not in this case.

crossed paws is always endearing!

Guy looks like he just put in a big shift of being a dog

He has a habit of pressing his head into me or putting his front paws on my leg. It's really sweet.

my murderous little Roux Paul caught in the act

https://i.ibb.co/1Zzmvvr/IMG-20231231-111708268.jpg

love them fingers!

https://i.postimg.cc/pVQ614xB/20240116-161936-IMG-4555.avif
Peach having a good time at the beach yesterday, mere moments before she painted the sand red

I've never taken one of my dogs to a beach. It was practically impossible like, so they always spent my Newquay holidays in a prisoner cell block h kennels :(

I've never taken mine to forests or to see cows like yours. All good boys and girls live different, equally fulfilling lives as long as theyre loved. Sorry you couldn't make it work though, it's never a good feeling locking your friend away for a time, even if there is a million promises (probably fufilled) of their hapiness

freaking Target, i bought this litter from them one time that did not say ~anywhere~ on the packaging that it was scented but it WAS scented! a disagreeable but mild enough detergenty aroma that became an unbearable stench once my beloved fluffmuffin had introduced the slightest moisture to it. i brought the half-empty jug back to the store and explained that i cannot be having smells like that in my miniature apartment and can i please return this substandard kitty litter, but the customer service rep had to recite some esoteric clause to the return policy that the item had to be at least 3/4 full or they'll not accept it. whatever, the policy's the policy and i try not to make csr's lives worse than they already are by arguing so i brought the jug back home, refilled it with the used litter, hauled it to target again and got my goddamn money back

which i promptly spent on better litter of course. Tidy Cats Free & Clean unscented low dust clumping litter is (pricy, environmentally destructive) g.o.a.t. on god, even if you miss a day, even if you have to be away for a few days and the scoundrel you left on dooty "couldn't get around to it" you'll never catch a single stinky whiff, c'est incroyable!

these tales of stinky cat houses are illustrative of people failing their cats, not of any inherent feline defect -- at least, not an exclusively feline defect. you try peeing in a box of sand for a month and never cleaning it out! the resultant miasma is not "human smell" but the smell of accumulated excreta + dysfunction.

100/100 times I will take an argument over 10 pounds of someone's piss-clumped litter, FWIW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3VZDRfpypw

i had sifted out the solids, come on, i am not a monster, merely devious

freaking Target, i bought this litter from them one time that did not say ~anywhere~ on the packaging that it was scented but it WAS scented! a disagreeable but mild enough detergenty aroma that became an unbearable stench once my beloved fluffmuffin had introduced the slightest moisture to it. i brought the half-empty jug back to the store and explained that i cannot be having smells like that in my miniature apartment and can i please return this substandard kitty litter, but the customer service rep had to recite some esoteric clause to the return policy that the item had to be at least 3/4 full or they'll not accept it. whatever, the policy's the policy and i try not to make csr's lives worse than they already are by arguing so i brought the jug back home, refilled it with the used litter, hauled it to target again and got my goddamn money back

which i promptly spent on better litter of course. Tidy Cats Free & Clean unscented low dust clumping litter is (pricy, environmentally destructive) g.o.a.t. on god, even if you miss a day, even if you have to be away for a few days and the scoundrel you left on dooty "couldn't get around to it" you'll never catch a single stinky whiff, c'est incroyable!

these tales of stinky cat houses are illustrative of people failing their cats, not of any inherent feline defect -- at least, not an exclusively feline defect. you try peeing in a box of sand for a month and never cleaning it out! the resultant miasma is not "human smell" but the smell of accumulated excreta + dysfunction.

I take care of my dog's excretions with regular trips to the outdoors and a bag on hand

Glad you got some good unscented low dust clumping tidy litter for your not-dog animal