Our puppy got giardia twice in year one, it sucks but for some reason our dog “grew out of it”. Not sure why because she still eats and drinks random stuff outside all the time but it doesn’t seem to make her sick anymore.
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Our pup (13 weeks) eats literally everything she can find off the ground. Grass, sticks, mulch, literal rocks, paper, plastic, metal, cigarette butts, everything. She just had some insane diarrhea yesterday that I assume was caused by something she ate–normally we’re good about pulling things out of her mouth but we must have missed something. She seems OK today so I’m hoping things are back to normal.
Also holy shit is she growing fast.
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Something I haven’t seen mentioned yet is getting your dog accustomed to having their nails clipped.
I do my dog’s myself and it’s a real battle. She”s a rescue so I missed out on the puppy brainwashing stage.
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Yea good point, we started familiarizing her with being touched around her nails by the clipper pretty early which seems to have worked out. We’ve actually clipped em twice so far and she’s been pretty chill about it. Lots of treats and soothing words.
Another challenge is bathing–we thought she was comfortable with it but once we got her soaped up she started freaking out. We still had to hold her in the tub and rinse her off so I think she got a bit traumatized by the experience and we’ll probably need to reintroduce it.
Same with cleaning teeth.
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How often are you doing this?
I brush my dog’s teeth every day. When she was a puppy (she’s over 8 years old now) we were totally negligent about her dental hygiene and she has long term dental issues now. Her teeth are still functional and generally healthy but her gums are not as healthy as they should be and she has a permanent base layer of plaque/tartar that makes her gums sensitive. It’s important to start good dental hygiene early because if you end up in our situation you have either a daily task to fight the plaque to a draw or you have to take the risk/expense of a surgical procedure with anesthesia to have the plaque ground off by a vet.
- Had a puppy play date with a neighbor in their backyard ~4 days ago. That dog ended up getting sick and confirmed has parvo. My dog is vaccinated but I’m still just a little bit worried since we did the vaccinations ourselves. It is very contagious and COVID-19 has me a little on edge with this fact atm, but the little fella seems to be having a good ole time and only burped up a little water in the past few days. Looks to be asymptomatic otherwise.
- re: brushing teeth: the article my vet provided said to do it every day, but while teething the gums may be sore and it can be tough to brush them. The sample toothpaste they gave us is poultry flavored, which is absolutely repulsive to me, but puppo seems to love it
- Doggo loves to eat all the rocks and mulch when on walks. I’m always watching to make sure to respond by stopping him and sticking my fingers in his mouth to pull them out asap. I avoid certain parts of the walk now because of the rocks
- Picked up a bell to train the dog to ring when he needs to go out on Sunday. Today he has already rang the bell twice and peed/pooped both times. Dude is a fucking genius. Love this quality of life upgrade instead of him just biting when he needs to go out
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Yeah bell on the backdoor is an awesome QoL upgrade
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Quick tip that may or may not have worked for me - I gave my pup treats when she was young whenever she was just laying around the house as I was trying to train her to not be a spaz in the house. Seems to have worked as she’s pretty lazy in the house but will run for hours outside. But, she is a standard poodle and that may contribute to her not being a spaz.
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Wish I could train someone to give me treats for laying around the house
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Biden be sending dem checks yo.
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Dogs, babies and people over the age of 90.
Jakes blood protein is up to 5.4, 5.5 is normal. We are dropping his steroid dose from 10mg to 7.5 per day and recheck in a month. He’s packed on a pound which is lot for him. An awesome awesome report !
Updates need pics. Jake the IG and Poppy the Chiahuahua.
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This is Bumpus. She wandered onto our property 11 years ago as an emaciated young stray. I told the kids not to feed that mutt or we’d never get rid of it. Two days later they said “remember that time you said we could have a dog when we lived in a place where it could run free? That’s now.” So we gave her a bath and she didn’t bite anybody and I bandaged a wound and she didn’t chew it off. She’s been with us ever since and has been wonderful. Years later, daughter revealed she’d fed her english muffins against orders. Good job. Now she (the dog) has bad arthritis. But she’s earned pampering just by being her sweet, affectionate self (though she could shred a squirrel in one second).
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I give my dog Dasuquin and it’s
moar money but:
https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/nutrition/dasuquin-dogs-joint-pain/
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How Bumpus got her name. So we’d had her some days with no name. I was raking leaves when some neighboring huskies confronted our big puppy and she spun around and plowed into the garage door at full full strength, then writhed on the ground squealing in pain. I’m thinking, hmm, Bumps. Bumper. BUMPUS! Aka Bumpy.
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Wait until the herding instincts kick in.
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Cute pic. Happy Hannukah!
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I’m relying on the discourse app to tell me this hasn’t been posted yet. Aussies love shit like this:
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