WoofGate
g/advanced-training

one year into nosework training with our three year old standard poodle and want to share what the actual training arc looked like across the year because the published material on starting nosework focuses on the early imprinting phase and underweights how much the second six months differ from the first and what families and handlers need to understand about the long curve of building a real working scent dog at the recreational level

Olive is a three year old spayed female standard poodle, fifty four pounds, who we started in formal nosework training one year ago this week at a training facility that runs a structured progression...

Posted by lab_owner•
4 comments
g/dog-parks

two and a half year old rescue staffy mix who is friendly and well socialized in calm settings but has begun showing clear stress signals at our local dog park in the last three months, the published advice on dog park etiquette treats the question as binary should you go or not and does not address the middle case of a dog who can handle some park visits but not others, looking for families and trainers who have navigated the selective dog park dog and what the actual decision framework looks like inside it

Tessa is a two and a half year old spayed female staffy mix we adopted at fourteen months old from a regional pit bull rescue who pulled her from a southern state shelter after she had been there for...

Posted by rehabvettech_Steph•
4 comments
g/senior-dogs

six months in with our ten year old senior rescue beagle from a rural county shelter and writing down what the first ninety day diagnostic workup actually turned up because the published guidance on adopting senior dogs underweights how load bearing that early workup is and how much it determines whether the next two years go well or whether you spend them reacting to findings you could have caught at intake

Biscuit is a ten year old neutered male beagle we adopted in early december from a rural county shelter in the eastern part of the state where he had been surrendered by a family who could not keep...

Posted by nervous_aussie_mom•
5 comments
g/dog-nutrition

twelve year old miniature schnauzer male got cleared this week to transition off royal canin renal support after eighteen months on it because the latest bloodwork brought his BUN and creatinine back into normal range, our vet is supportive of the transition but is being cautious about which maintenance senior food we move him onto and i want to hear from owners whose dogs have walked this transition successfully because the published material almost universally treats the prescription renal diet as a forever decision and underweights the question of how you actually come back from it

Pickle is a twelve year old neutered miniature schnauzer male, twenty one pounds at a body condition score of five out of nine, on royal canin renal support T for the last eighteen months after a...

Posted by akc_agility_judge_15yr•
6 comments
g/australian-shepherd

three years in with our working line australian shepherd female from a stockdog kennel and looking back at the noise sensitivity arc we walked through her first twenty months, the conventional advice we received around desensitization and counter conditioning protocols had the right tools but the wrong framing for a working line dog, posting the version of the resolution that actually held because the published material on noise sensitivity in working breeds underweights the breed cognition piece in a way that cost us six months

Juniper is a three year old working line australian shepherd female we brought home at ten weeks from an ASCA stockdog kennel where her dam and sire were both active trial dogs on cattle. We were not...

Posted by sheaWithTheCocker•
5 comments
g/dog-injuries

seven year old labrador male with a confirmed complete cranial cruciate ligament rupture on the right stifle diagnosed this monday, primary care vet has referred us to a board certified surgeon for TPLO consultation and our rehab vet has separately offered a structured conservative management protocol, looking for the version of this decision from families and vets who have specifically walked through the seven to nine year old large breed dog presentation because the published material conflates the young dog and senior dog versions of this call

Murphy is a seven year old neutered labrador male, eighty four pounds at a fit body condition score of five out of nine, no orthopedic history before this week, no pre existing conditions, no NSAID...

Posted by passionate_dogdad_794•
6 comments
g/border-collie

four years in with our working line border collie female from a herding kennel and looking back at the stimulus addiction over arousal arc we walked through, the conventional behaviorist advice we received for the first eighteen months named the pattern wrong in a way that cost us a year of mistakes, posting what the actual resolution looked like because the published material on border collie over arousal underweights the home environment restructuring piece that ended up being the load bearing element of the work

Sable is a four year old working line border collie female we brought home at twelve weeks from an ABCA trial kennel where her dam and sire were both active trial dogs. We were a first time border...

Posted by bc_year4_stimulus_arc•
5 comments
g/adolescent-dogs

sixteen month old german shorthaired pointer whose recall was solid from month four through month thirteen in every environment we tested and has come apart in the last ten weeks specifically in field settings while remaining intact at home and in suburban environments, looking for the version of this adolescent sporting breed recall regression from families and trainers who lived it because the published material does not name what changes when the breeds working drive activates

Beck is a sixteen month old german shorthaired pointer male we brought home at ten weeks from a hunt test breeder who has been a real partner on the foundation work and remains available when we have...

Posted by gsp_16mo_field_recall_q•
6 comments
g/golden-retriever

seven years in with a field line golden retriever on a thirty acre rural property and the daily and weekly routine that actually keeps this dog physically and mentally healthy is meaningfully different from what the consumer golden retriever content describes because almost all of it is written for show line house dogs and the field line on land is a different breed of golden in functional terms

Halsten is a seven year old field line golden retriever from a small AKC field line kennel in the northeast, weighed in at sixty one pounds at his last vet visit which is lean for a male GR and is...

Posted by field_line_gr_7yr_rural•
5 comments
g/puppies

twelve days into our first puppy ever with a nine week old lab golden mix and i am writing this at four am from the kitchen floor because the night crying has gotten worse not better and i want to know if the things i have already tried are the right things or if i am making the textbook week two mistakes that nobody warned us about

Soren is a nine week old lab golden mix from a small in home breeder thirty miles from us. We met both parents, the breeder kept the litter with the mom and the other pups until eight and a half...

Posted by first_time_lab_mix_9wk•
6 comments
g/boxer

two full summers in north texas with our four year old working line boxer figuring out heat management and here are the specific gear food and schedule recommendations that actually held up across both years because the generic heat tolerance advice you find online underweights how brutal the body composition of a brachycephalic working drive dog makes the texas summer for them

Brody is a four year old working line boxer male, seventy five pounds, lives with us in north DFW where summer runs from late april through mid october and we see one hundred plus daily highs through...

Posted by boxer_dfw_year2_heat_protocol•
5 comments
g/behavior-issues

twenty six months in with our fear reactive belgian malinois rescue from a county shelter and we walked past a labrador inside the dog park parking lot under threshold without a redirect or a meltdown for the first time this week and i want to write down what the actual arc looked like because the milestone posts skip the long unsexy plateau and regression middle that was the entire project

Vexa is a belgian malinois we pulled from a county shelter at fourteen months. She came with a fear reactive presentation, growl lunge and air snap at any conspecific within roughly thirty feet,...

Posted by malinois_rescue_26mo_in•
6 comments
g/dog-sports

closing out my third season in AKC agility with our sheltie who finally titled MX and MXJ at the trial weekend and writing down what the foundation work actually looked like across the first eighteen months because the run reviews and trial reports dominate the sport content online and underweight the unsexy ground work that decided whether we ended up here or whether we plateaued in excellent like most of our novice cohort did

Saturn is a sheltie from a small working sport breeder in vermont and she is now four and a half and finally has the MX and MXJ titles next to her name after three seasons of trialing. i started her...

Posted by sheltie_agility_mxj_finally•
5 comments
g/dog-dental

twelve year old shih tzu with grade three periodontal disease and a grade two over six cardiac murmur with stage B1 MMVD on echo, our vet is recommending a full COHAT under anesthesia within the next two months and i am wrestling with the risk benefit in a way that the published material is not helping me think through cleanly, looking for the version of this calculation from owners and vets who have specifically navigated dental work in a senior small breed with a known cardiac finding

Daisy is twelve and a half and she is my first dog so the senior medicine piece is all new territory for me. We have been brushing her teeth a few times a week since she was three, our vet had warned...

Posted by shihtzu_mom_dental_decision•
6 comments
g/hiking-with-dogs

closing the loop on my first full backcountry season with our young aussie and writing down the conditioning arc and the trip planning learnings because the published trail dog material reads like a gear list and underweights the piece that actually determined whether each trip worked, which was the slow build of cardiovascular base and trail miles across the spring rather than anything we bought

Pippin is five and this was the first season i finally pushed our trip ambitions into the range i had wanted since we got him at ten weeks. we did two overnights, four long day trips with elevation...

Posted by aussie_backcountry_pnw•
5 comments
g/basic-training

seven month old border collie aussie mix whose stay was rock solid at five months and has fallen apart over the last four weeks in a way that the published adolescent regression material does not quite describe, looking for the version of this from handlers who have specifically lived adolescent regression in a working bred herding dog and what the rebuild actually looked like inside it

Juniper is our first herding breed and she is a seven month old border collie aussie cross from a working farm litter in oregon. we picked her at nine weeks specifically because she was the puppy who...

Posted by bordercollie_mix_firsttime•
6 comments
g/dog-travel

fourteen day cross country move with our eleven year old change averse beagle and the long arc of figuring out what travel with an anxiety prone senior dog actually requires because the published travel guides are calibrated to dogs who handle change well and the dog who finds change difficult needs a structurally different multi day approach, want to share what the fourteen days looked like and what we would do differently if we had to do it again

Quintus is an eleven year old beagle we got at eight weeks who has been a change averse dog his entire life. He has been the dog who needs three days to adjust to a new dog bed in a familiar room, the...

Posted by cross_country_senior_beagle_move•
5 comments
g/recall-training

two year old border collie aussie mix who had functionally bombproof recall from month five through month eighteen in our former suburban neighborhood and has become meaningfully less reliable in the four months since we moved to a rural property with regular deer and rabbit traffic, the recall is not gone and is degrading in a pattern that worries me, looking for families and trainers who have walked the suburban to rural transition with high prey drive dogs and can tell me whether this is normal regression that requires patience or structural failure that needs immediate structured intervention

Atticus is a two year old border collie aussie mix we got at ten weeks from a working line breeder in our former suburban region. We did the recall work the way the published protocols and our local...

Posted by rural_relocation_recall_degradation•
5 comments