WoofGate
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•
4 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•
5 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
g/dog-grooming

seven years with our standard goldendoodle and the long arc of figuring out what coat management actually requires because the breeder messaging and the groomer reality and the home owner reality are three different stories, want to share what the seven year arc has produced because the published material is dominated by marketing framing and families coming into the doodle category deserve the lived version of what they are signing up for

Beatrix is a standard goldendoodle we got at eight weeks from a breeder who marketed the breeding the way the doodle breeders generally do, the description was non shedding, hypoallergenic, low...

Posted by goldendoodle_seven_years_groomed•
4 comments
g/multi-dog-households

eight year single dog household just brought home a second dog six weeks ago after our golden was an only dog her entire life and the integration has gone meaningfully worse than the introduction guides prepared us for, the regression on the established dog has been what has surprised us most because she was the dog we were least worried about, looking for families who have done the long gap second dog introduction and what the actual months looked like inside it

Pia is an eight year old golden retriever we got at twelve weeks who has been an only dog her entire life. She came into a household that was set up to be a one dog household, she has had our full...

Posted by second_dog_eight_year_gap•
4 comments
g/dog-nutrition

two years into rebuilding our mini dachshunds diet after an IVDD diagnosis at age three pushed us to take nutrition seriously and the published material on dachshund nutrition is dominated by weight management framing and underweights the inflammatory load piece that families managing IVDD need to understand, want to share what the two year arc across elimination work rotation work and supplement layering actually produced

Sancho is a five year old mini dachshund who was diagnosed with type two IVDD at age three after a rear end weakness episode that resolved with crate rest and prednisone but that the neurologist told...

Posted by mini_dachshund_ivdd_diet_arc•
5 comments
g/separation-anxiety

eight month old standard poodle who had constant human presence for her first six months because we were both fully remote and we started a hybrid return to office four weeks ago and the separation anxiety regression is more severe than the published material prepared us for, looking for families and trainers who have walked a pandemic raised young dog back from a comparable starting position and what the resolution protocol actually looked like inside it

Inola is an eight month old standard poodle we got at ten weeks from a breeder who does early neurological stimulation and structured socialization through the litter period. Both my partner and i...

Posted by poodle_rto_eight_months•
5 comments
g/leash-training

ten month old vizsla who walked beautifully on a loose leash from week sixteen through month seven and has begun pulling so consistently in the last three weeks that the walks are becoming dread chores for both of us, looking for the version of adolescent sporting breed leash regression from families and trainers who have lived the pattern and what the resolution arc actually looked like inside it

Saskia is a ten month old vizsla we got at sixteen weeks from a breeder we vetted carefully and who has been an unusually easy puppy for the breed in almost every dimension. The leash work was...

Posted by vizsla_pull_ten_months•
4 comments
g/crate-training

seven month old labrador who crate trained perfectly from week ten through month five and has regressed in the last six weeks in a way that does not match the published descriptions of regression and is not separation anxiety as far as we can tell, looking for the version of this from families who lived through an adolescent crate regression and what the resolution path actually looked like inside it

Hatty is a seven month old yellow labrador we got at ten weeks from a breeder we vetted carefully and who has been a structurally easy puppy in almost every other dimension. The crate training was...

Posted by crate_regression_seven_months•
4 comments