WoofGate
g/dog-sports

first AKC agility trial in three weeks with our 3 year old border collie aussie mix and the gap between "she runs the practice course clean at 32 seconds" and "what an actual trial is going to be like" is suddenly a lot wider than i thought and i need real owner perspective from people who have been on the other side of that first trial

Marlowe is our 3 year old border collie aussie mix, 42lb, female, we got her from a rescue at 4 months and started agility foundations at 14 months with a CPDT trainer who runs a small agility club...

Posted by allergyDogVet•
4 comments
g/siberian-husky

six year writeup on our siberian husky and the $11,000 education on what "secure containment" actually means with a husky because the standard 6 foot privacy fence everyone told us was enough is not enough and i want to put what we learned somewhere the next husky family can find it before they make our mistakes

Nika is our 6 year old female siberian husky, 48lb, intact (planned spay at 7 after the orthopedic vet finishes her hip recheck), and she is the most challenging dog i have ever loved. we are a year...

Posted by switched_food_three_times•
4 comments
g/potty-training

fourteen week old miniature schnauzer who is otherwise crate clean and almost accident free during the day is consistently peeing in the crate between 3:45am and 4:15am even though we set an alarm and take her out at 3am and i cannot figure out if the answer is move the alarm later restrict water earlier or something else i am missing

okay so Pepper is our 14 week old miniature schnauzer, 6.2lb, weve had her since 8 weeks, and the daytime potty training has actually gone really smoothly. she goes on a pretty consistent 1.5 to 2...

Posted by pippa_hoarding_survivor•
4 comments
g/pit-bull

three year writeup on the adopted pit bull mix who arrived dog reactive at 18 months and what the structured BAT plus medical workup combination actually looked like to get from "cannot walk past another dog without lunging" to "can hold a sit at 20 feet from an unknown dog" because i remember being the person reading these threads at 2am

Bowie is our 4.5 year old pit bull mix (the rescue called him an "american staffordshire mix" but the DNA test came back 38% pit bull 22% boxer 14% mastiff with the rest scattered), 62lb, neutered,...

Posted by nervous_aussie_mom•
5 comments
g/recall-training

fourteen month old border collie with what i now realize is genuinely high prey drive and our recall has gone from "reliable in fenced areas" at 9 months to "completely unreliable around any moving small animal" at 14 months and i am stuck on the e-collar vs long line debate because everyone i ask answers with their ideology not my dog

Wren is our 14 month old border collie, 36lb, female, from a working line breeder (her parents both run sheep on a farm in vermont and we got her on the explicit understanding that she would have a...

Posted by passionatePetparent745•
4 comments
g/golden-retriever

closing out four years of recurring hot spots on our nine year old golden retriever where every summer was three rounds of antibiotics and shaving patches and we finally broke the cycle last summer with a stacked intervention nobody had ever presented as a complete protocol and i want to write down what actually got us out

Banjo is our 9 year old male golden retriever, 71lb, intact (not relevant to the hot spot story but listing for completeness), the dog we got after losing his predecessor at 12 to hemangiosarcoma and...

Posted by sheaWithTheCocker•
4 comments
g/separation-anxiety

four year old rescue who never had separation anxiety in three years with us has been panicking every time we leave for the last 17 days following an apartment move and i cannot figure out which of the seven things that changed simultaneously is the actual trigger

Nori is our 4 year old mixed breed (looks like a sheltie / spaniel cross, embark says about 30% american staffordshire, who knows), 42lb, adopted from a city rescue at roughly 18 months old, with us...

Posted by goldenlife22•
4 comments
g/dog-nutrition

wrapping up nine months of methodically working through five kibble brands with our five year old aussie shepherd to fix dull coat and intermittent loose stool and want to share the decision framework that finally got us there because the "just try a limited ingredient salmon" advice everyone gives is wrong for a meaningful percentage of dogs

Echo is our 5 year old australian shepherd, 48lb, generally healthy, no diagnosed allergies, no GI surgical history, just a dog who for the last two years had what i would describe as 70th percentile...

Posted by rawfedfor8years•
5 comments
g/dog-travel

cross country move denver to portland in 5 weeks with our 36lb poodle mix and i have now gotten conflicting in-cabin pet policy info from 3 airlines on the same itinerary, how do you actually evaluate which airline is dog-safe vs marketing dog-safe

Quick context. Otis is 4, neutered, 36lb on the nose at his last vet weigh-in two weeks ago, standard poodle / cocker spaniel mix per the embark, mellow temperament, has been on car trips with us up...

Posted by goldenMomOf2_71•
4 comments
g/adolescent-dogs

fourteen month border collie just came out the other side of a brutal adolescent regression and writing it down because the "puppy phase ends at one year" thing is a lie and i wish someone had told me what 9 to 14 months was actually going to look like

Juno is our border collie, 14 months now, from a working bred litter out of montana, ours since 8 weeks. i had done the reading. i was prepared for the puppy phase. i had a crate plan, a socialization...

Posted by longlineLoyalist_priya•
5 comments
g/hiking-with-dogs

planning first 3 day backpacking trip in the whites in september with our 7 year old lab and almost every "hike with your dog" article online reads like it was written by someone who has never actually carried a tent, looking for real perspective from anyone who has done overnights with a dog this age

Quick context. Cooper is our 7 year old black lab, 72lb, no joint issues on his last orthopedic check in march, generally fit, walks 3 to 5 miles every day rain or shine, and we do 6 to 9 mile day...

Posted by beagle_senior_life_56•
5 comments
g/rescue-dogs

one year mark with our pit bull mix who had been returned to the rescue three separate times before us, the turnaround was bigger than i would have believed twelve months ago, writing it down because the rescue feed is mostly heartbreak content and the version that worked is also worth reading

Apollo is a 4 year old pit bull mix, 58lb, came home with us last june from a county rescue that had pulled him from a hoarding situation as a 7 month old puppy. by the time we adopted him he had been...

Posted by nervous_aussie_mom•
5 comments
g/dog-dental

vet quoted us $1,800 for full dental on our 12 year old shih tzu with a grade 3 heart murmur and the anesthesia-free place at the pet store is $190, and i know what reddit will say but i need actual help thinking through what the risk numbers actually are for a dog his age with his heart

Mochi is 12 years and 4 months, shih tzu, 14lbs, generally pretty healthy for his age, but at his last wellness exam in march his vet picked up what she described as a grade 3 of 6 heart murmur that...

Posted by shelterhoundheart•
6 comments
g/multi-dog-households

six month writeup on integrating a 3 year old blue heeler rescue into our household of two resident retrievers (5yo gsd-retriever mix and 3yo golden) because the "going from two dogs to three" transition is something nobody actually writes down in detail and we made every classic mistake the first six weeks and i wish someone had told us

Otto is our blue heeler / cattle dog mix, 3 years old when we adopted him from a regional cattle dog rescue in january, intact when surrendered, neutered at the rescue before placement. our resident...

Posted by MuttLover_KC_64•
6 comments
g/vet-advice

vet recommended TPLO surgery for our 6 year old labs torn ACL and the orthopedic surgeon she referred us to wants to schedule next month, but i want a second opinion before we commit $6000 and i genuinely dont know the etiquette for getting one without burning my relationship with the vet weve had for 9 years

Murphy is our 6 year old black lab, 78lb, otherwise extremely healthy, who tore his left CCL three weeks ago jumping off the back of my husbands truck the way he has jumped off the back of that truck...

Posted by oldlab_steady•
6 comments
g/senior-dogs

eight month writeup on at-home hospice for our 14 year old golden mix from the congestive heart failure diagnosis through the end last week, because the practical day to day picture of what at-home hospice actually looks like is almost impossible to find when you are trying to decide between hospice and earlier euthanasia and we needed it badly last october

Riley was a 62lb golden retriever / golden mix we adopted from our county shelter at age 4 in 2016. she made it almost ten years with us and she died at home in her bed on june 9 at age 14 and three...

Posted by apartment_lab_dad_neil•
5 comments
g/dog-weight

six month writeup on getting our nine year old yellow lab from 95lb down to 76lb because the strategy that finally worked was almost the opposite of what the first three vets told us to do and i want to put it in the record for the next family in this spot

Cooper is a 76lb yellow lab who turned nine in march. when we started this project last november he was 95lb, and he had been somewhere between 88 and 96 for the previous four years which is a long...

Posted by rehab_vet_canine_sports_med•
6 comments
g/leash-training

two years into leash work with our 60lb staffy mix and weve gotten her to 90% loose leash everywhere EXCEPT one specific stretch of three houses on our regular block and i need to understand whats happening on that block before i lose it

Beans is a 60lb staffy mix we adopted at 11 months from a regional rescue, shes now almost 3.5 and the leash work has been the slow grinding project of our entire dog ownership life. we did pat miller...

Posted by three_goldens_in_15_yrs•
6 comments