Crazy animal lady thread - sperg about your pets here

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everybody in Portugal said:
My dog was an 'only' for his almost three years of being alive, but we just emigrated and now he has three brothers and sisters and a home in the mountains to roam with them. I was worried he wouldn't adjust to having company as he doesn't always get on with male dogs and one of the siblings is a boy, but they're all getting along like a house on fire, and he's just loving having the extra space to run and play with them in.
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That's amazing!! So glad he is so happy with his new friends and the extra space.

I'd love to move somewhere with more space and increase my pack.

Clovis said:
Soft pet steps are fairly cheap on aliexpress or similar if you want to make more places accessible.
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That is a great idea, thank you. I really hate seeing her struggling to get onto our bed and the sofa. I'll bring more stimulation to where she is too and see if she's receptive.
 
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My Bessie girl went to the big grassy paddock in the sky today 😢
 
I think I made today's Find It course too hard. Hid one of those sliding block puzzle toys in a box and closed the box. The dog is currently pouting because I refuse to help her open the box. If she's smart enough to identify what to unplug for maximum annoyance, she's smart enough to open a box.

I'm probably going to regret letting her learn how to open that box. Update: I gave in. She would have needed help reaching the toy anyway.
 
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I've noticed the smol boi has rounded canines recently, he has a ball obsession so much so i have to change the word i use for his ball, he's to fucking smart for his own good.

I'm worried it's going to get worse he turns 5 next month, so not ancient but definitely not a puppy anymore, we limit his ball time to a couple of throws a day as a treat for him or when we have to do maintenance like trimming his nails or checking his mouth (works great to train him before the vet has to check).
Pet Tax
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My senior dog has added a new step to her nightly routine: when I say "it's time for bed", she now comes by my bed for one last pet/hug before going to sleep. God I wish they lived longer.
 
It’s been a crappy couple weeks here on the TractorFarm, after losing my highland Bessie we also lost Dixie Girl last week 💔
 

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My dog seems to be allergic to grass. Guess I better find dog shoes big enough for a mastiff. Good thing she'll let me put anything on her if I tell her it makes her look pretty.
 
Agent Abe Caprine said:
My dog seems to be allergic to grass. Guess I better find dog shoes big enough for a mastiff. Good thing she'll let me put anything on her if I tell her it makes her look pretty.
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They make dog booties for every big size, but any small doggo feels impossible to find. Also pet tax i love Mastiffs they are such big babies.
 
This was originally meant to be a reply to the Polissa thread, but I decided to post it here instead because I don't want to shit it up any further with excessive cat sperging.

Berserker Armor said:
We have been throwing around feral here a lot more than we should. The term “pseudo feral” is a good way to describe these cats. They WERE pets once and can be again with the right environment. They have the potential to be able to be taken to a rescue, hopefully adopted given time in the right environment to become a every day house cat (who would need litter training bad)..
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When I used to work with a rescue we used the term semi-feral to describe what you're talking about. The only reason we use "feral" as a catch-all that may not be technically correct is because if you're dealing with strays or hoarding/neglect situations it usually takes a fair bit of time and work before you can even tell the difference. It's not necessarily a clear cut distinction either, at least not in the city or the suburbs where even strays are often at the very least used to hanging around near human settlements and it is possible they may come around somewhat. They usually won't become lap cats or be happy unless they can come and go as they please, though, so sometimes you're basically just doing TNR and providing food/litter for a cat that happens to hang around your property a lot. Once they've been fixed they calm way the fuck down usually which also helps. Polissa's oldest living cats likely are semi-feral after the level of neglect they have experienced, but Polissa essentially locked them in the hoarded out trash dungeon and fucked off to Memaw's almost immediately, the younger cats and certainly any born after that I would say are more than likely properly feral. Any human interaction they've had would be with Josh, and a lot of that was probably hiding while he broke things in a tard rage.

My role with the rescue was fostering some of our most challenging semi-ferals or cats that were full feral as far as we could tell but young enough that we thought they had potential. The goal was to make them adoptable. Most of the ones I had eventually were. I kept a couple myself because they took to me very well but they wouldn't trust any new people or new situations and I did not think attempting to rehome them again would be appropriate. A few were too sickly for anyone to be willing to adopt them due to their needs, and passed away while I fostered them long term. I also had one manage to rip a hole in a window screen and fuck off outside, he was pretty tame but apparently happier as a garage cat. I miss fostering a lot, but I adopted a crippled cat that does not get along well with other felines and has a history of severe neglect, it would not be fair to her. I was lucky that the cat I had back then was insanely chill and friendly to cats and humans alike, yet the other cats all deferred to him with no aggression or scrapping on either side. I think he had a calming influence on them and deserves a lot of the credit for modeling how a house cat should behave.
 
vanilla_pepsi_head said:
They usually won't become lap cats or be happy unless they can come and go as they please,
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This is very applicable to semi-ferals. I deleted my own sperg about TNR and ferals. It got me using about it. Especially one cat in particular.
We had a really large colony in my neighborhood where I grew up. We live in Appalachia. We are rural but a suburby small rural town. Idk the state of it now as my grandma and the neighbor who were the heads of taking care of them are both gone. Most of it was almost always cats that were dropped off or thrown out of the house when they weren’t cute kittens anymore. A bulk of our cats came from this. One of the most interesting “cat dumping” stories was a family of a Manx cat breeder in our town deciding instead of rehoming her cats to just let them go.. by bringing them to the other side of town. Our side. So it introduced Manx genes to the pool of the colony. They released like 6 adults cats and two litters of kittens. This was when we started taking care of the colony. One of the kittens that was released by this family was my oldest cat who passed a while back.

I will give our colony this. Everyone was well taken care of and a lot of them lived a while. My grandma and our neighbor both took who they could to the vet when they needed to go. One of the first semiferals females we TNR’d (primary brood mother of kittens) we guessed was definitely double digits when she passed. Her name was trash bag… my gramma and our neighbor didn’t like the names I gave out. The cat I am about to talk about his name was B.I.G

Just. A lot of them were very abused before or even after being dumped. My grandma’s cat was one of those. Dropped off as young adult cat. We figured he was a good one we could get a home for but he was pretty scared, one of the most fearful and then he disappeared for a while.. then he reappeared really messed up. Messed up ear, looking battered (old holes from BB pellets) and it was really clear what happened. We TNR’d him. Vet said someone def fucked him up. Figuring he wouldn’t come around we deemed him feral fully. He would come to the feeding station on our porch the most. Big Tom cat with a messed up ear.

It took about two years for any of us to even get close. Another 2 to even touch him. About a year before he would come into the house and not be totally afraid or run in then out. Grandma tried to keep most cats inside (strong advocate for this but it wavers in the situation) that she did take in but had a few that weren’t fully tame enough and he was one of them. Being inside for long periods was very distressing for him so he was in and out.

He kept getting really snotty noses and stuff. It had happened for a while and we were just now on a better level where we could get him in a carrier. his sinuses were messed up from being hit in the head (possible could have just had a messed up skull too. Our vet couldn’t even give us a good answer as he wasn’t sure) it wasnt bad enough to affect his breathing and was on the same side as his messed up ear. So it was a tinfoil of my grandmothers that both happened at the same time. Gave us a good scare with FIV for a moment (was a big issue before a dif neighbor who moved away finally proposed TNR despite me bringing it up. I was a teenager so can say that’s why they didn’t listen). So he was pretty prone to sinus infections and snot. He did regress some when we started having to medicate him when he had them but worked out a system. Thank god for pill pockets and the existence of canned tuna.

He was never a cuddly cat. Affectionate when he wanted to be even if it wasn’t often. He trusted my grandma and me the most since we put in an ungodly amount of effort to get him to trust us. When he did stay in the house overnight he liked to sleep in the middle of the hall way. Tripped on him alot. Miss him (and my grandma) dearly. They were a good pair.
I don’t know what the end game for Polly’s cats will be but I just hope it does end in their safety. I feel like TNR is the best option for the reasons you said tbh. While they arent properly feral and could be worked with to be homes.. it just doesn’t feel right I guess?
 
I've been feeding a community cat who was getting beat up by other cats and had gotten really skinny. She's ear tipped so she's already spayed. I assume she's about two based on how long I've seen her before befriending her. She's really shy and doesn't do much to defend herself. She wanted to come in but since I don't live by myself I can't do that. Plus I don't think my Lola would tolerate another princess in her castle. Other people take care of her too. Sometimes she has some kind of balm on her wounds. But she really loves me and follows me around even after I feed her. She plays. She climbed in my lap. She followed me almost to the bus station and was still there when I came back from the supermarket. And I had already fed her that day. I guess she was TNR'd past kittenhood and wasn't considered an adoption candidate. Maybe because of the shyness.

She seems to have no problem strolling right into the doorway and expecting me to let her in. So I'm thinking she may go into someone's house sometimes.

I don't know what her name is but I call her Bernadette. The people downstairs were also feeding her. One night Lola killed a mouse and I didn't want her and her brother Charlie fighting over it. So I thought I'd put it outside for some critter. Bernadette was on the porch and I gave her the mouse. After that she was glued to me. I guess I reminded her of mom?

However, the neighbor's cat has been hanging out on the porch chairs here. The apartment next door just has a stoop. We have a porch and chairs. So she sits out here. Her name is Edie and she has deformed ears. She's cute. Edie's owner also feeds Bernadette. But now Edie chases her away because she wants me to be her treat dispenser. Edie does not look like she misses a meal. She's a bit pudgy. This morning I was watching from the kitchen window and Bernadette strolled over only to run away with Edie slowly following.

Bernadette has a brother who is ever shyer. I recently made friends with him. I assume they are litter mates because they have the same eyes, coloring, meow and personality. Plus they hang together. I wanted to feed him because he's also pretty skinny. I had some salmon cat food that my cats didn't like. But he also fears Edie. Now I wonder if Edie is going around eating all the community cat food. She's a fairly new cat herself but she's already decided she's queen of the block. I should Edie's owner that she's bullying Bernadette.

Cats love me. Wherever I go I make cat friends. You know, it's fine to be a crazy cat lady. Cats don't need college funds.
 
I've got a mutt (he's mostly a mix of different kinds of pitbulls and Chihuahua) and he's my baby. He's suuuuper territorial of me and despite living in a house with a bunch of other people, he loves to stay by me and has been doing this for the last couple of years. He's currently 5 now but he loves tearing the shit out of any squeakers he has and the longest one's lasted is five months- he's a nibbler, lol. My dog refuses to sleep on his makeshift bed near the foot of my bed at night and will only sleep underneath my blanket. We got my dog from a shelter and unfortunately, he was found on the streets somewhere down south before he was taken into a shelter. The shelter we got him from said he was 5 months old when we initially adopted him but when he was taken to a vet, they said he was 5 weeks old.
 
I adopted a Galgo from Spain. They are greyhounds, basically, but google to see how horribly they are treated. They aren’t sprinters like greys, but hunters who have a lot of endurance. After hunting season, the Galgueros believe in torturing dogs for good luck next season-truly awful stuff.

She is extremely prey driven-squirrels and cats have her on high alert. (Birds too but she’s given up on them.) She caught a squirrel her first week here which really reinforced it. A couple months ago when we were going for a walk I opened the door without having a good grip on the leash-she spotted a squirrel, ran off as the leash was around a finger, and she fractured and deviated my finger. (Still not healed, but that squirrel got away-and dog came when I called!) I now am more careful opening the door and have a wrist strap added to the leash.

Long story to ask if anybody has tips on how to soothe and manage a dog’s prey instinct? I know it’s bred into them and won’t go away entirely, but I need a reliable method of breaking her focus, especially with cats. Unfortunately, she’s not very food driven so treating her if she ignores an animal hasn’t worked. She knows that squirrel is tastier than the treat. (To be fair, it’s been too hot to carry cheese, which is her fav, but I don’t think it will make much difference.)

I got a whistle and clicker to break her attention which she quickly ignored.

She does well when I decide it’s a brisk walk with no stopping, she’ll trot right alongside. But when I want a relaxing walk to chat with neighbors, and let her smell stuff it becomes difficult. So she’s capable of paying attention to my body language and following but when I give her some freedom she abuses it. 🙂

Despite this complaint, she really is the sweetest, most loving baby and very smart. I’ve had greyhounds so long I forgot a dog could be smart! 🤣 She’s truly everything good in a dog, has learned so fast. When she got here there was no eye contact, she was sweet but jumpy, slightly fearful of my husband. Now, 4 months later, she looks at me, follows me around, her fear behaviors are almost gone, she down/stays in our house and yard, good backyard recall, rarely barks, loves the kids, is sweet with neighbors, wants to play with every dog, sleeps 22 hours a day…and sadly…wants to eat every cat. :). I recommend a Galgo rescue for anybody looking for a dog.
 
I've been worried that my old grandma cat has gone deaf, and today I got confirmation. I was vacuuming, and she startled me, because I didn't notice her around a corner... And she didn't react at all! I try not to purposefully run into my cats while I'm vacuuming, because they're all scared of it, and everyone runs and hides from it. But I guess she won't do that anymore, because she's deaf.

She's already indoors-only, and she gets elderly food (in addition to normal kitty food), so... Should I be concerned about doing more for her? I've never had a deaf cat!
 
glioblastoma multiforme said:
For a long time her grooming has been getting worse and the one time she's as fast and nimble as ever is if you're trying to brush her, she'll claw the shit out of you. She frequently treads mud round the house, I don't mind the extra cleaning but seeing it increase just shows she's declining.
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Quoting myself, the "I don't mind the extra cleaning" bit was a lie. I'm now cleaning several things multiple times a day and its still dirty by the next time I look at it.

She wouldn't let me help her groom, let alone wash her. Is there anything at all I can do to reduce the amount of mud she brings in? There is a mat by the cat flap and she only goes in my garden, she can't get out of it, and its not like I let my garden be a pile of mud so I don't really understand how she gets so much on her.

I also saw an obese border collie off leash today and wanted to slap the owner. It was so sad, the poor thing could only walk at a slow plod. We have lots of obese huskies round here too, the entire time I've been here I've only seen two that weren't, and one was still a puppy and had escaped its owners house. I think this is suggestive of how much exercise and enrichment it was getting.

I learned from someone that does actually exercise their dog enough that fat acceptance has infiltrated animal owner circles. Fucking hell.

Sorry for ranting I just really hate seeing dogs that are known to need lots of exercise and learning obviously not getting it.
 
Barbarella said:
Long story to ask if anybody has tips on how to soothe and manage a dog’s prey instinct? I know it’s bred into them and won’t go away entirely, but I need a reliable method of breaking her focus, especially with cats.
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At a certain point I don’t think it’s possible to completely train them out of it, as you said they are bred to chase and run.
Lots of praise and rewards for good behaviour. They’re sensitive and don’t respond well to punishment, so lots of positive reinforcement and ignoring unwanted behaviour. Even dogs who aren’t food driven like smelly and tasty treats like cheese or cooked chicken.
Keep a short leash and patiently wait for the dog to calm down when being overly reactive, eventually the dog will learn to look to you when they don’t get what they want. 4 months is still a fairly short time, you guys will still be getting to know each other and boundary testing will be going on. With consistency and patience I’m sure that she’ll come around.

Definitely muzzle, a racing muzzle is good so you can still give the dog treats through it. It’s good peace of mind, if the dog every gets away from you there’s a barrier to stop them from grabbing or biting.

You could also focus on mentally tiring her out at home, puzzles and games and playing with squeaky toys can help manage prey drive outside. There are heaps of DIY enrichment activities you can make with things around the house on a budget.

I’m also a sighthound owner and cannot get enough of them, they’re the best dogs in the world.
 
Looks like the cat distribution system is trying to coax me into accepting a free cat. An insanely talkative calico kitten showed up near the house and now I'm debating whether I should keep her or not. I don't think it's a good idea due to my dog. She's cat friendly, but actually having one in the house seems too risky. Rather the kitten go to a home that doesn't have a hyperactive cerberus.

Didn't notice the cat was a calico and called her Little Guy. Now there's a female cat whose theme song is this.
 
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