Topic: Dogs: Who let 'em out?

[Steve]

Who here has dogs? Not something we talk about a whole lot, but our dogs are a large part of our daily life and activities. We have two, both AKC registered pure breeds.

I have a male German Shepherd, 6 months as of yesterday. His name is Recon (Recon Delta Stormtrooper). I started him on Obedience, Protection, and Police training pretty much from 8 weeks on. The main focus has been obedience to this point, but now at 6 months the focus shifts to protection and then eventually to the police. He has a broken jaw at 14 weeks, but has recovered perfectly. All his training is under Leerburg (Ed Frawley).

Our other dog is Ashley's, a four month old (as of today) male Syberian Husky named Felon (Felonious Assualt). He is still in Obedience, and very stubborn, but will soon be going into Protection as well.

I need to get a picture of Felon (she has them all) and some recent pictures of Recon. But here is Recon as a pup, and at 4 months.

[Govtcheez]

I have a dog.  His name is Max.  He's brown.

edit: He is trained to come into the kitchen when I'm making something that smells good.

[JaWiB]

My roommate had a pitbull/boxer mix when I moved in. She was a handful considering he barely did any obedience training (and could easily climb over the fence), and thankfully he decided to have her adopted by a family with some dog experience and a lot of running room.

"My" dog (now my parents') is a beagle, but someday I'd like to get a Tamaskan dog

[Steve]

i'm going to capture a baby gray wolf and raise
him by myself.

this should end well

[KnuckleBuckett]

Yeah.  Make sure you have a .22.

[ober]

My wife and I are NOT dog people.  And I typically find dog people to be kind of annoying.  I have 2 kids under 5 years old.  I don't need more responsibility.

[Steve]

Most dog people are annoying, they don't train or control them. I won't go to dog parks, and if someones dog comes up to mine off a leash they better control it because if it seems aggressive, I'm going to shoot it.

[micah]

They kill large prey by biting large chunks of flesh from the soft perinium area,

oh dayam, dawg

thats how the Syberian Husky dogs next door almost killed my dog when I was a kid.   I had a Shetland Sheepdog from when I was 7 until I was 17.  He was attacked twice by the neighbors Huskies, once very severely.  He died of unrelated natural causes.

Before I left for college, my dad got a black lab puppy who is now over 15 years old and "hanging in there" but is probably going to be put down soon.  In addition, when my dad remarried, his wife has a Boxer.  She's actually on her second one -- when they first got married she had a crazy Boxer.  It died 5 or 6 years ago and she bought another Boxer.  The second one she made the mistake of buying at a pet store.  That dog is just not wrapped right.  She is just freaking nuts.  My dad and his wife think they may actually have to put her down too when the black lab goes because she may have a psychotic break down.

Most dog people are annoying, they don't train or control them. I won't go to dog parks, and if someones dog comes up to mine off a leash they better control it because if it seems aggressive, I'm going to shoot it.

I like dogs.  I don't believe there are "bad breeds" (my cousin and his wife have a very cute mutt that has some pit bull in her and they can never find an apartment that will rent to them) but I do believe in training dogs very well, regardless of breed.   If you can't control your dog, you should not own one.    And I agree, if a dog attacked my family like those fucking Huskies did  to my dog 20 years ago, I would shot them on the spot.

[Steve]

It was ashleys 2yr old Husky that broke recons jaw. He was trying to kill him. He had a past we didn't know about till we put him down

[KnuckleBuckett]

Dogs are awesome companions.  That said I agree with Steve.  The vast majority of dog owners should not be.  Dogs are pack animals.  They require leadership and discipline (not cruelty) on a semi-constant basis.  They also require companionship.  In many cases dogs are left alone entirely too long for their nature and they "misbehave" due to this cruelty.  It should also be noted that folks who get dogs rarely plan ahead and get a breed designed for their environment.  Each breed or mixed breed has environments that tend to suit it.

We would love to have a dog, but are away too much to make it feasible.  Sucks.  For our property size and personalities I think we would like a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel.  Had I a larger property maybe a Golden Retriever.

[Steve]

Here's one of young Recon when he had his jaw muzzle and cone on. He was like this for 6.5 weeks. He made a full recovery, and is not adversely aggressive at all. We adopted Ashley's previous Husky through CL and the owners did not tell us that he had killed a few cats and a deer, we had no clue at all. He damn near killed Recon, and cost me over $1800 in vet bills. We put him down and then the history came out. I was very tempted to sue the previous owners for the vet bills, but Ashley was devestated by the whole thing and just wanted to move on.

Recon and Felon get along great, and they are not allowed to "run" together so there is no pack mentality.

[micah]

it killed a deer?  holy crap.

[Steve]

Yep. You would never know it to look at him, because he was so people friendly and never bothered out cat. But with Husky's it can be very very hard to predict them because the face expressions rarely change.

She had contacted the previous owner to let them know what happened (the female had a very hard time letting him go, so Ashley felt she should know) and thats when we were told about his past. They got rid of him as opposed to putting him down, hoping h would be ok.

That said i'm a major supporter of blame the deed, not the breed.

[ober]

My parents got a young retriever-looking mutt after my old mutt died a few years ago.  Then my neighbors got a young dog that was completely uncontrolled.  My parents live on a farm so our dog was free to roam (the neighbor in question lives about 1/4 mile away).  Well, one day the dogs got together and apparently decided to go hunting.  They ran about a mile and a half away to a deer farm and ended up killing 3 doe and a buck.  My parents had to pay along with our neighbor out of their home owners insurance.  The local game warden also forced them to put her down.  Sucks.  And my parents haven't gotten another dog since then.

[Steve]

Thats why if the dogs roam free, even on farms, you need an electric fence of some sort. Dogs do crazy things when they get together, thats why I never allow them to be together more then 15-30 minutes a day. Thjey are always one in the crate, one out the other times, or both away. When they are 2+ years old, that may change, but even then they won't sleep or eat together.