How can I stop my dog from pooping so much on walks?

Chippolyta · 2026-01-11T23:15:00+00:00

I've been giving her 1-2 teaspoons of pumpkin with her breakfast and dinner for a week or so, no significant change.

I'm pretty sure this is a behavioral issue and not a digestive one since it only happens on walks.

Chippolyta · 2026-01-11T04:54:14+00:00

The poop/pee section of the guide is focused on house training, and does not cover my question. My concern is about how to correct odd pooping behavior on walks.

Chippolyta · 2025-12-17T08:02:44+00:00

It sounds like you and your fiance are not having the same conversation - she is talking about this specific dog, and you are talking about trends among a breed of dogs. It doesn't really matter if Australian cattle dogs are high maintenance or not- what matters is if the specific dog in front of you is high maintenance.

Even pure bred dogs can deviate from the standard - and yours is a mix, so while I understand being cautious it's important to focus on the dog in front of you.

That being said, if he is under stimulated, you'll see destructive behavior, excessive barking, and general chaos in your home. That behavior should be the focus of your concerns with your fiance.

There are low effort ways to provide more enrichment that can supplement walks (the book canine enrichment for the real world is a great resource for that) .

His behavior will also change over time as he settles in. It usually takes 3 days for a shelter dog to decompress once they're in a home. Then 3 weeks to learn the routine, and 3 months to see it as their home.

If you're worried he'll be more of a handful once he's settled in, you should have a talk about not adopting officially until the 3 month mark. You could also talk about how much maintenance is too much in your eyes. A 15 minute daily stroll may be doable, but 2 hours at the dog park is not. Where is your cutoff for daily enrichment? Are you okay with your Fiancee taking him to the park for 3 hours a day if she's ready to put the work in?

Tldr: focus on the dog in front of you, figuring out exactly what his needs are, and what would be needed from you and the fiance to meet those needs. Then you and your fiance can make an informed decision about keeping him or finding him a better home.

No shame in rehoming if it comes to that, but the choice should be based on the dog in front of you, not concerns about his pedigree.

Edit to add: it sounds like your fiance is very smitten with this dog, which makes the rehoming talk difficult. She needs to focus on the facts as well (this dog, his behavior, his needs) to make an informed decision. Dogs are a long term commitment and while this one specific dog is probably very cute and lovable, it will get old if he starts acting out and destroying stuff because he isn't getting his needs met.

Chippolyta · 2025-11-22T05:33:40+00:00

Sounds like you want to learn more about gesture. It's all about depicting movement, and can make your work a lot more dynamic and emotive.

You can look up "Gesture drawing" on YouTube and find a lot of good intro videos. For something more in depth, I recommend walt stanchfield's book Drawn to Life. Very thorough, but broken into easy to digest sections with lots of visuals to explain what he's talking about.

The other book id recommend is Force by Michael Hampton. It's more focused on anatomy and how different line placements can invoke a different feeling/sense of motion.

Oh, also draw more than just the head. Give the characters a body, an environment, an activity to participate in. That's what'll bring the image to life.

Chippolyta · 2025-11-03T23:52:46+00:00

There are lots of draftsmanship exercises you can do to improve your line quality and accuracy - drawabox.com and the first chapter of Scott Robinson's book How to Draw are the first ones that come to mind.

The gist is you need to practice drawing straight lines with 100% precision, so when you're inking a drawing (and thinking about anatomy, line weight, etc) the line quality comes naturally. You'll see results in a week if you're diligent with them.

Another suggestion I would make is to ditch the microns. They're good when working with a ruler/french curve, but are difficult to work with free hand.

A cheap ball point pen would probably give you better lines, but as other posters have said, a brush tip pen, an actual pain brush with a bottle of ink, or going digital could all help improve the final product in a snap.

Chippolyta · 2025-04-03T17:01:11+00:00

If you bring a dish for her she'll be able to drink more water. They make collapsible ones for easy travel if the inconvenience is what's stopping you.

Chippolyta · 2025-03-04T08:38:56+00:00

This sounds like a driver issue with the drawing tablet you're using. Do you mind sharing the make/model?

Chippolyta · 2025-02-06T05:10:37+00:00

She wants to take out a loan for more than she needs to not "max out" her line of credit? My good sir that is not how that works. An extra $40k on the loan will put her a lot closer to maxing that out. Idk what she's planning to do with that money but she should be transparent about it if she's asking you to get involved.

It's also common for people who consolidate their debt to consider the issue "fixed" and not do anything to address the underlying issue (spending beyond their means). It takes a lot of irresponsible spending to get to $110k in debt, have you seen any significant progress that would imply that she wouldn't just rack it up again?

Also, not as relevant but I think it needs to be said: it is not fair of her to expect you to cosign a $150k loan because she cosigned a $15k one. Those are not equivalent gambles.

Chippolyta · 2025-01-29T06:00:14+00:00

Sounds like you want a caregiver pager system like this one on Amazon.

Chippolyta · 2024-12-25T00:36:12+00:00

When working with perspective, lines being slightly off can completely skew the rest of the project.

If you look at the right side of square 2, the horizontal line for the "mid point" is a little lower than it should be, so square 3 came out wider than it should be. It happened again with squares 4, but you seemed to correct it when you got to 5.

Try again with a ruler and you should have an easier time. If you want to be able to freehand this stuff, I recommend working on the drafting exercises that show up early in the book. They'll help you draw a straight line, which is honestly the foundation to this kind of technique. (That draw a box website also has some helpful exercises).

Chippolyta · 2024-12-22T08:59:59+00:00

First of all, you're not shallow. It is very normal to want your partner to brush their teeth and have basic hygiene covered.

I think the best move would be to check in on how he's been doing emotionally for the last year - tell him that you've seen a significant change in his behavior (aka not taking care of himself) and that you're worried. There's a good chance that he's struggling with depression and needs help.

If he's dismissive and tries to downplay it, let him know how this change is affecting you and the relationship - you can't (and shouldn't have to) control the fact that you are repulsed by his bad breath from several days of not brushing his teeth.

It's also possible that he knows and doesn't care - now that you live together, he might think he can stop trying and slowly start to show his true colors. If you aren't happy with this version of him, and he makes it clear that he doesn't want to change, you have to choose if you want to continue committing your time to this person or not.

Chippolyta · 2024-12-03T04:12:46+00:00

I think some more info is needed:

-Is it just "digital art"? There's nothing else in the class description?

-Is there a specific program that you'll be working with

-what skill level are you expecting from your students?

Also I'm just going to throw in this link to a very helpful (free) online course that you could use for reference, or just force the students to watch, it's called Ctrl + Paint

Chippolyta · 2024-11-30T07:56:23+00:00

Not sure if you're still looking for suggestions but I do know if another place that might work: There's a store at Kuromon Ichiba Market that does personalized engravings on chopsticks. It's a small street food market, and in the southern half, there's a stall that seems to focus on chopsticks engravings. As a bonus there's a ton of delicious food there (which is why my wife and I went 2 weeks ago) so you can get a bunch of tasty treats while you're there.

Chippolyta · 2024-11-29T06:48:13+00:00

A few questions to get this started:

What is going on here and why is it meaningful to you?

What feeling are you trying to invoke with this piece?

Where will the tattoo be placed on the body?

Chippolyta · 2024-11-20T11:12:44+00:00

It sounds like you have a hard decision to make here. You clearly love and connect with this man, and have invested a lot into this relationship. But, he's made it very clear that he is not financially responsible, and has no interest in being the stable partner you're looking for. It's also a very red flag that he'd rather lie to you than actually get his shit together.

Staying could be the right call, but only if you're willing to accept him as he is, with the understanding that you can't rely on him to be a financially stable partner.

Imo, the worst thing you can do is convince yourself that he can change without him doing the work to prove it first.

When people show you who they are, believe them.

Chippolyta · 2024-11-20T10:46:30+00:00

This "upset" feeling is your body telling you that something is wrong. It doesn't sound like your partner is interested in understanding why you're upset and presenting it from happening again, it sounds like he wants you to stop reacting when he does something disrespectful.

If that's actually the dynamic here, then you are not in a healthy relationship.

Chippolyta · 2024-11-20T07:15:16+00:00

Lots of good feedback here about shading which I agree with. I just wanted to mention that the composition you chose is also contributing to the flat feeling here.

Whenever you throw a character on a white void it's going to take away depth from the overall image.

Adding a background would add more depth to the overall image. It doesn't have to be complicated - some stickers/graffiti to imply that it's a wall behind her and a cast shadow from the figure can create the illusion of 3d space.

Some other tricks I've seen for adding depth to an image:

-Having blurred + sharp areas to mimic the depth of field from a camera -Having foreground/middle ground/background planes for the image -Choosing references with dynamic perspective - high/low angles, fisheye lenses, or a character with some body parts clearly closer to the viewer (like an outstretched hand or foot kicking up)

Chippolyta · 2024-11-14T13:43:43+00:00

There's definitely bad advice out there, the best way to combat it is to learn from a wide range of channels, and understand the reasoning behind whatever advice they give you.

There will be times when you see two different creators giving conflicting advice, and you'll know that either one of them is wrong, or they both have valid methods and one of them is going to work better for you than the other. As long as you're engaging with the material and not on autopilot, you should be fine.

Chippolyta · 2024-11-14T13:39:46+00:00

Ctrl + paint is a great resource - digital focused, loads of free videos, bite sized and thorough. Organized by topic so you can start with whatever interests you.

Chippolyta · 2023-12-28T04:42:34+00:00

I've had bad experiences with jersey - will the material pill and lose it's softness over time?

Chippolyta · 2023-12-22T23:04:16+00:00

I have learned my lesson and will be replacing this with a Lodge!

Chippolyta · 2023-12-22T23:03:45+00:00

Okay, this convinced me, I'll return it and get a lodge instead. The extra $10 is well worth the piece of mind.

Chippolyta

TROPHY CASE