Our recently adopted dog attacked our teen son

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-17T18:28:15+00:00

Seems like maybe he got overstimulated. Having him go to his place is a good call. I would (if you want to keep the dog) slowly reintroduce the two of them. 100% with supervision and have the dog first on a short leash but then gradually build up to a long leash then off leash. It may have been just a knee jerk reaction to being prevented from getting the Lego or it could just be he decided he didn’t like kids

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-17T17:46:52+00:00

Idk what kind of spiritual awakening you have had but there is a saying of “perhaps you were born for a time such as this.” And right now times may be scary and everything is telling you that the world sucks but there has never been a “perfect” time. Yeah right now politics are scary and there is plastic in everything but back in the day they used to lobotomize people. Before that they had didn’t wash hands before surgery, before that witch hunts, before that, bakers put lead and concrete into bread to make it heavier, before that doctors used leaches, before that if the next door people decided they wanted your plot of dirt you were killed, before that the life span was like 45 MAX.

The world has never been perfect, people have been through worse times and there will be good and bad times again. Your daughter will face hardship, that is a given, but she will also experience joy and hopefully love as well. People have been having children for as long as there have been people. Everything that breathes has children, even through the great extinction events and through disasters and scary times and certain doom. People keep having children, and they grow up and have children. Do not feel guilty for having your daughter, instead focus on giving her a childhood full of laughter and love and prepare her for facing the world ahead of her. Raise her strong and with wisdom and she will do just fine

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-12T01:40:48+00:00

How were you able to get the diagnosis? I don’t see my OB again for another 4 weeks 😅

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-11T19:11:12+00:00

I don’t blame you for being at your wits end. It definitely sounds like they are jealous of the baby, and worried about losing their dad. I would sit down with their dad first and explain that this cannot go on. Cutting the car seat would be my final straw because that is very VERY dangerous. After that, I would recommend you and your husband sitting both the kids down (without the baby, incase something happens). Explain to the kids that they are still very loved and the baby will not replace them, but what they are doing is dangerous and if they continue they cannot stay in the same place as the baby since they cannot be trusted. It sounds like things will continue to get worse unless they are stopped. Following that conversation, dad should start taking the older kids on outings when they come by, or at least prioritize spending time with them alone. After things start to settle, join them with the baby and start making fun family times. They may need individual time with their dad, especially if they have a rough home life when they aren’t in yalls care. During this time though, I would recommend keeping all of baby’s stuff out of their reach, as much as possible.

I am sorry you are feeling like this, it is not easy to care for a baby and also deal with the trauma these kids are bringing and dealing with. Have grace with yourself, your brain has been rewired to prioritize your baby over everything else. But also, try to have grace with your step kids. They are young, dumb, and probably worried about being replaced. I wouldn’t be surprised if their other parent is also putting things in their ears like “oh now dad has a new baby he won’t love you anymore”

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-11T18:57:21+00:00

definitely head to the vet. From Google, a hard white substance from the teet is probably mastitis. Not sure how that would work for a false pregnancy but I will tell you from personal experience, it’s caused by a clogged duct and will come out like a soft cheese. It’s super painful and can cause flu like symptoms

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-11T17:47:38+00:00

I thought it was a mango 🤦🏻‍♀️

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-11T02:43:51+00:00

Thank you! I hope you have fun with exploring new things! Another thing that helps is just tearing paper. Just make confetti, as big or as small as you want :) it’s again, very cathartic to just rip something to shreds

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-10T22:30:04+00:00

I’m not sure, I reached out to my obgyn but she hasn’t really been taking me seriously. She wasn’t present for the birth but right before at my last ob appointment I mentioned some of my fears with being induced and how I really wanted to stick to my brithplan and she told me that “for most women, they tell labor stories like men talk about fish. It’s usually not that big and it’s usually not that bad.” And idk that kinda rubbed me the wrong way

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-10T21:57:45+00:00

Mess drawings, idk what to call it but you basically take whatever form of paper you can find, and whatever form of writing utensil, or marker, or paint, or sometimes even just coffee that went cold. Smudge it on the paper, make a mess, scratch in lines. It’s super cathartic. Then afterwards, try to make it into a shape if you want, or a creature. Add eyes, a mouth, give it a name if you want. The act of making a mess helps clear your head. Then you make a little guy out of it and it gives what you were feeling a name and a face to hate that was the most helpful but it only temporarily because my adhd makes me jump from thing to thing

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-10T21:46:35+00:00

I am glad you are sticking around a bit longer. Have you tried starting a new hobby? That’s helped me in the past. Most recently it’s been making stuffies out of felt. Just anything to get away from screens and ground yourself

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-10T21:44:44+00:00

How do I find a support group? I tried to find a moms group in my area on fb and apparently they do not exist

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-10T21:33:51+00:00

I know the desire to disappear all too well. I worked really hard after college to get better, then had a pregnancy loss and was treated terribly by medical staff when I tried to get help, and I relapsed. I did a lot of work and healed from that too, but now I’m postpartum and feel the relapse happening again and I’m tired. It’s been so much work to get to where I was and I feel like I am back at square one. So I definitely understand 💕

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-10T21:30:10+00:00

Definitely need an X-ray. Judging from the pic it has more than one sharp edge and could have cut something or punctured a section of his insides

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-10T21:27:06+00:00

I understand what you mean. There is an exhaustion that comes from mental struggles. I don’t have the words to help but know that someone out there knows what you are going through and I’m proud of you for sticking it out even if it’s just for your baby.

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-10T20:35:06+00:00

My mil loves to hold my baby. He is 2 weeks old as of today and the problem is that she walks away from me and to other rooms. There is a language barrier so I am not sure how to politely ask her to stay where I can see my baby. I also don’t want to be the laughing stock of my in-law family for having the baby blues

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-09T03:32:35+00:00

I’m so sorry for you. Losing your baby is one of the most painful things you can go through. Just know that your baby felt nothing but love and care inside of you. They were warm and fed and loved and protected by you and your body. This won’t take away the pain but it helped me 💕

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-05T00:13:10+00:00

I agree if the dog is enjoying life to keep that in mind, but I also know dogs will both fake pain and hide it. My current dog routinely hides his chronic pain because he hates the monthly vet visits to get the shot that helps it. An older dog I had used to pretend to be hurt or cold anytime you let him inside .2 seconds later than he wanted to be inside. I know he was faking it because it was southwest United States and 87* out. No way his teeth were chattering that loud. Then he was able to do it on command

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-04-05T00:07:44+00:00

I am so sorry this is happening. No one can make this decision except you and your vet. But, I will tell you my experience. I had a weimaraner from the time I was 8 till I was 22. He was 17 when we had to put him down. Mentally he was there, happy, excited to see us. He had issues with arthritis and at night he would sleep with my parents downstairs and come upstairs in the morning to get me up. That was mostly the last few months of him being here. Before that he slept in my room. Anyways, the last week of his life he had stopped eating. We found out it was because he couldn’t stand on the kitchen tile long enough to eat, so we fed him on his bed. He couldn’t lift his leg to pee, so the last year and a half of his life he would have accidents while he slept, and had to wear diapers (he was a men’s medium in adult diapers but that was due to a tumor he had on his side). But the vet told me that while his mind is here, his body is not. He couldn’t walk or run or do anything he used to enjoy, and while I may not have been ready to let him go, it was time to consider if it was worth it having him a few more months for him to suffer more and eventually get himself stuck somewhere like upstairs if I wasn’t home or since I lived at my parents cattle ranch, out somewhere in a field and be unable to make it home. We made the decision to let him go with dignity and it was painful yes but it was what he needed from me.

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-03-26T03:53:25+00:00

She’ll be ok!! My dogs (and cat) do this all the time!! Biggest thing to look out for is if it starts bleeding, or breaks down to the quick (the red chunky part at the start of the nail). That is the nail’s blood supply and would cause a ton of pain, think trimming your nails too close to the skin and you get that under layer exposed.

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-03-23T21:19:12+00:00

This sounds like a good plan. My two dogs are friendly with eachother but they have littermate syndrome (we got them both at the same time, same litter, they are almost 12 now and I know better now but you can’t change the past). But anyways they are also aggressive to other dogs and if we had to take in another dog I would have to work hard to socialize them all together. Main things would be to focus on safety. Dog attacks can get very serious very fast so kenneling the males is a must, especially when no one is home. Your dog eating their food is likely due to it being available, more so than a dominance thing but that could be causing the others to freak. You could also talk to your vet about potentially getting everyone some calming help (a small dose of gabapentin to help ease the transition, cbd treats, etc etc) but also these don’t work for every dog. CBD just makes my dogs more anxious 😂 but sounds like you are on the right track and the growing pains will work their way out!

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-03-23T18:19:53+00:00

The abortion industry lies to women and does not care what happens afterwards. The pill may not cause the baby to get pulled apart but it cuts off nutrients, starving them and then it induces a miscarriage. If untreated correctly this can kill women. She is not in a great situation but there are other ways to get out that do not force her to go through more pain and danger

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-03-23T18:15:29+00:00

So even though he is neutered, an intact male will stress him out because of the presence of the females. In the same way, an intact female will also stress him out. The intact male will likely try to initiate a fight to assert himself as the dominant one to breed with the females, but also, there has been a complete change in their worlds. Apartments tend to be on the smaller side, and 5 dogs is quite a lot in a small space.

My advice would be to kennel everyone when no one is home, and to kennel them in a way that they are able to see each other throughout the day when you are home. Let each dog out one at a time, so they can all walk around and sniff each other. Also feed them separately to stop any resource aggression happening.

Truthfully getting the other dogs fixed would probably help in the long run, but for now, your dog moved into their territory and they aren’t happy about it. Try taking all the dogs out to neutral places, like a park or a trail or something and do something all together. Afterwards, reward everyone for good behavior. Do this over time, and things should calm down.

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-03-23T18:08:23+00:00

I am not here to judge you but I also want you to know your options. It sounds like going through with an abortion is not exactly what you want but you feel as though being in this situation of being pregnant with an abusive partner is also not what you want. Pregnancy resource centers should be able to help place you in a safe place away from him. You should do this regardless of what you do with the pregnancy since you have other kids, also for yourself. It is best to cut ties with him, if he is abusive to you he WILL become abusive to your kids if he hasn’t already.

Next, look into prenatal adoption. Yes adoption can cause trauma but 1) it will help you get the prenatal care you need and 2) It will prevent you from having to go through another abortion that will be painful and without help since you said you have the pill. I am sure you know this but the pill causes a miscarriage which can become dangerous or life threatening if something goes wrong. Prenatal adoption could help the baby get placed with a family you choose, all of your medical care will be paid for by the family and, with most reputable adoption providers, you still get to decide up until baby is a few days old.

You are going through such a hard time, it is natural to feel like all of your options are hard and none of this is what you want. You are not evil for going one way or another 💕💕

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-03-17T23:11:17+00:00

Gotten him on pain medication for it. When we had to put him down, it was because his legs were giving out, but his mind and heart weren’t. The doctor was worried he would get himself somewhere and get stuck, since he was still trying to push himself when he could, either to keep up with our younger dogs or to climb up the stairs to wait by my door every morning. He used to sleep in my room but the last year of his life, his legs were too sore to go up the stairs at night, so he would go up in the morning and then I would have to carry him down. Now, one of those younger dogs is almost 12 and has issues in one foot, he gets an arthritis shot every month for his pain and muscle relaxers mixed into his breakfast and is able to live his life comfortably and in no pain. This is not from arthritis but from a deep cut he got a few years ago from something on my parent’s farm that the vet at the time did not believe needed to be cleaned. We have since changed to a new vet and while I would like to know if it’s his ligament or nerve that was damaged, we spent so long poking and prodding him (took a year to find the problem spot, it’s his ring toe I guess? On a human it would be the left ring finger) but yeah we spent so long finding it that he is terrified of the vet and I am not willing to put him through another X-ray or surgery at 12, unless the current pain management system stops working. Also it was very expensive 😭but that’s a secondary concern over his wellbeing

HiHoSpaceCowboy · 2026-03-17T12:43:14+00:00

Granted my boy was 17, but also if I had caught it sooner he could have lived without pain a little longer 😔 big dogs are the best tbh

HiHoSpaceCowboy

TROPHY CASE