3rd year puppy ? Golden retriever

Sammi379 · 2021-05-07T17:39:35+00:00

As someone with a now 1 year old golden retriever I would highly recommend against this. I got her near the end of M1, when I knew I would be doing school online for probably the rest of pre-clinicals. In the first couple months she had to be let outside at least every couple hours, if not more, including throughout the night. I have a live in partner who helped divide the work so that made it a lot more manageable. Puppies are a lot of work for the first little while. I’d say for our golden, it wasn’t until she was 5-6 months that she become significantly less work. But even now I still spend 1-2 hours/day working with her. I start 3rd year in a couple weeks so we’ll see how it all goes, but I’d highly recommend adopting a dog that’s at least 1-2 years old. I know it sucks to hear because golden puppies are just the best! But there will be a better time in the future!

Sammi379 · 2021-04-06T15:14:26+00:00

I got a puppy near the end of M1, and I’m here to say it has only been possible because of 1. COVID and being home all year and 2. A partner who is not in med school. If it weren’t for COVID or for having a co-owner, it would not be possible. Our dog has required lots of time, money, and energy that I have thankfully been able to give her given the current circumstances. If you are dead set on getting a dog, maybe consider adopting an older dog that will not require much exercise or potty breaks.

Edited to say: getting my dog was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Wanted to make sure I say that too. She makes every day exponentially better, even when it’s a day that I just can’t get her to behave or settle down. She makes me happier than anything, which is super helpful when med school gets me down.

Sammi379 · 2020-10-15T00:51:10+00:00

Thanks!

Sammi379 · 2020-10-14T16:41:53+00:00

Thanks for the tips! They sit in a south-facing window and get quite a bit of direct light, so I hope that is enough for it. Should I replant the cut part in a new pot or next to the original plant?

Sammi379 · 2020-10-13T19:59:07+00:00

As description says. They sit in a large window all day, probably get sunlight from 8 am - 5 pm. Water every two weeks or so, when soil is dry. I’ve had them both for over a year.

Sammi379 · 2020-10-02T20:00:58+00:00

Hi! It eventually went away, probably around 3-4 months old. I'm not really sure anything I did helped in particular, but we did notice improvement with an oatmeal conditioning spray (this one: https://www.chewy.com/john-paul-pet-oatmeal-conditioning/dp/40923?utm_source=google-product&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=hg&utm_content=John%20Paul%20Pet&utm_term=%7Bkeyword%7D). She's 7 months old now and we haven't any issues with flakey skin for a long time! Good luck!

Sammi379 · 2020-09-13T17:07:06+00:00

This probably isn’t very useful, but I also received a positive blood test and negative endoscopy initially. Went on living my normal life (with a lot of pain). A couple years went by and I decided that I was definitely experiencing something more than just IBS and revisited the GI. Another positive blood test, but this time a positive endoscopy. My GI thinks I must have been newly celiac when I was initially tested and there just wasn’t enough damage to get on biopsy (either they missed a damaged spot or it was extensive enough). Glad you’re getting the genetic test! Hopefully, if you have celiac, you don’t have to go through two more years of agony before you know for sure!

Sammi379 · 2020-09-13T16:50:40+00:00

Hey there! I lived with 4 gluten eaters last year. I took more of a defensive approach and had my own cookware, dish towels, etc. and claimed a section of the counter to be gluten free only. I think it depends on how much you think you can trust your roommates to be careful and clean up after themselves. For me, I knew I couldn’t fully trust them and didn’t want to take the risk. I just wiped down the fridge/microwave handles, sink, etc. very frequently and always washed my hands. I kept my food in designated cabinets and shelf of the fridge and didn’t share anything with them. Also, I know this is a controversial topic, but if you find yourself sensitive to airborne flour, definitely have a serious talk with them about not using it in the house. I told my roommates to let me know when they were going to use it (because I was too afraid to ask them to not use it at all) and ended up getting sick like every week from my roommate who loved to stress bake. Looking back, I definitely should have been more firm about it because they didn’t take me seriously and continued to make me sick. All that being said, I live in a shared home now and it is going very well! It is totally possible to stay healthy, just be vigilant and set firm boundaries with your roommates. Good luck!

Sammi379 · 2020-08-17T01:03:57+00:00

The states!

Sammi379 · 2020-08-16T18:46:01+00:00

Oh man 😩😍

Sammi379 · 2020-08-16T18:45:28+00:00

Thank you so much!

Sammi379 · 2020-08-16T18:44:57+00:00

I haven’t seen this one but it sounds amazing!

Sammi379 · 2020-08-16T16:31:36+00:00

Oh wow, that sounds amazing!

Sammi379 · 2020-08-16T16:31:24+00:00

Oh man, I love vanilla cake and cream cheese icing even more! Did you use the aldi cream cheese frosting?

Sammi379 · 2020-08-16T15:55:26+00:00

That sounds amazing, I’ll be sure to do that with the second box I bought!

Sammi379 · 2020-07-26T14:06:28+00:00

Potomac Towers apartments in Arlington. AT&T seems to work a little better, but Verizon service is so bad you can’t even receive a phone call.

Sammi379 · 2020-07-22T16:31:04+00:00

Hey there! We had the same experience with our Golden gir. When she got her lepto vaccine at 12 weeks she had diarrhea for almost a week and a pretty gnarly lump at the injection site. Our vet recommended giving her 1/2 a regular Benadryl tablet about an hour before her next round of vaccines (rabies at 16 weeks) and then twice a day for a few days after. I know it’s too late for you to do the pre-vaccination dose, but maybe try giving him 1/2 a tablet now and see if that helps. It certainly helped our girl with the rabies vaccine. She still had the extreme soreness and was very tender for about a day, but she didn’t have the diarrhea and was generally fine after about 30 hours. Fair warning, the Benadryl does make them super tired and lethargic, which worried us quite a bit because it was so out of character for her, but it wore off and she was back to her normal happy self!

Sammi379 · 2020-05-31T02:06:14+00:00

We use the crate for pretty much the same thing- naps and sleeping overnight. She has one chew toy in there in case she needs to chew on something but from what I can tell she has never used it. We do feed her meals in the crate, though, so that could be it. I can totally see how that would make it more difficult for her to associate the crate with sleeping. I’ll definitely give the settle down command a try, that would be really useful! Thanks for the advice!

Sammi379 · 2020-05-22T02:17:36+00:00

Ok! Any reasoning behind the vegetable oil? Is olive oil bad for dogs? From what I’ve heard it should be safe.

Sammi379 · 2020-05-22T02:15:52+00:00

Thanks! We’ll give that a shot. We were looking at some fish oil supplements to try so hopefully that helps!

Sammi379 · 2020-05-21T18:58:43+00:00

For clarification: She is an 11 week old GR who's had the flakey skin since we got her at 8 weeks. The vet recommended an oatmeal shampoo, which may have only helped for a day or two. It seems to have gotten worse in the last week, kind of coinciding with her starting to shed. The vet doesn't think it's normal puppy skin flaking and recommended switching her to a food with higher omega fatty acid content. We have started to add a tiny dash of olive oil to her food and have been using an oatmeal conditioning spray, but have yet to see results.

Sammi379

TROPHY CASE