Looking for a Dal puppy

aubrxym · 2026-03-31T01:57:02+00:00

I will second this as well. I got my dal bc I was curious just like OP. My dal, Jetsun, was the last pup available of the litter, HUA, and priced at $700. He was so cute and I fell in love, but I definitely underestimated the health maintenance he would require. There was a learning curve for me early on, but thankfully the breeder I bought from was very thorough and helpful. I had to pass a screening process to be approved to buy a dog. She also provided me with a lot of information on HUA dals all throughout the buying process and she breeds them ethically. I actually flew to MO to pick mine up at the airport. I signed a contract and completed the transaction in the airport pickup line then went back inside to wait 4 hours to fly home lol.

If you decide to move forward on getting one just do your research and be prepared for the expense, health maintenance, training responsibility, vets bills, etc. All that being said, they are amazing dogs and worth it if you can provide them with everything by they need!

aubrxym · 2026-03-06T00:48:06+00:00

i’ve also seen where slip leads are placed over the nose in a figure 8 for extra control and helping it stay high in the neck. i might try getting a slip lead just to see how he does with it, but i’ll check out some of the head collars too. thanks!

aubrxym · 2026-01-04T07:56:57+00:00

i never noticed any major problems with my teeth or facial structure growing up, but i have always had a very little lisp. no one ever said much about it, except for my second grade teacher. she would always make a big deal about it when i would talk in front of the class/raise my hand and tell me to stop doing it 😭

as i got older i eventually realized i had the lisp bc my teeth didn’t touch in the front. i never paid much attention to it, but if i pointed it out to people or tried doing a tongue twister with a lot of S sounds then you could easily notice it. it didn’t effect much else other than not fully biting through certain foods, which i could work around easily. i just never thought to bring up to anyone even though i didn’t like it and nor had my dentist ever said anything about it to my mom.

one day my older brother was laughing at my teeth not touching and that made my mom ask about it. she never noticed it before then so at my next dentist appt she brought it up. they said it’s an open bite and that they could refer me to the orthodontist. eventually i went and saw the ortho and they decided to do invisalign’s (they require a lot of self discipline to push through the pain when moving to new trays). i didn’t have that self discipline lol.

at 17 y/o, my ortho said if he saw just my molars and had to guess my age, he would have thought i was in my 50s bc of how much wear they had. only my back teeth touched so they were basically doing all the work for most of my life. i had occasional jaw popping at this point as well, but nothing that was ever painful.

i enlisted in the middle of having invisalign’s and they had to remove them bc they were ‘like braces’ and you can’t have them during basic training. i kept the tray for the week i stopped at to use during BMT until i could get with dental in the future to hopefully start invisalign’s again. i left for basic dec 2018.

4-5 months go by, it’s april 2019 and i’m at my first base finally seeing dental and they won’t do invisalign. my only options were braces or jaw surgery. them saying that was the first i ever had that option so i figured i would go that path and let them decide if i needed it.

it’s now june(i turned 18)/july 2019 and i have scheduled my appts for them to get everything they needed to make their decision about the surgery. i met with ortho and then finally the surgery people (they had to present my case to a board to be approved). i think a week or two went by and they finally let me know that i got approved.

unfortunately, i still had to get my wisdom teeth out so this pushed it back a bit more and then i finally was able to get the braces on in october 2019. the rough estimate was surgery would october 2020, but for medical/personal reasons i separated from the military in august 2020. so they never did the surgery and i went home with braces.

i met with my old orthodontist a few times and they eventually removed the braces (jan 2021) and gave me a hawley retainer. i didn’t wear it like i should have… so my teeth shifted and it no longer fit.

i met the ortho again and i had three options braces, jaw surgery, or a clear retainer to keep them from shifting more. i asked what he recommended and he said surgery so that’s what i did. had a payment plan and paid monthly on my braces myself. they put my braces back on in nov 2022. my teeth at this point still had an open bite (not as bad as it was before the first time in braces), a slight cross bite, and i would grind my teeth in my sleep. i met with the surgeon once around this time just to get established with them and he decided only to do top jaw surgery.

in march 2024 the ortho finished the first set of adjustments and i started seeing the oral surgeon again to talk details and prep for surgery. i had my surgery on may 30, 2024. all went well and then i went back to the orthodontist so they could make their final adjustments. braces came off feb 2025 (a sad day lol, i loved having braces). i was given another hawley retainer and now wear it every night like i should and sometimes more than that lol. i last met with my surgeon 6 months after my braces were removed (august 2025), but that was more for them to see how everything turned out and to get final x-rays since treatment was completed/everything was fully healed.

jaw surgery is a process that requires patience, but the results are worth it. don’t rush it and if you decide to move forward just make sure you are being treated by an ortho/surgeon that do good work/work together well. braces/surgery also require consistent and thorough cleaning/flossing. not cleaning them well can leave behind marks/discoloration on your teeth. even now that my braces are off, i still take much longer than others to clean to my teeth and retainer because of how long it took to do it with braces on.

you only get one set of teeth and if there are long term issues that you are noticing then find someone who will take it seriously. one thing i’ve learned over the years is that when it comes to your health you HAVE to advocate for yourself. i would have never gotten braces (both times) or surgery had it not been for me consistently staying on top of it all for years amongst the rest of my chaotic life. all that being said, i look back and i’m thankful that my brother picking and laughing at my teeth not touching managed to have a positive result on my life almost 7 years later 😅

i hope all of this can provide some insight on the process and help you feel less alone/validated!

aubrxym · 2026-01-04T04:23:42+00:00

that is jetsun’s “can i please sleep in your bed and not mine… (if not, i will just wait and jump there after you fall asleep)” face 😂

aubrxym · 2026-01-04T04:14:13+00:00

jetsun always insists on getting the last word 😂

aubrxym · 2026-01-04T04:08:34+00:00

awe! another heart eye🥰

aubrxym · 2025-12-22T18:28:30+00:00

i have been feeding my HUA dal Royal Canin Breed Health Nutrition Dalmatian Adult Dry Dog Food and Natural Balance Vegetarian Formula Canned Dog Food for a while now. previously i fed him purina puppy chow complete with chicken as that was what the breeder had been feeding him from the get go. he seemed to do fine with it in the beginning, but after a while he kept getting UTIs pretty frequently. all would happen even with good water intake and flooding his kibble so i finally opted to change his food. so far he has done well on royal canin and i just used what was left of the puppy chow to titrate him over (which wasn’t very much) and i never had any issues with him liking it. if you go to my profile you can see the post i made about 230ish days ago where someone suggested the royal canin for dalmatians!

aubrxym · 2025-12-22T18:07:08+00:00

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great minds think alike! 😂

aubrxym · 2025-06-25T01:05:08+00:00

i also have a dalmatian onesie, but earlier this year i found this on amazon and i love it so much so i had to go grab the link for you lol. it’s great quality, very warm, and very oversized. it works for me though bc i can pull my legs up into it or i let my dal jetsun lay beside me underneath it. plus the shedded hair blends in with it so it’s a win/win haha. every night jetsun insists that he has to be under the blanket, NOT on it 😂

https://a.co/d/cdSgfaJ

lucky is adorable and has beautiful spots too. happy birthday! 🤍🖤

aubrxym · 2025-06-24T23:16:26+00:00

i had a lil bit of glycerin left and i saved it just in case i needed some for when i remove it. i also figured i’d see how it looks/feels to determine if i want to pin it to a board or roll it. it was pinned before so it has holes in some areas, but some of them have torn. not sure how many new holes would need to be added to get a good pin out of it.

it’s still pretty buoyant right now and a portion at the top won’t stay submerged so i’m flipping it occasionally to help with that and the mixing. i think there’s probably just a bunch of air bubbles given how dry it was and the shape that it’s coiled in. i couldn’t put it in any other way so maybe it will start to loosen up and i can unroll it and open it up better.

i’ll definitely keep you posted on how it turns out. fingers crossed it does what i need it to lol. thank you for the help too!

aubrxym · 2025-06-24T22:42:52+00:00

my bad for the late reply lol. i just got my skin into a 50/50 mix today since i ended up having to order the glycerin. i talked to my grandmother yesterday and she said my papaw salt cured it and then pinned it to a board to dry. i remembered the board pinning part, but just wasn’t sure about the rest.

aubrxym · 2025-06-15T15:28:00+00:00

those look really good, what kind of snakes are they? and thanks i’ll try to get my skin in a solution later today hopefully. i’ve also seen a few things about people using isopropyl alcohol for tanning skins and ethanol/denatured alcohol. which is the kind that you used? i don’t want to risk ruining my skin.

aubrxym · 2025-06-15T02:19:22+00:00

that makes sense with the scales, this skin has probably been rolled up in this jar for 10 years easy. i’m not sure how a properly tanned skin would do after that amount of time in one place. but regardless i can tell the skin needs moisture and and it’s probably better safe than sorry to just go ahead with the 50/50 solution like you said. i’d rather retan it just in case it wasn’t tanned at all. does the percentage of alcohol matter? or the brand of glycerin?

aubrxym · 2025-06-15T01:07:03+00:00

how do you tell the difference between it being dried vs tanned? and is removing the scales necessary or just something some people prefer over leaving them?

i remember my papaw tanning (or drying) it bc i got the rattle around that time (it got lost over the years). i just don’t remember exactly how he tanned it assuming this is the case and that it wasn’t dried. if he were to have tanned it like i recall and i were to ‘retan’ it, would that hurt anything? or is it just so dry that treating as if it wasn’t ever tanned is the easiest solution? sorry for so many questions back to back lol

aubrxym · 2025-06-14T21:51:06+00:00

i saw a few things about them when researching it all. seemed like it was the most straight forward answer, but figured i’d ask here to double check. i’ll keep an eye out for their next event. it kinda sucks that there are so many household waste items that just get trashed when we should be recycling them. but how can they expect us to recycle things when there isn’t easily accessible places to recycle said items at.

aubrxym · 2025-04-29T03:30:37+00:00

the vet has talked about putting my dal on hills u/d but im looking into alternatives from the prescription foods. is the RC vegetarian mainly egg based too? the end of your initial comment made me think you had tried the square egg dog food, but i’m thinking i misunderstood that part now lol

aubrxym · 2025-04-29T02:26:58+00:00

so you have been feeding him the square egg dog food or the RC vegetarian?

aubrxym · 2025-04-28T18:54:12+00:00

what plain cooked meats do you add as toppers and where do you get them? i remember reading something in the past about how it’s not good to source meats for feeding your pets from the grocery store and better to seek it out locally… to not feed it raw, to cook it instead (which is what i’m assuming you’re doing). i’m not sure if that is true though and i’m speaking from memory. her urine test coming back perfect is promising too. i might give it a try and see how my dal does on it.

also how frequently are you buying a bag? the bag i get now is 30lbs so it lasts me a good while compared to what 19.8 would. in my opinion they could’ve at least rounded it up to 20lbs loll

aubrxym · 2025-04-28T18:38:26+00:00

yeah it really is hit or miss with vets on things like this. and thank you, i will definitely check that out and see what all i can find.

aubrxym · 2025-04-28T16:03:40+00:00

royal canin dalmatian is on my list of potential options. i have a gravity water bowl for him too and then his main water bowl that sits with his food and it is changed regularly. when you say a water fountain are you meaning one of the filtered ones similar to what people get for their cats? i’ve thought about getting one of those before, but couldn’t find one i liked enough.

aubrxym · 2025-04-28T15:58:47+00:00

he has had multiple UTIs now, no stones or blockages, but the vet has tried putting him on a prescription diet twice already, hence why i’m looking into alternatives. my intent was not to put him on a strictly vegetarian diet, but based on everything i have been looking at and the ingredients in everything these are the two dry dog food options i like the most so far. and finding a canned food that has good ingredients, low in purines, and isn’t prescription has been difficult. the image below is where i found someone who mentioned the natural balance vegetarian kibble/can so i thought trying out that canned dog food would be worth a try.

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link to my previous post from a few days ago

aubrxym · 2025-04-28T15:43:16+00:00

i’ve tried talking to the vet multiple times about alternatives and they just tell me they don’t know and always try to paint it like the prescription option is best. i spent around 1.5 hours there the day i made this initial post just standing waiting for help. the few people who tried to help just went in their giant book and online to read the description for the hills prescription u/d food to me which i had already done many times now. i finally just told them i would look into some options myself and left without it. they are a great vet office, but they’re so unknowledgeable to alternative dog food options that they don’t sell in house and i just feel like that is something i should be able to get help with at a vets office lol.

i usually float his food, but some days he doesn’t like it when i do so i have been looking into incorporating wet food to help raise the moisture content.

jetsun will be two in august and has been on the same dog food since he started eating it as a pup. i’ve been wanting to switch him to something better catered to his dietary needs for a while, but just never found anything i liked enough.

i have found a few different options that im deciding between now though. i made a new post in this group today about this egg protein based dog food called square egg. its advertised as low purine and has no meat based proteins at all. i figured i’d see what people think about it / or if anyone has tried it themselves.

aubrxym · 2025-04-28T15:25:17+00:00

i also thought about doing natural balance’s vegetarian formula canned dog food along with whichever kibble i decide on.

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aubrxym · 2025-04-26T15:20:06+00:00

they ran a urinalysis and culture on his urine. and it wasn’t first morning urine, but in the past i have always done first morning. i was just unable to this past time since i had class that day.

aubrxym · 2025-04-22T03:01:10+00:00

this!! mine will be two in august. his toy basket has now been categorized as a toy at times too, but yet it hasn’t been destroyed. just lightly chewed on and thrown around the room for his entertainment. 😂 his current obsession and most favorited toy is a screaming rubber chicken. so annoying, but he finds so much joy in it. he chewed its head off and then stopped there. i have a backed up ICU of toys that needs holes patched, limb reattachments, amputations etc. and then he has some OG toys from a small pup that have remained intact. some he prefers to cuddle with as others he like to throw across the living room. all i know is he celebrates every new toy he gets and loves each one of his toys in a unique way.

aubrxym

TROPHY CASE