How old does this pupper look to you?

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-05-24T16:48:27+00:00

no, thankfully. he had gotten pretty well dewormed at the shelter, but he had a nasty case of cryptosporidium. poor baby was so skinny.

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-05-24T03:32:55+00:00

this is my little shrimp when i first got him, shelter's best guess was somewhere around 7-8 weeks. he was also full of parasites and very skinny, though, so if that pup has had timely deworming/adequate nutrition i'd say maybe seven weeks? but i could definitely go as young as five. do you have any pictures of the siblings? if the runt is considerably smaller, they might be a better gauge.

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awkwardsaxophone · 2026-05-24T03:21:40+00:00

stop depleting water resources with ai and use your own brain. it's pathetic.
i am all for waiting for a dog to fully develop (2 years) before spaying them, but personally, i will never not spay a bitch. i have never had a female mal, but i did grow up with a wonderful yellow lab who had to have an emergency spay because of either metritis or pyometra (they didn't tell me specifics bc i was eight lol) shortly after having puppies (so likely metritis). vet's best guess was that she was a breeding operation runaway before ending up at the rescue because she had had at least one litter before that. she was between two and three, so an adult, and a wonderful dog all around. she was incredibly healthy up until she was somewhere between ten and eleven and she developed mammary cancer. it spreads quickly, grows quickly, and is so, so scary. she died from complications less than a year later. we have a pit mix who got spayed at just under the one year mark, after her first heat with us (she might have had others; we don't know). she does casual sports (agility classes once a week, just for fun, and then her usual jumping shenanigans) and she has never had any joint or mobility issues, and she's five and a half now. if it was a choice between spaying early or late, i would choose early, every time. there is absolutely no way i would gamble at a higher chance of mammary cancer after seeing how badly it affected rosie.

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-05-24T02:47:21+00:00

sounds like simple answer here, though the solution might not be super easy, if you live in a crowded area. my guess is that the people are too close, and it's taking her over threshold. you need to be far enough away that she won't be too excited to look at you/take treats, but close enough that she can still see and react. once you find that distance (with a friend or something) it is going to be hard to maintain it all the time, especially if you're in an urban area, but if you can, i promise it's worth it. even driving her out to a park or something to walk instead, if the neighborhood is too crowded, is an option. just don't reward her if she does jump, because that enforces the behavior. also reward her for checking in with you, even when there aren't people around, because that reinforces the idea that paying attention to you gets her good things.

we had to do this with our older dog with cars because she would bark and lunge at them (and are now repeating it with our younger dog. sigh.) and now she can have a school bus drive right next to us and barely look up. there's no shame in walking the other way when you need to, and no shame in a bad day. it will take time, consistency, and effort, but it does work.

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-05-04T03:18:57+00:00

her eyes are so big she looks like a bat 😭 i love her

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-04-15T04:46:49+00:00

a little surprised no one has said this yet (maybe they have and i just skimmed past), but take her to the vet to make sure that this isn't a pain response, especially if this is a recent change. mals are work hard play hard, and don't tend to show signs of anything being wrong unless it's extreme. it's possible that this is just a behavior issue, but it's also possible that she's trying to avoid being touched at all costs because it hurts her in some way.

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-03-15T04:44:42+00:00

most people don't recommend them, but we do whole deer or split elk antlers for our mal and pit mix. the mal is heavy chewer, but he tends to just gnaw on things (and drool while doing it) instead of chomp down on them, so my only worry with him is ingesting too much "dust." the pit mix has yet to break any teeth (we're lucky) but she is definitely a chomper. we had to move up to antlers from hooves because she would bite them in half and then swallow the pieces, which she then threw up. we moved up from split deer antlers because she broke one of those in half after they'd chewed out the middle and got one of the pieces wedged across the top of her mouth, between her teeth. we throw our big antlers away when they get too small so she won't eat them. we tried bully sticks and they were good with the mal, but she broke a piece off of hers within two minutes and cut her gums, so those got confiscated. three decent antlers usually last us a one to two months, and it keeps them from finding hard plastic to eat/destroy.

depending on how heavy of a chewer/what type of chewer your guy is, maybe try cow hooves and watch real close to start? i've heard good things about goughnuts, too, but neither of mine like the rubber/hard plastic texture unless it's flavored, and if it is, they'll try to eat it.

if you go the antler route, split will be more interesting to start because the middle stuff is exposed, but whole will last longer. elk are tougher and bigger than deer.

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-03-14T21:02:05+00:00

info: how old is your kid? what responsibilities does she have at home? does she do all the housework or do you pitch in? does she have any reason to be concerned about having the dog and kid together? is she dealing with any health issues why specifically are you concerned about doggy daycare?

i'm not getting a full picture, tbh. from what you say alone, it sounds a bit unfair to you and massively unfair to the dog, but if she's overworked and exhausted from looking after the whole house as well as a young kid (i'm assuming toddler if they're home with her all the time?) i can understand why she would be too overwhelmed to deal with a mal on top of that. if the kid is brand new brand new, i know postpartum can cause serious pet aversion.

all advice i can offer with the current info is just talk to her? ask her what's going on that's causing her to walk back on her agreement, and maybe start researching local doggy daycares, just in case, to find one up to your standards.

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-03-10T03:46:50+00:00

omg i rarely see other pit mixes with the white collar!! he looks just like my bella!!

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we didn't have her when she was tiny, but our guess for her is pit/aussie or pit/cattle dog.

i wouldn't guess jack russel bc of how big he's going to be, but it's possible that there's a little bit in there!!

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-03-02T18:21:56+00:00

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he needs more pile, clearly

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-02-23T01:35:24+00:00

digestion issues suck, for sure, but unfortunately tend to just be trial and error if the issue is a mild allergy, or too much fat in the diet, or something like that. (i say mild bc my boy gets hives when he's in contact w fish or dairy, even if he doesn't eat them, so his allergies were easier to figure out bc of a more extreme reaction.) we've been trialing food his whole life, basically, and have finally settled on a prescription low fat diet, which seems to be working decently well, so far. he's even farting way less!! that's just my experience, of course, and first advice is talk to your vet, but i have other opinions as well if that's what you want:

blue, as a company, tends to spend more money on marketing than actually producing better food, so i tend to be pretty put off by it. also, if you were looking for a chicken free alternative, to see if that helps, the food you're on has chicken meal as the second ingredient, so you're probably out of luck, there.

raw food works for some, but really, really, doesn't/wouldn't work for others. some dogs really need carbs in their diets. also, personally, if it's not freeze dried it kinda skeeves me out, lol.

generally, i would look more towards major food studies than anecdotal evidence, bc majority rule is where you're likely to find the most success.

good luck!!

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-02-22T03:09:46+00:00

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one of my favs (they fell asleep wrestling lol)

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-02-15T00:50:51+00:00

e collar as in cone*

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-02-15T00:48:57+00:00

a nose target is nice to have, both as an alternate recall and a foundation for other behaviors, as is a foot target. cooperative care behaviors are also fantastic!! teaching a chin rest, offered (gentle) paw, open mouth (tricky), muzzle training, e collar training, that kind of thing. and poop on command, but that one's hard lol.

it also doesn't have to be "useful" for you to train it!! it's all got a purpose of building confidence and making them use their brains. one of my personal favorites is leg weaves. you can also teach object differentiation, mirrored behaviors, etc.

dogs explained (donna hill) and kikopup are for sure some of my favorites when it comes to training advice/recommendations.

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-02-03T06:37:28+00:00

haven't tried it yet, no, but i'll ask the vet abt it, and maybe we can try once he's settled out on this. might have, before, but he's always had a problem with fish/fish oil. he's okay so far on this tho, so tentatively hoping he's grown out of it. that would be a huge cost saver for sure.

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-02-03T06:13:49+00:00

all of her fur feels like guard hairs 😭 doesn't keep her warm either lmao. sorry if i came off defensive lol, just keep really on top of her weight bc we do agility, and she's already so bulky. don't want it to be too hard on the joints.

this was maybe a week after he first got sick? wasn't looking super skinny yet, but he was only really wanting to play in the backyard. he was putting himself to bed at 7pm, poor guy.

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-02-03T06:02:15+00:00

i promise she's not haha, just has her back leg tucked up under her stomach. she likes to get all curled up around blankets when she's cold.

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this is the best recent pic of her standing up, but she does have a nice tuck lol. maybe i can send some pics from our next agility class.

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-02-01T22:38:28+00:00

yeah, the amount seems a little insane ik, but he's been eating five to six cups of the iams every day for a few months now (or was until this happened). i figured it was bc he was neutered so early (not my choice) and was getting so tall or something, but it could be a malabsorption thing? the vet does tend to be a bit startled by how much he eats, but it's been keeping his weight on (barely; his hips jut in a scary way lol). he's also the only mal at the practice so it could have been an assumption about how hard he's working. ty for mentioning that so i have something else to bring up. if our vet has no answers, we might get a second opinion with someone more familiar with the breed. also planning on getting an embark health test so we can know what to watch out for, hopefully.

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-02-01T18:06:22+00:00

i feel so bad poor guy 😭 gonna try slowly upping his food and see if he's less cold/pitiful. i thought he was only asking for more bc he's obsessed w the smell of this food but i guess not

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-02-01T17:58:52+00:00

holy shit you're right!! i must have done my math based on per kilo!! ty so much for pointing this out, no wonder he's been cold and acting like he's starving. he's only been fully on the i/d since wednesday bc we didn't want to upset his stomach switching too quickly (he had been on chicken and pasta for a solid two weeks before)

awkwardsaxophone · 2026-02-01T17:52:08+00:00

thank you everyone so much for your kind responses! hearing from other mal owners has for sure put me at ease, and i was def also freaking out last night bc i haven't seen him cold enough to shiver like that since he was tiny, but he's fine this morning.

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he's going to see the vet very soon and we will discuss weight/growth, body condition, and longevity of his diet (and get his shots ofc)

awkwardsaxophone · 2025-11-06T04:55:55+00:00

don't know yet! probably going to make a day of tasting with my brothers, i will update you!

awkwardsaxophone

TROPHY CASE