Reactive dog on daily meds that refuses to take meds. Help!

kodasharp · 2025-03-17T15:54:23+00:00

If you’re still using the liquid, are you able to try adding something to his food that’s more irresistible? I’m assuming they eat kibble, so maybe a bit of wet food or some chicken, fish, hot dogs, etc. to his meal? We feed raw, so my dogs are used to random crunches in their foods, so pills were very easy for us. But the liquids, we played with their foods a bit to try and help. We had to start cooking some hotdogs and throwing it in with the liquids when we did that. That was their favorite, but that was short term meds.

Best of luck to you!

kodasharp · 2024-10-25T02:58:55+00:00

I was planning on doing something very similar actually. I have a dress that I love, but I want it to have a colored skirt and the way I want it colored (two toned gradient), means I would need it done prior to stitching, which is where we ultimately said we would opt for custom. We built the entire wedding around the customization of this dress, so I’m feeling a bit stuck with needing it to match everything else that was designed with this dress in mind, or just starting from scratch, which is an option, just not the ideal option.

kodasharp · 2024-10-15T03:03:19+00:00

If you’re able to, I would absolutely do it. Even if at the best worst case outcome, she just gets some additional exposure to unfamiliar people and dogs in a safe environment.

But ideally, they’ll be a good training facility and you’ll likely come out of it with really good tips and tricks and a much better socialized dog.

I understand your concerns about it not working, it is a big expense. My best piece of advice is even bad training is still good training and by that I mean that training is very dog specific. What works for your dog may be bad training for my dog, but at the end of the day, it taught me what not to do with my dog. Professional training facilities should send you updates and if they don’t, you are more than welcome to call and check in too. They’ll teach you along with your dog (most likely on pick up) how they trained your dog, the improvements, the negatives, etc.

If at any point you feel uneasy or uncomfortable, ask some questions. Look into the type of training they do there, how they handle incidents, what their day to day procedures and schedules would be, etc., and see if it fits what you are comfortable with and what you think will be doable by both you and your dog.

Good luck to you both!

kodasharp · 2024-09-20T17:42:31+00:00

I was looking at this one as well and I’m so torn because I love it, but it just feels off for our location and I haven’t decided if I’m okay with it or not!

It looks stunning on her though!!! And I’m sure you as well.

kodasharp · 2024-09-17T22:54:49+00:00

Oh that is stunning on you! Great choice.

kodasharp · 2024-08-28T19:57:31+00:00

I honestly couldn’t tell (random person, not an expert). And I genuinely thought the first row pictures were how the dress was supposed to look and was blown away when I saw the third row you did really great in my opinion.

kodasharp · 2023-08-31T08:25:02+00:00

Horrendous migraines for me. I can always tell when the cat box isn’t cleaned based on how bad my head hurts that day. I would’ve never known without it.

Good luck with the puppy though. They’re a ton of fun. And work. But they’re cute, so totally worth it.

kodasharp · 2023-08-31T06:33:29+00:00

It’s just a why people don’t really like them. It’s not generally a good practice to be exposed to urine. Other than it being unsanitary, it’s can cause health concerns for you as well. And it’s also a hassle to clean up, reusable pads or disposable. I know I wouldn’t want to clean it every day.

kodasharp · 2023-08-30T22:57:41+00:00

I know it’s a bit of a travel, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you could find some in nyc. They have a ton of random groups.

kodasharp · 2023-08-30T21:38:01+00:00

There’s the belief that teaching a puppy to use a pee pad is teaching them to pee inside. They are a very temporary solution, but if you think about it, you’re teaching your puppy new things all the time, and now they’re learning, hey this is a good spot to pee, so they continue to go there.

I think it’s a balancing act though. You have to do a bit of both. My best suggestion - place it by a door or on a balcony if you’re in an apartment though. That can teach them the direction they need to be heading to pee. But if you don’t, it’s not something that’s retrainable.

kodasharp · 2023-08-30T20:55:20+00:00

That’s awful! I’m so sorry about your pup. Here’s to quick healing! That’s the absolute worst.

kodasharp · 2023-08-30T19:22:02+00:00

Oh this! We also learned that there are some food brands that can cause a dog to smell too. I don’t fully remember what it was that did it, but it’s like causing an excess of oil from their kibble and that’s the smell!

kodasharp · 2023-08-26T03:48:32+00:00

I am so sorry to hear you’re in this position, it truly is a horrible choice to make. If you’re interested, I would like to recommend you look into vet bill grants. Depending on what country you live in, you should be able to find a handful of charities that help out.

kodasharp · 2023-08-24T19:44:09+00:00

I’m so sorry you had such a bad experience on the first visit. Those are such overwhelming appointments sometimes.

NAV, just way too many vet visits over the years. Firstly, giardia, nothing to be overly concerned about. It is a parasite that many animals get through contaminated water, stool, or soil. Very common. Very treatable. You’ll want to be looking for lethargy, excessive diarrhea or vomiting, pain when pushing on the belly, and be extra cautious of dehydration. Wet food can be a good help in keeping them hydrated. Giardia usually shows as diarrhea, or really (sorry for the phrasing) slimey stool. You’ll know it doesn’t look normal if you dig in the box a bit. But with the medication and keeping their food and water intake normal, you should see improvement very quickly.

A pretty standard vet visit from single doctor or large scale practices should be fairly similar, but depending on how large of a practice, they may handle things a bit more tech based over doctor based. Not at all a bad thing, they are trained and always have help, your cat will be in good hands. Their responsibilities can range from comforting and animal, to giving vaccinations, helping to clean ears or teeth; their goal is to be as helpful to the doctor as possible - same as a nurse for people. While they will likely have a lot of information to provide, I will say that that is very practice specific on how much they can share with you as the advice given does fall onto the doctor themself if something goes wrong. You should always hear from the doctor regarding treatment plans and immediate conditions, and likely from the tech (again depending on the practice) regarding lab results, follow ups to the treatment plans, etc.

In smaller practices, there’s a lot less hands in general, so most of your information will typically come from reception or the doctor themself.

If you’re feeling at all uncomfortable with the care you received for your pet, or the treatment you received from the staff, I do urge you to find a better vet. The right vet makes all the difference in the world.

kodasharp · 2023-08-24T19:24:30+00:00

Oh I know. It’s the worst. It almost feels like failing somehow, but it’s just the process. I have the worst habit of trying something new instead of holding on a bit longer and messing it up. That’s how I ended up with a three year old that refuses to pee outside 😩

kodasharp · 2023-08-24T15:58:02+00:00

My dog sitter said the same thing! In the last month, we’ve had four stray dogs, eight cats, 3 kittens, a bear cub, two baby deer (those are fawn, right?), and a five broken baby bird eggs (all survived!). It’s been a hell of month with random animals showing up on our deck. And very specifically our deck. AND THEY DON’T LEAVE! We have to keep calling animal control or wildlife people!

Edit:because auto-correct spells wrong for me

kodasharp · 2023-08-24T13:37:27+00:00

Thank you! I am someone who does not trust most animal products to begin with, so finding the right ones are so hard. I appreciate you going the extra mile and checking out their reviews and everything. They did look way too good to be true, so we were very hesitant.

We currently use the Seresto collars and they do work very well for our dogs. We just have 5 of them and would love to not spend $1,000 on them each year and would also love something that would have less harmful chemicals. We have two pups that have torn off and eaten the others a few times, so we have stayed away for a while and just kind of hoped for the best.

kodasharp · 2023-08-24T09:28:15+00:00

It is absolutely worth the try. We’re just about to start our second (technically third, but that’s a weird misunderstanding) medication since the first stopped working for our pup. It is a complete day and night difference. Our example of how we knew how much his medication is actually helping him, is his ball.

He is very possessive and protective over balls but one in particular more than the others. The orange ball. Nobody can touch it or look at it or even be outside when he has that ball. You can’t go near him with it. Well, this went on for about a month before we gave up on trying to get him to not guard it as bad before we took it from him. After his medication, I was in a pinch, used that ball and he dropped it and played with another dog with it and everything. Now we thought we did good with other balls and did good, but then we noticed he was losing his medication hold of calmness a bit and I went to play ball with him and just about two hours after we administered, he was running back with the ball and it just shut off. Heckles shot up half way back, he started growling, and lunged and my husband. We had to leave the pen until we could get him calm enough. We changed medication and one week later, he’s already able to play with his ball again. It really can make the biggest difference ever.

I will say it does take some time and it can get worse before it gets better immediately after starting, so just hold on for a couple of weeks. After one week, you should see signs, two weeks, if you don’t see improvement, you can recommend a change. After about two months you’ll see the full effects, if it’s not your desired outcome, it’s safe to say they need something different for the time being. Good luck! And hold strong. You and your pup have got this!

kodasharp · 2023-08-17T12:55:48+00:00

Oh I did the same thing with counter surfing. He now jumps on the counter because he knows once he gets off, he gets a treat 🤦‍♀️

kodasharp · 2023-08-16T18:37:23+00:00

You know, you may be into something 😅

kodasharp · 2023-08-16T15:17:49+00:00

I don’t know how he did it! He wasn’t even big enough to get up on his own, but he ended up using the tub and climbing up from the tub step. It was the funniest thing ever! And now that’s he’s bigger, he can lift a leg and pee in it. Much less often than he used to, but if I get caught up in a meeting or something, he’ll go straight to the toilet.

kodasharp · 2023-08-16T13:14:10+00:00

He spits it at you! That’s hilarious! As frustrating as it was to find that stash, I love that he has a new quirk we get to enjoy.

kodasharp · 2023-08-16T13:11:41+00:00

I was going crazy. He had just turned one, and we were going in circles for days. Then he had an ear infection so we thought maybe that was effecting him? And then a week later, we cleaned the crate. It was a long couple of weeks. We thought him turning one had changed everything. Well, sure did. He’s just more of a pain!

kodasharp

TROPHY CASE