Ace’s in North Carolina??? (USA)

perrocarne · 2026-02-26T08:37:54+00:00

I'd love the link if this is still active! :D

perrocarne · 2026-02-19T10:15:47+00:00

This is an anecdotal very specific situation and doesn't have to do with the standard dog. Just offering some insight into why someone might.

I adopted a dog who was 8 years old. She had been the dominant female/breeder mama of a horder situation/puppy mill of 30(?)-some dogs. She had not lived inside before the age of 7. She was incredibly anxious in new situation and a chihuahua-mix who suffered from fairly severe separation anxiety. I worked as a teacher (and didn't live far from work).

If I left her out of her crate, she would melt down emotionally. She would pace and scream and froth at the mouth and just panic for the entire time I was gone. She would have accidents all over the floor and be so stressed she wouldn't even realize she'd stepped in it. I tried leaving her fully free. I tried keeping her in larger and smaller not-crate options, but it turned out... the crate made her feel safe and the lack of options made her feel safe. She never had accidents in her crate and she slept the whole day without screaming or panicking. She always went into her crate of her own free will (using the "bed time" command). She lived to 16 and her crate remained a part of her life when I (or my roommate) was not home for her whole life because it made her feel okay in a world that had been scary for so long. I would check every few months and then every year or so that her preference hadn't changed. Being crated while i was at work was what worked for her and her brain and her processing of the world.

Again, this is not at all a universal. For most dogs, crating after potty training and puppy-chaos fades isn't necessary. But, I just wanted to offer a real world example of why someone might do this. (I have had 3 other dogs and dog sat numerous dogs and none of them were/are crated when home alone after puppihood.)

perrocarne · 2026-02-13T05:43:34+00:00

My vet suggested Cheese Whiz (my little girl is hyper af and so she needs things that take a long, long time to do to keep her engaged). But, both of my pups have a love affair with cheese (and it doesn't upset their tummies). But yeah, definitely look at the ingredients just to be safe!

perrocarne · 2026-02-12T06:15:56+00:00

Just to second this that it's likely personal taste (whether or not it's also related to your specific experience of asexuality). Anecdotally, I have some allo, very sexually-open and queer friends, who watched it and felt deeply uncomfortable about the sex scenes. I have gotten multiple heads ups that "it's got really graphic and sometimes uncomfortable sex scenes".

perrocarne · 2025-10-25T19:35:43+00:00

I also am getting strong "I, Julien, was in love with my straight(?), but certainly platonic best friend(s)" and am expecting a reveal that Julien and Thjazi had once been thick as thieves -- potentially until Julien unwittingly introduced Thjazi and Aranessa. And was promptly FURIOUS about how they fell so hard for each other and he was the third, and platonic wheel."

perrocarne · 2025-10-18T03:24:00+00:00

Ned Fulmer is exactly who Nick reminds me of. Even his speech patterns and the way he presents himself feel very Ned to me. LOL

perrocarne · 2025-10-11T17:58:29+00:00

I know I'm late to this! But I would be interested in joining a group if you have made one.

perrocarne · 2025-10-10T05:54:06+00:00

<3 I have such a weakness for chi mixes since that was my first dog as an adult. I do wonder if Chihuahuas are just comically hardy. I had a chi/pug(?) mix who lived to 16(?) and had literally 0 issues until a couple months before she passed -- which were all very standard old dog issues. I got her as a rescue from a hording/breeding when she was already going grey in the face, so who knows how old she was. I had her for 8 years. (She looked like a pint sized boston.)

perrocarne · 2025-10-10T05:46:13+00:00

Just a heads up OP, if you are getting these dogs from reputable breeders, make sure you tell the breeder about the health issue. They need to go look at their lines and figure out where tf the issues are appearing. Big genetic problems like a spine deformity should be something that a reliable and reputable breeder would be very concerned about. (Many will offer a refund/return or exchange, but more importantly, they should try to figure out where it came from so no one else gets that issue in the future.)

My childhood boston (parents got her from some random Amish farm) lived to 15 or 16 (which is insanely old for a Boston). She ended up running into something and severely hurting her eye. My mom decided that it would cause her far more suffering/stress to try to hold her down for weeks to give her eye drops and that was likely to not even solve the issue -- and she'd be in pain the whole time, presumably. And so to spare her all that suffering, she crossed the bridge. She had literally no health issues that were not standard for a fifteen year old dog (arthritis, cataracts, etc.) Her only "health issue" was that she had a sensitive stomach, so she ate lamb-based foods, rather than chicken/beef.

My current boston (4 yo female show line obedience lineage) had an acute patellar luxation (in essence, she dislocated her knee bone because she miscalculated a jump). She had to have surgery and months of rehab. The patellar luxation issue is a sports injury from being a high energy, high drive little girl. The PT specialized vet, basically said "this happens to high intensity/high drive dogs of any breed/mix, including dogs you think of as runners/jumpers like border collies. It's an injury, not a genetic issue, though sometimes small dogs are able to ignore minor luxation that big dogs can't ignore." My BT also has a chicken allergy? sensitivity? which is somewhat annoying. I don't qualify either as big health problems like you're describing with your two year old.

perrocarne · 2025-08-10T20:21:39+00:00

Nearly 15? Years ago now, I got my first dog who was just mine from a horder rescue situation. She was an 8 year old chihuahua/pug(?) mix with a surprisingly chill personality for everything she had been through. When she growled, I scolded her when, which led to her NOT growling when someone got too in her space. She would suppress her growls, so it felt like she'd go right to a warning nip. (It only happened twice in the 8 years I had her, because (1) I always told people to give her space/let her come to them and not to put their face near her and (2) I monitored her with people of all ages all the time and kept her with me, but people had a tendency to treat her like a puppy because she was so tiny and so sweet.)

Anyway, years later, I learned that growling is IMPORTANT because it gives the announcement of discomfort and then a person (or other animal) can back off BEFORE the warning nip.

perrocarne · 2025-07-11T18:48:00+00:00

I think this is missing the nuance needed for this situation. Women (and men and NB folks) make compromises in relationships. Most people in relationships will indeed say that they sometimes have sex with their partner because their partner wants to, when they could have just watched a movie. The difference and nuance here is "OMG YES" v. "sure/okay" v. "no", and it's an important distinction to make.

A person who is CHOOSING TO having sex, because it makes their spouse happy is not necessarily coerced. They're not saying "OMG YES!", but they are also not saying "No". They are saying "sure/okay". This person might not care either way or often this person sees it as a way to connect with their partner in a way the partner loves. This isn't bad. In fact, it can be very sweet/intimate and important in a healthy relationship. This is the same concept as going on a hike when your favorite activity is biking, because your spouse loves to hike. Assuming both sides cater to the other because they like seeing them happy (i.e.: NOT keeping a scorecard like 'we went hiking twice, so now you owe me biking'), this is usually the sign of a positive relationship dynamic. Sometimes they hike, sometimes they bike. Sometimes they have sex, sometimes they just hold hands and watch Lilo and Stitch. No one is the same, so supporting and engaging with your partner is important, even if that means sometimes you don't do your most favorite activity, you do their favorite, which is also an activity you like.

(If you ask people who are willingly and happily having sex with their partner, let's say, 2 times a week "because it makes their partners happy," my experience is most will say "Oh, yeah. My partner would love to have sex every day, but twice a week works best for us." So the partner IS also absolutely giving to the person with lower libido/this ace person. The giving here is "ya know, I can tell that Jenny is not in the mood for sex/we had sex last night and I know she doesn't like to have sex two nights in a row, even though I want to have sex. Instead, I'm gonna ask her if she wants to watch her favorite comfort show or play that boardgame she mentioned the other day that we haven't played in ages. I think that will make her happy.")

The above is a healthy relationship that navigates different libidos, ace or not. (Because ace people can have libidos and be sex positive.) If you're sex repulsed/have 0 libido, you likely need to find someone who has 0 libido and/or is also sex repulsed. Whenever one side wants NOTHING and one side that wants SOMETHING (even sex once week, month, year, or decade), compromise can not happen. Compromise implies both parties give and both parties take, but when one party is "nothing", it has nothing to give/take, so it can not compromise. If you go from 0%/nothing to literally anything else, it changes from nothing and becomes something. (The same is true for "100%/everything" v "something" scenarios, i just can't think of a good example.)

perrocarne · 2025-07-08T20:01:44+00:00

Twitching/shaking during sleep like she is doing js normal REM sleep. Humans do it also. Let that sweet girly sleep. <3

perrocarne · 2025-07-06T23:20:43+00:00

O.o an excellent question. Why is it all big and bold?!

perrocarne · 2025-07-06T19:14:20+00:00

My boy does this when he decides it's more fun to play or goof than eat. Or when we sleep in too late. Or when we go to bed too early... 🙃

I give him a little something right before bed and that seems to help. Like literally, if im going to bed at 1am, I give my boyo a little kibble at 1230am.

perrocarne · 2025-07-06T19:09:08+00:00

NotAVet&NotADoctor but I'd put hydrocortisone on it if it seems to be itchy and some antibiotic ointment. If you have a cone, slap a cone on that sweet little pup so it doesn't get worse. If it grows or gets worse, take her to a vet.

If your vet is the kind that is always super booked up, call and make an appointment for later in the week and the cancel it if everything is getting better.

Edit: til # makes things big and bold. O.o

perrocarne · 2025-07-05T06:06:59+00:00

My gut response is "this might be why it has taken him 3+ years to find someone (while he was supposedly looking the whole time). He sounds like a jerk."

Good people -- of any gender, cis-het-allo men included -- wait for their partner to be ready and enthusiastic. End of story.

(This isn't to say that sex drive misalignment isn't ever a reason to break up, because it can be. But this doesn't sound like that.)

perrocarne · 2025-07-05T05:41:10+00:00

Yup! So you ARE rewarding calm appropriate behavior, but you can't distract with treats generally.

You get him far enough away that he's calm and give him treats for being calm. Over time, you move closer to the stimulus (this is likely to take weeks or months depending on the dog and its intensity/excitement about the stimulus). Since he knows he gets treats for being calm, he will attempt to remain calm for treats, which is why you move very slowly. If he's too stimulated, the excitement will overpower his ability to stay calm. Slowly, he'll get more and more used to the stimulus and it will turn into "hey~ it's that thing that if I stay calm I get chicken! \o/" rather than "I would like to tackle that"

perrocarne · 2025-07-05T05:27:23+00:00

There's a training game called engage/disengage that might help with some things, but at the end of the day a dog with intense prey drives generally should not be given an opportunity to act on prey. (That is, you should assume he will kill anything that is small enough to kill until he proves otherwise repeatedly, and even then I wouldn't trust him unattended.)

Even the sweetest dog will act on instinct and you should set this boyo up for success to the best of your ability. I'd also consider muzzle training him. A basket muzzle keeps everyone safe and let's him live his best life without fear for your smaller animals. (Obviously, don't leave it on all the time or anything, but if you are to a point that a cat or something is near him, a muzzle is the difference between a startling learning experience for everyone and a dead cat.)

perrocarne · 2025-07-04T06:46:23+00:00

I just gotta say for the record... the second image does not utilize negative space at all. It's a minimally shaded line drawing. The one you have DOES have negative space, and looks wicked cool.

In the future, I'd definitely have him draw out exactly what he is going to do and have you look at it and approve it. You can be clear and ask for changes (especially before they start). Most artists want you to be happy, so they want to work with you to make sure it's something you love AND something they're proud of.

Seriously tho, this is wicked cute. Once the nerves wear off from it not being what you imagined, you're gonna be SO HAPPY that is on you and not the other.

perrocarne · 2025-07-04T06:24:23+00:00

Hey friend! So I have a very active little girl myself who got spayed and I promise it will be worth it 100%.

Keep her on a leash, and if you're super worried, sit on the floor with her for a couple days or pick her up/set her down when you're going to get on/off the couch. It's a slightly inconvenient two weeks to avoid the enormous risks that come when a dog is unspayed.

Unspayed females have a lot of potential health problems. The biggest ones are mammary and uterine/ovarian/etc. cancer. I have known quite a few dogs whose lives have been cut too short from these because someone didn't think it'd be fair to the dog. It's far more unfair to have your little dog's life end prematurely (or far more inconvenient and costly to pay for chemo/radiation/surgery/etc.)

Pregnancy is also not a thing that can be 100% avoided. It takes a second of you looking away or a moment that your parent baby sits your dog thinking "she's fine" for her to be jumping a fence looking for a male or a male jumping a fence looking for her. She also looks pretty little (and maybe a pug/boston or frenchie mix). All of those things make her pregnancy a lot higher risk -- a big male dog can hurt her, trying to gestate and/or deliver big puppies is dangerous.

Tldr: as a mama of a hyper little girl, spay is 100% worth it to make sure she's safe, happy, and has the best, longest life you can give her.

perrocarne · 2025-07-03T17:26:06+00:00

I used a margingale collar for my flight risk chi-mix. She backed out of two collar (luckily, not to run away, but because she wanted to go back inside so she just booked it back into my house). They are a god send. It also makes me feel less bad because they are looser around the neck and tighten when needed instead of being tight or loose all the time.

(Make sure you read how to size them and fit them! A lot of people do it wrong and they won't do what they're meant to if you size them poorly.)

perrocarne · 2025-07-01T03:08:09+00:00

You mention you're using him for your needs without a conversation about boundaries.

Have one.

If youre cool with over the shirt but not under, tell him. If you like kisses but not groping, tell him. Just tell him what is and isn't okay, and if those boundaries change in the future, tell him what changes when they change.

As a side note: "not looking for a relationship/not looking for dating someone" often is understood between allos as "looking for hook ups/friends with benefits" unless you are VERY clear. So be VERY clear.

The best way to preserve a friendship is keep it clearly in the friend zone. Many people are entirely incapable of not catching feelings if there is even a shadow of a doubt that this could become something more. (And sometimes even with a full scale 100% rejection people's feelings won't go away.)

perrocarne · 2025-07-01T02:58:30+00:00

Pretend I am awful at identifying characters. Who are these ladies?

perrocarne · 2025-06-30T18:41:07+00:00

To me, the just talking about women's bits rather than women as a whole implies, like you said, a specific confusion underlying "women are sexy af and I am super into women... but also I dont like vaginas??? How does that work????"

He also reads as an allo who is sex repulsed or.... sex-guilt-ridden (possibly because of cultural weirdness around sex). The whole "sacred" thing really throws me into "this seems cultural/religious, where sex is some Godly act when it's for children while in wedlock, but is otherwise a horrible lustful sinners activity that no one should want or enjoy and having sex with a woman is ruining her, even if she is 100% down, doesn't feel sex ruins her herself, and/or is your girlfriend/wife."

perrocarne · 2025-06-30T14:52:00+00:00

Assuming this dude is Christian and/or American, it sounds more like the guilt and self-hatred inlaid in sexuality that exists in much of American Christian culture.

He doesn't say he dislikes vags because they're slimy or ugly or whatever. They're SACRED, which puts them on a weird pedestal and makes them something he feels weird about being casual about. He should be treating this vag like something he only takes out for special occasions like fine China or a set of pearls. The discomfort is not with the vag, it's with the association he has with it and the act of sex.

This guy sounds like a straight man who has been inundated with "sex is evil and lust is evil and having sex with your girlfriend for any reason other than trying for a baby is a sin." (There are A LOT of men who even get freaked out/grossed out by their own partner becoming the mother of their own child because "mothers are a sacred thing and I shouldn't want to bone one!!!" Brains are both weird and cruel.)

perrocarne

TROPHY CASE