What a great story, teriwtt!
And the best part? His mom is completely healthy, which is great news for us. Cavaliers have a host of genetic issues, from life-limiting and ending heart murmurs, to Syringomyelia, to bad patellas, to just bad teeth. His mom has none of those.
Our little cavalier sends her tag wagging love to you both. My puppy’s breeder seems to have had every check possible for heart, knees…Our neighborhood is crazy for dogs. We have met dogs as small teacup poodle to an Italian mastiff…it is amazing how many people have dogs here.
We just rescued a min-pom. The rescue group saved him 2 days before his 30 days would have been up. He was kept in a back room at the shelter which normally did not have small dogs.
He has settled right into the house.
Teri, thank you for bumping this thread. I love to read about everyone’s doggies. 
We are currently down to three. We lost one of our furry girls two days after Christmas. Her littermate is doing okay but I, and especially my H, are still very sad about it. She had had serious health issues for four years and we were fortunate (after spending mucho thousands of dollars!) to have had her around for four additional years. Still, she went from fine to not fine in one night. I guess that’s the way to go but it’s still shocking. I’m not sure we’ll get another one at this point but, with us, you just never know.
Terwitt, did your dog ever get potty trained?
Yes, but we kept him in a crate with no bedding or anything for a long time.
We eventually figured out what his M.O. was. He never really peed inside because he had to go; 99% of the time that he did it, it was part of a ‘nesting’ routine - he’d be digging around in a blanket or pillow trying to make it just right, and the urine would just sort of trickle out. If you caught him in the moment and raised your voice, he’d stop. It hasn’t happened in quite a long time, and he certainly never did it every time he ‘nested’.
Our new place has hardwoods throughout, so I wasn’t too worried about it. About a week after we moved in, though, I saw him go in my closet, and didn’t think much of it, then realized he’d been in there longer than just a few seconds. Sure enough, as I came around the corner, he was trying to ‘nest’ on some of my nighties that were laying on the ground and not put away. I immediately felt around after he moved away, and yes, it was wet. At least it was hardwood, and not carpet and I was able to wipe it up right away. He hasn’t had any problems since. Of course, we’re very regular about walking him now since we live in a condo, so we’re always sure of when the last time he was out and pottied was. He goes eight hours regularly with no accidents every night from the last time we take him out to when he goes out first time in the morning.
Wish I weren’t bumping this thread up again for a bad reason. Just took the dog out for our usual afternoon walk, when we were approached by a neighbor with two other dogs. I had not met these dogs before, but I had heard from these neighbors that one of them was highly reactive to other dogs, and one wasn’t, so they try to keep them away from other dogs when they walk them. The first time the three met, H was walking our dog and there were no issues. They all got along. For some reason, I had it in my mind that it was the smaller of the two dogs that I had to worry about, and not the larger. So I was sort of keeping an eye on the smaller one (still at least 30 lbs.), when the larger one lunged at my dog. I’ve never had anything remotely like this happen in the 18+ years we’ve had dogs and was surprised at how my instinct kicked in to try to separate them. My dog was yelping, and I just wanted to stop it. So I got them separated, and as I was checking my dog over to make sure he was OK, the bigger dog did it again - I’m thinking the owner was not able to control him due to the dog’s size. So I immediately jumped in again to separate them as my dog yelped. Frankly, I expected to see blood everywhere from the sounds I heard, but there is not a drop. I do have a couple of small scratches on my hand - broken skin, but no blood. What I realized my dog’s yelping was likely coming from was his pinch collar that he wears when we walk him. After we moved, and we started walking him instead of letting him out in the backyard, he was pulling tremendously and barking wildly at other dogs. Since putting him in the pinch collar a month or so ago, he’s been perfectly well-behaved with other dogs. We don’t put it on him if we’re just taking him out in the courtyard to potty, but for walks we do. We wanted to give it a couple of months and then go back to the regular collar and see how he behaves. But anyway, I’m sure the pinch collar was pinching him as this dog was attacking him and he was trying to get away.
I am just in shock at how quick and easy the attack happened. After the second attack, I picked him up and carried him inside (it happened in front of our building), took his collar off and made sure he wasn’t hurt anywhere. Really, each attack lasted no more than five or so seconds, but it absolutely scared the crap out of me. Our neighbor kept asking if our dog was OK, and I said yes, I didn’t see anything on him, and I’m sure he feels horrible; he did say they got along fine the first time they met. So I’m not so sure what was different about this time, other than it was me walking our dog, and not H - so maybe their dog was less intimidated by my presence. I’m just sick about this, but our dog is going around acting like nothing happened. I gave him some treats and lots of petting when we got in the house, but I hope he’s not now fearful of all other dogs we come across on our walks.
He’ll likely be just fine. :-). I just got chiggers. I hate chiggers. They always burrow in the most impolite places… I am wondering if I got them from my dog… He comes in from outside and sits on my lap. Has anyone here ever got chiggers from their dog?
Yuck, yuck to chiggers.
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+2111&aid=774
Looks like it’s not likely you got it from your dog.
And as far as burrowing in your skin, check this out:
http://www.medicinenet.com/chiggers_bites/page3.htm
Please report these dogs to the local police. Thank God that you are all well. What could happen if a child we walking their dog…And I am not being judgmental. One of our rescues didn’t like other dogs. We never let her get near other dogs. She loved people and that is what she did.
teriwtt, I’m so sorry that happened. I know how terrifying it can be. Our neighbor’s dog attacked our older pit more than once and we finally called the cops. If it makes you feel any better, she has been attacked by more than one dog and still absolutely loves going to the dog park to play with other dogs.
We’re coming up on almost a year (in June) from when we rescued our youngest dog (avatar picture). She has finally started barking and now she barks at EVERYTHING. I’m going to get in touch with her puppy trainer to see what we can do. We live on a street that has lots of walkers and I can’t go through a summer of her barking at everything that runs by.
She is still a water dog and will whine if we don’t let her come into the shower with us. She just jumps in and sits under the shower head by the water drain. She also knows how to put the stopper down so that the tub starts filling up. She’s special all right…
Thanks for bumping this thread back up. We have a medium size golden mix dog that we’ve had for about a year and a half. We love her to pieces and so does everyone that meets her. A couple of weeks ago she was diagnosed with Lyme disease. She did not realize that it was supposed to make her lethargic though and the only reason I took her to the vet was she started limping. Lyme or a torn ACL (or both) were the original guesses and then Lyme was confirmed with a blood test. The doctor prescribed antibiotics, a pain killer once or twice a day and leash walks only. I give her the pain med in the morning along with the antibiotic and then just the antibiotic in the evening. All are done with her food. The reason I mention that is that we’ve failed miserably with the “leash walks only”. The weather has turned into Spring and our girl wants to be outside every minute of the day. She stopped limping the day after we gave her the first pain med and puts full weight on all legs. The vet said that they couldn’t determine ACL damage without her seeing an orthopedic vet. She has an electric fence, which is why she is used to being outside. So, we’re ignoring the leash walk part and really hoping that the ACL thing is not really a thing.
When our golden contracted Lyme she started losing control of her back legs. As soon as she got on the antibiotics it cleared up immediately.
It took some running around to get her diagnosed correctly. It was frightening as she was going downhill rapidly. We were told she would have been dead had she gone another day without the antibiotics.
Interestingly, the vet told us that the symptoms may reoccur. When they did we started her on antibiotics and they would subside again. It was very strange.
He said that all dogs present with varying symptoms when they get Lymes and they will present with the same sort of symptoms again.
Teriwitt. We had this recently happen with our dog and a neighbors dog. Luckily I was watching. They seemed to be getting along and then the other dogs tail position changed and she immediately went after my dog. Usually I drop the leash immediately so one dog can escape. Nothing worse than having two fighting dogs who get their leashes entangled especially if they wrap you up too. We just steer clear of that dog.
I am joining this thread. I am sitting in a lawn chair, surfing my computer, waiting for the puppy to poop. I am not at all sure I’m a dog lover. My youth was full of dogs. I haven’t had one in 40 years. This was not my idea. I’m waiting to fall in love. Surely that will happen.
It will, you will, fall in love. My husband swore that we would never have a small dog. We have one now, a puppy. On her first night here I walked into the den. There they were,on the couch. Mr. Ellebud was talking softly and lovingly to her…assuring her that we would always love her, take care of…
FYI: 4 hours and some minutes later…
no pooping
first day with no poop between the after breakfast one and the after dinner one. gets fed twice a day.
first day he hasn’t been back in crate
he has to learn to be in crate and not poop
he likes the crate; he doesn’t mind pooping the crate
he likes to play with all his poop no matter where he does it
I will draw no comparisons to my children
friends are even less interested in hearing about housebreaking than they were about toilet training
he has to learn to go on the grass all the time because eventually he will be living in an apt and has to stay in his crate and only poop on regular walks. I can’t leave him out by himself because a hawk might get him. They are pretty interested in him.
How old is he @alh ?