Members Resume

[CeeCee]

I grew up with cats and, as some of you know, I was afraid of dogs. (I got bit by a Dobie as a kid and thenby a GSD as an adult). Something changed when I bought my house and I wanted someone to walk with so I started thinking about a dog. I went to our City Shelter and adopted Lila. They shelter guessed she was about 6 years old. I thought, "Great! I'll adopt an adult and see how I like this dog ownership thing.

Weeeelllll, her energy was OFF the CHARTS! I walked her three times a day with a backpack and STILL couldn't drain her energy. So I took her to daycare where by the ages of the dogs she chose to play with, it turns out she was a puppy! We estimate she was about 8 months old when I adopted her. This guess was supported by the fact that I saw her through puppy warts and her gaining 20 lbs and growing into her head.

Behaviorally we worked through:
-Barrier Frustration
-Leash Aggression
-A complete lack of respect for the recall when they was any sort of distraction around

Medically we've worked through:
-Megaesphogus
-Atypical Addisions

After getting Lila healthy and stable, I adopted Zeek from the same shelter. For him, we have worked through:
-A complete lack of confidence
-Fear of all strangers
-A complete over reaction to fearful situations. (His solution was to lunge, bark, and snap! Eak!)
-We will continually deal with a questionable physical structure most likely resulting from unknown breeding, a complete lack of nutrition (or food at all) as a puppy, and the results of early neutering.
- I have a Holistic Vet and a Chricopracter who help to support the heath and nutrition of both Lila and Zeek.

These two loves of mine have got me completely in love with dogs so I now spend about 15 hours a week volunteering for our city shelter where I run play groups, help dogs work through behavioral and training issues, and do enrichment for the dogs who are quarantined in the shelter.

I am pretty good with canine body language, dog play styles, pack dynamics, and training dogs in basic obedience, dog and dog introductions, cat and dog introductions, and reshaping unwanted behaviors.

I'm comfortable with clicker training and shaping behaviors. I am also experienced using Fancy Foot work and Drop and Go to teach good leash manners.

I would love to learn more about raw feeding, but every time I read about it, I find myself overwhelmed.

 

[DennasMom]

I love hearing about how many of our wonderful forum members work and/or volunteer at vets, shelters and rescue agencies - along with all of you who take home and work with the "problem children" and give them such loving, supporting homes.

You are all AMAZING People!!

Love this thread! Thanks for starting it, Mary!!

 

[Al and Julie]

Growing up I mostly had cats my mom is a cat person, we did have a dobbie for a few years but because of a seperation a us moving in an apt. we left him with the ex.

When DH moved in togheter we got a mature female boxer(Suki) she was a total sweetheart and was great with the kids. we had her 10 years then cancer took her from us.

We then took in a husky x wolf x??? not sure what we were thinking, he snap at my son's face for no reason (maybe their was something we didnt see) but for me I was done with him and rehomed him.

We then got our pug x terrier (Buster) and not too long after kids came home with a dropped off puppy vet determined Lab x newfouland (Sam). 11 years later we add a 3rd dog Rhodesian ridgeback x Viszla (Bella). We had all 3 for 2 years.

Then Sam's hip's started to let go and was also blind at 13 years old, he gave us the sign that it was time in 13 years he never bite but that day he bite a child not severly but a pinch. The child did nothing we were there watching them he just bite. He knew this was not allowed but vet told us he was in alot of pain so we decided to let him go(July 2012).

Bella turned depressed with losing her buddy so we got Thor mix engligh mastiff x CC, we didnt know better about BYB but I would change anything he was in horrible living conditions. Bella was our first dog with allergies and boy she gave us a hard time, infections, scratching ect.. by the time we got the allegies under control she started losing weight alot but her belly was swelling up. Back to the vets (I swear I paid her mortgage for 3 years!!! lol) we did full bloodwork panel turns out she had bonemarrow cancer we kept her comfy as we could and we finally had her put down Feb 2013.

So we decided to get another mastiff Xena CC x Bm, she came to us she was 8 months old never socialed or trained. That was a challenge you guys helped me out with so much and I am very grateful.

In June 2013 my daughter came home from work with fresh bones for the dogs. She gave all the dogs bones Xena, Thor, and the little pug Buster ( he had big dog syndrome) she left to go back to work and left them all alone not in crates. To the best of our knowledge Buster would have gone after the others dogs bones and he was attacked. He was put down because of the attack. So in 1 year we lost 3 dogs 2 of them at 13 years old and 1 at 2.5.

It was never our intentions to breed but Xena was caught by Thor and we had a litter of Pups on sept 11th. Mary and Diableo were great help for me during this time. The delivery was very hard we almost lost her, we lost 4 of the 6 pups. We had to do bottle feeding for 1 as mom didnt have enough milk.

So my knowledge on food I learned here and the vet, litter of pups here and the vet, training never other dog but I do a good job on my own.

Considering we always had crosses I think we were pretty lucky.

P.s. we also have our daughter dog (Kloe) living with us while she finishes college. Long story short found at 6 weeks in a box on the side of the road, my daughter adopted her at 8 weeks from H.S. at 10 weeks she caught parvo, Daughter ex boy friend be her and my daughter. The dog is now a hot mess, protective, seperation anxiety, and a chewer. But love her to death and everyday get better.


Bella and Buster




Xena and Thor

Khloe

 

[musicdeb]

Al and Julie, your story is a story of loyalty and persistence. You've experienced so much with your pups. You are truly fabulous!

 

[Al and Julie]

TY we try our best and keep learning. I believe in you can make mistake as long as you learn from them. I am always open to new info or constructive critism and even a kick in the ass when I need it. lol

 

[zardac]

To make this short and easy, feel free to use kid gloves with me all the time.

 

[DDSK]

My first dog was a Heinz 57 mix when I was two, dad brought him home to our family of 6, after time he became n
My dog and we shared our lives together for 18 years.
Then came Blue Boy a rescued German Shorthaired Pointer, a great well behaved and protective dog.
Got married and gained a wife and her Heinz 57 mix and added a Springer Spaniel. As these dods passed we got a Chesapeake bay retriever, very stubborn dog, but very loyal and obedient and protective, he lived to almost 15.
We bought the twins, Odin and Thor a pair of GSHP's, they were wild children and never completely bonded with us or our two sons, they were completely dedicated to each other, one passed due to a genetic blood disease at 10 the other died of a broken heart two weeks later.
We couldn't go without a dog and less than 3 weeks passed until we got our first mastiff, a Cane Corso, Named Zoey, 3 years in we got our 2nd CC Abby.
No special skills dog wise, but most dogs seem to get along with me well.

 

[gilles]

growing up i had cats mainly,,,my mom would not tolerate dogs in the house..although i got a pointer dog once but had to give him away. now i am a professor in biomedical engineering however i love animals and growing up i have read many many books about animals. all the gifts i get on my birthday are animal books so you can say i am an expert on lions, sharks, snakes, any wild animal . at the university i had a boa and an alligator..(yes iam good with snakes and alligators) anyways..last year i wanted a big dog and started my search..i learned about central asian shepherds and i wanted one..the only guy who raises them in the country is a very wealthy man who gets the best dogs from russia and the ukraine for fighting ...a couple of his dogs where a gift to a farmer who started breeding them. Volka is the son of this couple . Volka's father and grandfather where basically fighting dogs ..so was the destiny of volka until i bought him he was 7 weeks old. he was a fast learner and extremely smart but a destroyer..at the age of 4 months on he was becoming pretty big and aggressive ..it took a lot of guidance from a dog trainer and lots of work from me to turn volka into the sweetest dog.....unless i am under threat then he turns into mr hyde.... volka loves kids and other dogs, he is a lot of work and extremely powerful but also very sweet and very very protective of me and of the house..he does not like cats and he hates jackals and hyenas and when he meets one he is unstoppable and will ignore my commands so i usually tie him to the closest tree or pole because holding him is quiet a tough job and he already cause me few injuries and falls

 

[enzo_canecorso]

Just found this thread and have loved reading about everybody's experiences.

Growing up my mom bred mini schnauzer. I learned early on about puppies and the care they need and my love of dogs has never stopped growing. A few of the schnauzers were born with cleft palates and couldn't be saved despite my mom's effort, what a lesson to learn as a 6 year old. My parents fixed the schnauzer and re-homed her, she had decided that my mom belonged to her and would bite my sister and I. A few years later came Boomer. Boomer was my best friend growing up, he was a pit/lab mix. I can remember going camping and my dad would hold Boomer and tell me to run and hide. I would run as fast and as far as I could through the woods and find the best hiding place. I swear as soon as I yelled "ready" I was already being jumped on and kissed by the big dope. When I was in high school, Boomer got out and was taken to the local shelter. When we went to get him the next day the shelter worker dropped a big steel gate (to turn the 1 big kennel into 2 and separate him from the other dog in the kennel) he ran back in and the gate hit him right in the head. Not too long after he started having seizures and began getting more and more aggressive. My senior year of high school we finally put him down. The first injection to make him sleep threw him into a seizure and it was the most horrible/sad experience of my life. I couldn't handle it and said I wasn't having another dog ever again. I couldn't even pet our other family dog (a sweet pit rescued from a homeless camp). 3 months later I bought Titan, a little black pitbull, from a man who met me in a hardware store parking lot (real safe now that I look back on it). The pitbull my parents rescued was a walking health allergy attack. Poor girl lived to be 14 but I don't think she went 2 months without a skin/foot/ear infection.

Titan is now 8 and has been a great dog. He's not the best with other dogs, particularly on a leash, but health wise has been a great dog. Unfortunately for he likes men better and as soon as I moved in with my boyfriend, he became his dog.

Cocoa was a little mini pit that we got from a friend of ours, he does weight pulling and she had no interest in working. We had her for 3 years before re-homing her. We did breed her to another mini pit. The birth was an easy one and she had 5 healthy pups, the friend we got her from took 2 of them and 1 of them died at 2 days old. Cocoa was laying on it when I went to check on them in the morning, so I don't know if she suffocated it or if it had something else wrong. I still see all 4 pups to this day and it's been fun to watch them grow. We had to re-home Cocoa because after she had her litter, she decided that my daughter was hers. She started getting very possessive of her and eventually tried to bite another little girl who was playing with my daughter. We found her a good home with no kids and another dog to play with.

Nero is my 4 year old pitbull, my sister has his litter mate and they play often. He's an 75lb child. The goofiest dog ever and is just recovering from TPLO surgery.

Enzo is my baby, I had wanted a CC for years but we either didn't have the time or the yard for one until recently. He's been a bit of a challenge, raising him is NOTHING like raising any of the pitbulls. He's the most attentive pup I've ever had. He's only 5.5 months old and I cant wait to see how he grows. He's the first dog I've ever done any formal training with and would really like to get him into some form of work, just not sure which direction to go in.

 

[eoj89]

Not much of a resume, but..

Growing up, mainly due to my Dad, I was absolutely obsessed with animals!

My Nan & Granddad (his parents) had a Yorkie and a Mini Dach with wheels, and that Granddad bred budgies.

In our house, we had 2 Bullmastiffs, siblings, Hank & Molly, and Hank passed away before I could remember him so about 1-2 years old, and Molly passed away when she was 8. My Granddad and Grandma (My mum's parents) had their sister, Jodie, she passed away at about 5 after being ran over. Prior to that, My Granddad & Grandma had always owned German Shepherds. We also had 14 cats at one point (after the dogs), 2 Green Iguanas (same time as the dogs), and we had a little SBT x Pit cross who was PTS when she was 5 months old after a vet visit because we 'weren't allowed to keep her' which we now know is untrue.

After my Mum and Dad split up and the dogs had passed away, my Dad had always wanted a Mastiff breed but could never own another BM, so decided to adopt a 13 m/o Great Dane, Iona, who was an absolute nightmare. I think she was abused by her previous owners because they couldn't control her after they didn't train her as a pup. A few months after he adopted her, he adopted a 2 y/o Patterdale pup, Titch, who was a little sh*t. My Dad, his girlfriend at the time, and her daughters, along with the dogs, relocated to a farm in France, the terrier was killed by an unknown animal on the farm, and Iona now lives with my Dad's brother somewhere down south. I haven't seen my Dad or the dogs for years.

Presently, we have Murphy, our 10 m/o DDB, and even though he isn't my dog, he is my sole responsibility and through help I've received from the forum, he is beginning to become the perfect dog and I'm pretty sure I'll definitely have another mastiff breed. Before we got Murph, my Granddad had an accident where he injured his leg, and his current GSD, who is now 2 y/o, was still only a pup, around the age Murphy is now, still needed extensive training, so naturally, being the dog lover I am, I stepped up to the plate. Because of this, as Saber is extremely reactive towards people (genetics), I am the only person who he allows anywhere near his family (my Grandparents), and if need be, the only one who can control him. I will probably own a GSD at some point too.

Also, I am currently looking for volunteer positions at dog grooming salons and rescue organisations local to me, and am forever researching different dog breeds to figure out which would fit my lifestyle best, once I've been to university. My plan is to complete my A-Levels, go to University (Literature), take a dog grooming course, land myself a job at a dog groomers for a while and then start out on my own with my own dog grooming business. As a last thing as well, which is weird for the average dog owner (which I consider myself), I only met my first Labrador last year, even though I've been surrounded by dogs practically my entire life.