PETS Thread

[beave]

man i must've tweeted about dan uggla's but around 300 times by now

[Dr. Norm Thagard]

He's packing heat.

[ueckerist]

You guys.
She's here.

New Kitty Crew o/

[Dr. Norm Thagard]

You guys.
She's here.

New Kitty Crew o/

Oh, now i get it. Hoooorrrrraaaaayyyyyyyy!

[ueckerist]

bindi and dolly are all settled in here after ten days:



bindi's back to 100% after her health scare, probably more wackadoo than she was before actually

[Durham]

You guys.
She's here.

New Kitty Crew o/

Oh, now i get it. Hoooorrrrraaaaayyyyyyyy!

\o





Thinking about naming her Maui. The word for cute in my mother tongue is 'maya' and the littler of my cute kid cousins talks all the time about the 'mau maus' he sees. (Cats.) That is basically the only word he can say so he's often just asking, "Mau mau?" in an effort to not seem boring.

[jewels]

lotta cuteness going on in here.

[Dr. Norm Thagard]

Maui's cute, but i kinda like mau mau better.

[jewels]

I love boxes. there should always be boxes, everywhere.

[Merciel]

Congrats durham! I like "mau mau" too.

I've recommended it before, but I still haven't found a better all-purpose cat book than Pam Johnson-Bennett's Think Like A Cat.

Buckley's adorable. Mouthiness is very common in puppies; combination of interrupt ("NO!")/ignore (back turned, arms crossed, total death silence treatment for 10-30 seconds) for the unwanted behavior and positive reinforcement (praise/attention, occasional but infrequent treats) for polite behavior (I usually select for a polite default Sit, but you can do what you want) usually works pretty quickly to resolve it. Timing and consistency are key -- you need to build up associations that good behavior causes good things to happen, and bad behavior causes those good things go to away -- so the better you are with delivering your responses quickly and the more consistently you do so, the sooner the unwanted behavior will recede.

It's also very common for a dog's behavior to be somewhat suppressed when it first arrives in a new environment populated by strangers, which is why virtually every dog initially appears to be exceptionally polite, quiet, and well-behaved when it first comes home. The dog's real personality should start to become more obvious after a couple of days, although shy dogs can take weeks to relax.

Dog Mob's enjoying Nantucket, although they're also both a little stressed out right now.

In the car:



In our cottage this morning:



I'll try to get SVC to take some pictures from more than 10 feet away later. I can't do it because Dog Mob won't let me get more than 10 feet away, so all the vacation pictures I take look like we're still at home and just changed the carpet.

They didn't eat much of their breakfast this morning but they did spill a lot of it on the porch, so there are some fat crows in the trees outside trying to decide if they dare swoop down and try to steal some of that spilled food. The crows have been working up their courage for about 20 minutes now. Crookytail has yet to notice them (somehow -- the birds are really loud so I'm not sure why he's so oblivious to them) but Pongu does not like them one bit.

There are a lot of dogs on Nantucket. The only actual mutts I've seen, other than Dog Mob, belong to the servers and other people who live here. All the guests have purebreds or crossbreeds (so many labradoodles); we've encountered one other tourist with a mutt. Everyone keeps asking what kind of dog Crookytail is, and apparently expecting the answer to be some rare European breed instead of "pound dog from North Carolina."

Unsurprisingly, many of these dogs are very poorly trained. This is the first place I've been where lots of the restaurants have outdoor seating but won't let you bring your dog to the table (in Philly, basically any place that has outdoor tables allows dogs in the outdoor area; here, we're at about 30% so far). I don't blame them, though. The mutts have all been totally awesome, and one pair of Labs was great, but that's about it. There's a special kind of nitwit who spends thousands of dollars on a dog and then totally neglects its basic psychological needs, and that type is awfully overrepresented on this island. Their kids have mostly been super polite about asking before approaching the dogs, though. I wonder if there's a correlation...

[brittle]

there's beetle watching me get ready for work

[Durham]

I can't j/o with this adorable kitty around, too much shame

[ghostguts]

[frito pie country]

my friend's dog bailey and i



townes and his pal gorilla

[Durham]

This sweetheart is just too good. She is sleeping on the back of my neck right now like some kind of divine Sharper Image™ accessory.
Took her for her first wellness exam today and she was so sad in the car/box. And then scared in the office, which is a friendly, cats-only place. She sort of pooped herself a little bit.

Don't recall if I posted it here or another thread, but I've never had a pet before so this is all new/fun/scary. I'm so glad she loves me. That book is great so far, Merciel, thanks for pointing me to it.

[Merciel]

I'm glad it was useful!

More vacation pics (these are from yesterday, I will undoubtedly have a bunch more after we go out today):









Dog vacation is the best. <3 <3 <3

[bluemovers]

Buckley's adorable. Mouthiness is very common in puppies; combination of interrupt ("NO!")/ignore (back turned, arms crossed, total death silence treatment for 10-30 seconds) for the unwanted behavior and positive reinforcement (praise/attention, occasional but infrequent treats) for polite behavior (I usually select for a polite default Sit, but you can do what you want) usually works pretty quickly to resolve it. Timing and consistency are key -- you need to build up associations that good behavior causes good things to happen, and bad behavior causes those good things go to away -- so the better you are with delivering your responses quickly and the more consistently you do so, the sooner the unwanted behavior will recede.

It's also very common for a dog's behavior to be somewhat suppressed when it first arrives in a new environment populated by strangers, which is why virtually every dog initially appears to be exceptionally polite, quiet, and well-behaved when it first comes home. The dog's real personality should start to become more obvious after a couple of days, although shy dogs can take weeks to relax.

thanks Merciel! we've started to try the "turning our backs" thing now when he gets mouthy and it may be starting to work. time will tell. he still hasn't barked, and he's doing really good going outside now. first day of working from home with him, and he's been pretty adorable. currently he's in an upside down fetal position snoring away on the futon.

photo evidence:

[Dr. Norm Thagard]

I think that position is called the cockroach.

[atomicbombshell]

merciel, i thought you would get a kick out of this. mab is much better at the dog park now. this is from the second time we went, when she was finally running around.

[Merciel]

Oh man I laughed way too much at that "Ow." I feel kinda bad.

That last pic is awesome, I'm totally reposting it on the shelter page so they can all be happy for her. <3

Today we took Dog Mob to the Serengeti (this big inland conservation area in Nantucket). They ran around for a while and now they are totally beat.

[Snitch Muggler]

Shelby


Shelby passed out.


Shelby being a weirdo.

[Durham]

How old is Shelby?

Here's an Instagram I took of Maui the other day.

[wintergreen]

that's a cute cat alright.

[Merciel]

Dog Mob at Tupancy Links (the dog park of Nantucket):



Mostly it's that huge enormous field, but there's also a little trail that goes up to a cliff overlooking a tiny beach. Dogs can slip through the gap and get down the extremely steep cliff "trail" to the beach; people cannot. There's a sign telling you not to let your dog through the gap.



Crooky was curious about the gap and for a little bit I was worried he'd make a try at it, but he is a Good Dog and did not.

Then they pooped out on the way home.



Dog Mob's proving to be pretty lightweight, adventure-wise. Clearly we need to build up their stamina before coming back.

[Snitch Muggler]

How old is Shelby?

Here's an Instagram I took of Maui the other day.

Oh my!! That is some serious cuteness right there!

Shelby will be 2 at the end of September. She's on the small side tho...and still has a baby face.

[bluemovers]

well...the honeymoon is over. Buckley just bit the shit out of mrs. movers for the second day in a row when she arrived home from work. he was a prince here with me all day, both days. yesterday it was a lot of nipping and we had to leave him in the backyard because he just would not stop. today he drew blood and scratched her up so bad she couldn't even take him outside, i had to grab him by his collar and practically drag him when nothing else worked. no matter what i've read or been told, in that moment i seem ill-prepared to manage his behavior.

[Snitch Muggler]

My cat is currently eating my shoe. I told her not to eat my shoe and she looked up, looked me straight in the eyes and starting licking/smacking her lips (cat's have lips right?). Last week, she bit my foot and then started purring. Like she was happy about it.

[tricky]

How old is Shelby?

Here's an Instagram I took of Maui the other day.

[Rhodes]

My cat Bowie licked my ear the other day. It was weird!

[captain]

buster's really starting to go grey. lots of new white hairs on his belly and you can see white about half way up a lot of his existing hairs when he sheds