labradork

[labradork]

Moon-gazer 🌙

[labradork]

Historically Milo has NOT been a cuddler, but recently he's started doing stuff like this. 😭♥️♥️♥️

[labradork]

when your pet comes to you from another room, the preceding moments meant that they were alone somewhere and thought about YOU, an animal brain literally thought about you and came to you to see what you were doing. that’s love, unconditional.

[labradork]

like one of the really interesting things that people are awfully quiet about is that......over the last thirty years, an enormous amount of progress has been made towards the goals of companion animal welfare movements

there are many areas of the country where demand for adoptable rescue dogs outstrips supply, where competition is legitimately fierce to get your hands on one of these dogs

spay/neuter campaigns have been enormously effective among many demographics, to the point where people get very upset about the idea of a dog having gonads at all

81% of all animals that entered animal shelters in 2022 were saved. only 8.6% were euthanized "needlessly" (no definition provided for what that means). [x]

really, the forefront of animal welfare at this point is human welfare.

most often, animals are being surrendered to animal shelters for human reasons that have little to do with the animals themselves. 31% of owner surrenders are driven by housing issues, health issues, financial issues, or the death of the caretaker (see linked source above)

if you really care about pet homelessness and animal welfare, at some point you have to stop being an outrage-addicted, self-righteous keyboard warrior and start actually caring about other people

[labradork]

Scented poo bags actually turn me, like why would I want to smell poop and vanilla together. Why would I want to associate those two things in my mind. 😵

[labradork]

Man and his dog with matching hats early 1930′s, Maine.

[labradork]

It's Milo's world, and we're just living in it

[labradork]

I thought I saw a tick on Milo's back during our walk today, but it was much worse.

PERVERTS

[labradork]

[labradork]

Will never see eye-to-eye with anyone less than the people who treat their pets like wandering ronin instead of valued family members. Like oh there goes Bronson our uncollared, chipless chocolate lab out of the permanently open back door again. If he comes home in three days after subsisting on garbage we'll be mildly thrilled to see him again but if he succumbs to his natural predator, the 2006 Toyota Camry, that's just the circle of life

[labradork]

Derry made it to the All-Ireland semi-final thanks surely to Milo's support ❤️🤍

[labradork]

Me after I hit the vape 🍃

[labradork]

I was busy at lunchtime so Milo didn't get his walk, and I got him a new ball while I was out to apologise. I think he forgives me. 😅

[labradork]

I've been away for a long weekend but I wanted to say thanks to everyone who responded to my last post. It was so helpful to read everyone's messages. We walked the same park today and had a wonderful time. 💚🦢

[labradork]

I'm so frustrated. Rant under the cut.

So I guess I'd say Milo is dog selective. He went through a phase of barking and lunging at bigger dogs, and especially GSDs, which we worked through. But when he meets dogs, it's like a 50/50 chance that he'll get along with them or suddenly tense up and snap. And I think that's because of experiences he's had in the past: twice now we've had off-lead dogs run up to us, get right in Milo's face and then attack him completely unprovoked. On his first birthday three mastiff-looking dogs started fighting him at my feet, and I had to drop his lead and watch them chase him. Luckily he wasn't physically hurt but it was fucking traumatic, for both of us. Even after that he was okay until something similar happened in the woods near our house. After that he developed reactivity to bigger dogs, which we spent a lot of time and effort working through, and now he can comfortably pass dogs as long as they aren't right in his face.

So while I'd love for him to meet and befriend every dog we see, I made the decision to not let him meet strange dogs on walks because I don't think it's worth the risk of him snapping. I mostly take him to on-lead parks or walk him along busy roads to avoid meeting off-lead dogs for this reason.

So today at the on-lead park (on-lead because it's a habitat for several native birds, and this is clearly signposted around the park) probably 90% of the dogs we saw were off-lead. And some of them were calmly walking alongside their owner and left us alone. Fine.

We got to one of the car parks and someone opened a car door and a cocker spaniel started running at us. She was small and wasn't the type of dog Milo usually has a problem with but like I said, I don't like to take the risk. I called over to be careful because he isn't friendly and they tried and failed to recall her while I moved away.

We take opposite directions around the loop and eventually meet again, and again their dog runs up to Milo and ignores their recall. The dog is right beside us before I can move away and I don't have a lot of choice this time - and they greeted each other and were fine, which I had kinda suspected would be the case, and the other owners said he seemed fine and I explained that having been attacked in the past he can get scared when dogs run at him and he's on the lead, and that I just avoid meeting all dogs to avoid the risk. I say it's frustrating because sometimes he is friendly but I don't want to put other dogs at risk.

The guy nods and seems sympathetic but the lady starts telling me about the wonders of Cesar Milan and how she's trained her dog perfectly by hitting her when she misbehaves. She tries to demonstrate her perfectly trained dog by pointing down at her side and telling the dog to sit. Her dog ignores her. Milo moves to her side and sits. She continues explaining how her dog is perfectly trained and I need to "be tough" and "show him I'm the boss" and beat him. I suck at conflict so I just keep nodding til she runs out of things to say, then say it was nice to meet them and leave.

I constantly feel guilty that Milo isn't like "normal" dogs. I worry that I'm just too anxious, that I did something wrong or am doing something wrong. I wish I cared less so I could let my dog run around the woods and get in fights and act like it's not my fault like people have done to us. Part of me feels ridiculous and overdramatic, but another part of me has seen Milo be attacked and seen him snap at other dogs and I just don't want to break up another fucking dog fight on a quiet walk on my day off. I'm running out of places where I can safely walk my dog without constantly worrying about other people's dogs.

Mostly I'm angry. MY dog is on a lead. I'm FOLLOWING THE RULES. And other people treat me like an idiot because they aren't. It feels unfair. And I feel stupid for expecting fairness. And I'm sick of people who don't know what they're talking about telling me to hit my dog because that was NOT the first time I've been given that advice by someone with no control over their own dog and it makes me fucking sick.

[labradork]

Recently I taught Milo to find my phone for me and I ask him to do it quite often, because he really enjoys it and I am constantly forgetting where I put my phone down. It's gotten to the stage where I can ask my husband if he's seen my phone and Milo will jump into action.

This morning said husband was looking for his wallet and Milo was like, oh you've lost something? This seems like a job for me! And started frantically searching. But obviously he had no idea what he was searching for so he just came and rested his head on my phone. While it was in my hand, being used. (':

I'm gonna have to find some more find/retrieve tasks for him to do because he enjoys them so much. Maybe fetching my meds when my alarm goes off might actually make me take them consistently.

[labradork]

Stuck between a human and a soft place