That is a horse.
Shame about the ears :(
It’s evil, I love my rescued girl to death. But man I’d like to meet the assholes who cropped her ears in a dark alley.
Yes, it’s pretty commonly done to some breeds of dogs with naturally floppy ears. They should look like the big guy’s ears in this picture:
They do, it’s unfortunate. We had an English springer spaniel growing up, and went to get him as a puppy. They had already docked his tail and didn’t want to give him to us before doing his ears, and we were just like “oh no no, let us pay for that”, they agreed, and then we never spoke to them again and his ears remained lovely and floppy.
He did have to wag his entire butt though because of the tail, unfortunately.
My vet told me to consider it because my floppy eared hound dog gets chronic ear infections.
Can I get a medical exemption on the ear cropping anger please?
That’s too big!!
A dog that can snatch food off the counter without jumping… I cannot fathom dog-proofing a house for that.
I mean I have a greyhound who can countersurf, you just put baby gates around the kitchen and food. Keeping stuff out of snoot height/range removes most issues.
Part of it is training them that it isn’t an appropriate thing to do. It usually helps that if they behave (and we’re eating something the pup can safely have) they get a bit of food as a treat.
Training is a must and especially with a dog that big you need to make sure they know what is expected and appropriate. Doing that sets them up for success and makes it much easier to care for them overall.
When my aunt had a puppy, she set up a barrier to prevent the dog from going upstairs. It was low enough for humans to step over, but the puppy couldn’t get over it. Amusingly, as the dog grew up, it never seemed to occur to it that it could now step over the barrier without much fuss.
We used to be able to put up a blanket “wall” across two chairs to stop the dogs from crossing. It took them a few years to realize they could simply walk through/under the blanket.
I have an Akita that can do the same and is (mostly) very good about asking for permission / knowing he needs to be handed food.
I do feel like smaller dogs generally get minimal or zero training because people know they can just pick them up or otherwise stop them and it makes pet ownership worse for everyone involved.
Lol I’ve always had food aggressive dogs but my current GSD is a saint by comparison. She doesn’t really mess with our food and we have left food on our coffee table overnight more than once and she didn’t touch it. Counter food is more than safe despite the fact that it would take her almost no effort to grab it.
The one exception is carrots. If we’re chopping carrots and walk away they’re as good as gone 😭
This is an area where size may not matter. Our first dog was an 11 pound mini poodle. He was so tiny, but he got huge air. We also had no way to dog proof.
- My ex was fond of saying he got enough air to have time to slowly scan the counter.
- My story was that he could be sitting nicely, seemingly behaved, but if you glance away, he could be standing on the table from a sitting leap
Training, lots of training. It also applies to you as well!
I think our dog got past 2 years old before we had eaten more pork chops than he had stolen.
He’ll still swipe my daughter’s dinner, if it’s left unattended. At least he will no longer steal it while she’s sat in front of it.
A Great Dane was the only dog that ever gave me a fight or flight response. When I was about 13 years old I visited my aunt & uncle and they were dogsitting a massive Great Dane. When I opened their door he was staring at me at eye level and I thought I was about to die, full adrenaline dump, the whole works. Then he started slobbering all over me and we became friends.
Nice horse. I’m sorry it’s a what?
