I just wanted to give an epilogue of sorts to my last question post. I went ahead and brought home a kitten for Zane, my Mini Aussie. I made sure the kitten was completely at home before slowly introducing them. The kitten was raised with other dogs so Zane was no big deal, and Zane knows and likes cats, so the drama was nonexistent.

Instead, they've become each other's best friends right away. The kitten, who I've named Twister, like to pounce on Zane's feet and Zane will roll him around on the ground with his nose while Twister smacks at him with his paws and purring like crazy. Zane also likes to take Twister's toys and make Twister chase him.

I honestly don't think I've ever seen Zane so lively at home, so thank you all SO MUCH for your advice and encouragement in getting a pet for my pet. I'm looking forward to many, many years of funny dog and cat games to watch.



Zane and Twister

Daisy is getting a new little sister! Her name is Josie and she will be arriving on June 1st from Arkansas :) I am wicked excited and a bit nervous. For those of you who have transitioned from one dog to two, do you have any tips? Daisy will be 2 in July and Josie is about 4 months old.


She's the little merle mix on top!

So I was reading a book on dog ownership, a huge book with a lot of different sections and topics, including euthanizing. In the section about helping your other pets through their grief over the loss of their euthanized family member, they recommend allowing your pets to witness the euthanasia if at all possible. The idea had honestly never occurred to me as a possibility until reading this book, and I'm torn between finding this unnecessarily cruel to the surviving pets, and thinking that it's a really good idea, if euthasia is the path chosen by the owner. Has anybody here ever done this, or heard of this being done? I understand the reasoning behind this recommendation, but would the trauma of witnessing the death be worth the closure it may provide for your surviving pets?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and experiences.

This is Owen's 4th herding lesson from this morning. He has excellent instinct; takes after his daddy. The instructor has been trying to teach him that he can gain better control when he is further away from the sheep but he is just fast as hell and wants to get super close right now. However, he is getting better and better each time. It's a blast! He is so focused on them and loves every minute of it.

( More photos! )

Hi everyone! :3 It's about that time again where I decide to open up commissions! This time, when you make a commission purchase from me, 50% of the proceeds from the purchase go directly towards the dogs and cats currently in foster from the Lawrence County Ohio Animal Shelter. We are a very tiny network of fosters, run by one woman in charge and so far, there are only two other fosters. Most of the costs of fostering come right out of our own pocket at this time, as we are still getting established and we need to get these recent fosters to the vet asap!

So, I am opening up commissions at a reduced rate!

Caricatures are done by pencil, then lined by hand, and you will be mailed the original copy to frame, or whatever you'd like.

I am asking $10 for your first, and $5 for each one after that. :D They are black and white, but I would be happy to color them digitally for an extra $10, and you will get a high-resolution copy of this e-mailed to you.
If anyone feels these prices are too high, or anything, please don't hesitate to e-mail me, I am sure we can work something out. :]

I will be taking paypal only right now, and I will be asking that you send the payment AFTER I send you a digital copy of your image, as I want you to be happy with it and approve it before you pay for something you don't want. :] If I cannot make you happy, I will refund your money completely.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to e-mail me!
You can reach me via LJ message or at thepariahdogs AT gmail.com

Thanks!

( My Examples )

Please PM or e-mail me for more examples if you need them! :)

Oh, and feel free to boost the signal! :)

What is your dog's favorite toy? 

For example my dog's favorite toy is the flirt pole. When we go outside to pee he stops at the toy and wags his tail hopefully. The only thing he loves more than this toy is chasing squirrels. 

I got it to tire him out but it's kind of turning him into a pole fiend. If he doesn't get it chase on he gets kind of restless and naughty. What I got as a "he might like it" turned into my dog ignoring his doggy friend to drag the pole around the yard because he snuck off to get it from where I keep it.

Dogs are great.

So Gypsy got loose today and killed a kitten. She apparently grabbed it, shook it, and snapped it's neck. My husband is afraid that now that she's killed something, she'll be uncontrollable. Not that she was THAT controllable in the first place, but we were working with her. After the kitten we spent 45 minutes trying to catch her again and get her home.

How likely is this? Does a dog just go nuts once it's killed something?

So, I'm pretty sure Romeo's allergic to something. I did an allergy screen on him back in November after a series of yeast infections in his ears, and he came back strongly allergic to yeast, and only mildly allergic to foods - sweet potatoes and the usual grain suspects. I switched him onto a grainfree food, and his ears cleared up in a week, but the past month and a half he's been licking and chewing on his feet, and this week he was limping for two days because he bit deeply into one of his pawpads. He's back to normal now, and I'm thinking hard what to do for him. I reallly don't want to take him into the vet and have them order another expensive food allergy screen; I've already switched him onto a fish-based grainfree kibble and am thinking of switching him onto a beef-only raw diet, but I suspect it's a grass or pollen allergy frankly - he seems to chew his feet considerably more after we've been out hiking and he's been running in tall grass.

Aside from children's benadryll, what can I do to ease his discomfort? I've got some hydrocortisone cream, but unless I put an elizabethan collar on him he'd lick it off and poison himself. I'm not sure what else to do for his feet - he freaks out if he has anything on him but his collar so I can't see him wearing booties on the trail. I'm hoping that with a change in the seasons whatever's aggravating him will pass; we used to have an asthmatic cat that needed steroids in the spring but who was almost completely healthy the rest of the year. If need be, I'll see a vet about getting him on steroids, but I'd hate to have to do that; the drugs are fairly cheap, but having experience with taking drugs myself, I know the side effects are nothing to laugh at. So I'd like to exhaust other options.

Medicated shampoos? Anti-itch cream (that's non toxic)? Natural or herbal remedies? I'm willing to try a variety of things provided there's some evidence to back them up. Thank you SO much for your help. If everybody says "take him to the vet" I'll empty my savings account, goddamnit.