You think cats are dumb, but dogs are worse (TMI)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Alternate title: the night of a million zillion crap stains.

TMI warning, BTW.

I have a basenji (or, more appropriately put, will soon used-to-have a basenji) who has some dietary problems involving malabsorption, which is a common hereditary ailment with basenjis. She’ll start having bouts of diaharrea, so we’ll get her checked out and put her on a diet and treat her nutritional deficiencies, and a few months later she’ll start having problems with that, causing us to frantically search for another dietary alternative.

(Note to self: don’t ever get another purebred dog again.)

Did I mention the constipation? Hers, I mean. She cannot do a #2 in the morning before I go to work, if she has had one the previous night. It’s like squeezing crap from a rock. (No no, not that rock, that’s just an old cow pattie, put that down.) The problem with inconsistency is it’s so inconsistent - some days she’ll do a #2 in the morning because she hasn’t done a #2 the night before. However, if she hasn’t done a #2 the night before, and she hasn’t done one in the morning, then in the 2 hours between when I walk her and when my wife walks her, she will make a mess in the house.

A couple of days ago, she did just this very thing, only she chose our daughter’s bedroom floor for the event. The entire floor. And parts of the hallway and part of our bedroom as well. (As an encore she specifically avoided crapping into the bathtub like we’ve been trying to train her to her entire life.)

I love animals, but if you make me choose between my daughter’s well-being and a dog, well, I already have my mind made up.

So we’re getting rid of her. (The basenji, I mean.) She’s about 6 years old, which makes giving her a new home difficult, but she’s a semi-rare breed and very calm around kids and other animals, which works in her favor.

Which brings me to my other dog, our beagle. When our beagle is stressed, she develops a nasty habit of eating her own feces, then barfing them up and eating them again. I rinse, she repeats.

When we handed our basenji off to relatives - to give me time to catch up with the cleaning and daily life stresses and whatnot - our beagle became lonely, then depressed, then stressed. Within about 12 hours she was doing the Tecnhicolor Jackson Pollack across the living room carpet.

It’s an art. She had a wildly successful second showing, overnight, quietly satisifying her nervous tic in the dog bed.

(Note to self: never ever again get a purebred dog. Never. Ev-er. The sun will go out, and the universe will be swallowed by a ravenous star goat, before I ever get another purebred dog.)

In short, this morning I was almost late to work, and when I arrived I was sweaty from all the scrubbing, and carried with me the faint but distinguished aroma of Resolve spray, dog poop and stomach fluids. I skipped breakfast, and I don’t think I’m going to eat lunch. And my beagle will soon be used-to-be mine.

On the whole, I feel pretty down about this.

2
  1. I don’t think cats are anywhere near smart, so I agree with you. They just have way better PR.
  2. I’ve heard pineapple will work for the eating their own poop.
  3. I’m sorry to hear you have to give up your dog. In your defense, I probably would too. That sounds like a bit much even for a pet owner.
3

Can’t you just convince the beagle to eat the basenji’s poop?

4

Well, yeah, they pretty much did that as much as they could when they were pups. We got to the point where they had to be walked separately, even through we had a perfectly fine fenced-in yard. The habit disappeared for a while around when the beagle turned 2, but it’s never really gone away.

Every time I see someone licking a dog’s lips, or anything that involves exchanging saliva with a dog, I feel the urge to regurge. It’s ick with a capital “ick”.

5

It’s my understanding that, as adorable as they are, this type of behavior is not atypical among beagles.

As you’ve discovered (the hard way, unfortunately), mixed-breed dogs are, IMHO, definitely the way to go. All dogs have their peculiarities, but much fewer mixed breed animals are predisposed for genetic, health and behavior problems.

6

I don’t usually hold forth on my opinions about purebred animals, but I think you’re a receptive party - purebred animals are not good. Not good. Don’t buy them, don’t support the breeders, don’t support the idea of purebreds. Purebreds are a human’s idea of what is good in a dog or cat, not nature’s. I think all breeding of purebreds that have known, chronic health conditions should be stopped.

7

I dunno…my mixed breed dog not only loved his own, but the cat’s poop as well. He’d follow them into the bathroom every time if I let him.

Then again he’s the one that ate an entire jar of vaseline, forcing my mom to buy an entire house worth of new carpet. It just could not be cleaned sufficiently. This was after eating a bottle of one of mom’s heart meds and being rushed to the ER. But before he destroyed an entire Easter basket full of chocolate…including the basket itself.

He lived for almost 19 years and despite the insane desire to commit suicide he was the best damned dog in the world.

8

I have 2 beagles. One is very smart ,the other just wants to play and chase squirrels. The smart one was licking out a dog food can in the basement where the floor is very slanted. He picked the can up and jammed it in his dry food bowl. Once it was lodged he licked it at his leasure.
Another time he made the growly night time voice that says I gotta go to bathroom right now. My wife got up to let him out. Once she reached him he ran passed her jumped in bed under the covers with his head on her pillow. He growled at her when she came back to bed.
He saw a problem, developed a plan and executed it.
None of my cats ever showed that kind of abilities. Or other dogs for that matter.

9

Some dogs have problems, some don’t. My Bouncer dog has food absorption problems. He has to have a supplement added to his food so he can digest it. He also can’t always control his poopage very well. So we clean up a lot. But that’s why Og made carpet cleaners.

10

Well, by way of a mini-update, both dogs are now in new families’ homes. That’s a relief for us; it went a lot faster than we expected.

A family in the neighborhood answered our beagle’s ad on day two. We interviewed them and watched their kids interact with our beagle for about an hour, then they took her for a few days to see if they want to keep her. They expressed some minor concern about the coprophagy, but in the same breath they mentioned that their other dog did that too. We’ll see how it works out.

The local basenji rescue organization found a foster home for our basenji within a day. There’s a bit of paperwork there that we have yet to handle. In the mean time, she’s still at the relatives’ home, but the kids there don’t want to give her up.

I was so mad with them a few days ago, I was ready to leave them in a cage on the local animal shelter’s front porch. :mad: I’m just glad it doesn’t have to come to that.

11

In this case, I think no dog is the way to go.

12

I have to disagree with this a little bit (not the part about the known, chronic health conditions, of course–the part about how purebreds are not good). We have five cats–four purebreds (two Singapuras, two Russian Blues) and one tabby we adopted from our vet’s after falling in love with her. Apart from a heart problem in one of the Singapuras (and it’s not a hereditary thing–the breeder thinks it came from some pesticide spraying in her area before he was born, since another kitten of a different breed who was born around the same time ours was had a similar problem), the four purebreds are the most delightful, sweet, friendly, and well adjusted cats we could ever wish for (as is the tabby). Maybe we got really lucky (and we did research the breeders, picked reputable ones, and avoided anything with a whiff of “backyard breeder”) but our experience with purebred cats has been 100% positive.

YMMV, and dogs may be different–I’m not at all familiar with dogs, purebred or otherwise.

13

Purebred cats are all mostly the same size and shape, unlike purebred dogs. Some kinds of cat with squished faces, like Persians, can have sinus problems, but even then a Persian is more similar to a moggie cat than, say, a Pekinese is to a standard mutt-type dog.

14

Never kiss anything that can lick its own anus.
dogbutler, beagle mix owner.

15

My moral issues are definitely more with dog breeders than cat breeders, but I have problems with any breeders that breed animals for human esthetics rather than the health of the animals.