Z, your beautiful girl died around the same time mine did. My dog’s ashes are also still at home. I rarely make it through a day without a memory tugging at me.
We currently have three dogs in our home. They enjoy the outdoors when we are outside, and they enjoy the fireplace when we are sitting by it.
Mushers in the Iditarod typically house 50 to 100 dogs.
These dogs respond BEST in temperatures well below zero… -20 to -30 F are their “comfort zone”…especially when racing.
I worked in a dog yard that had 95 dogs…all begging to run…and I mean RUN.
I have seen dogs at the end of a 1000 mile race WANT to keep running, and they were happy!
The OP appears to not really have a clue…but oh well.
you can’t fix stupid.
No the stupid lies in you not being able to infer the fact that I wasn’t talking about work dogs, sled dogs, Australian whatevers that prefer to be outdoors.
As I stated up thread, I was mainly referring to middle class suburbians who prefer to keep their pooch outside because god forbid the filthy critter should get his little paw prints on their new suede couch.
No…your OP says NOTHING qualifying your reply to me…try not to speak in generalizations…
I could give a rats ass what you said after you posted the OP…i already knew you were off base.
How fucking obtuse are you?
Did you bother to read past post one?
Because they are deliberately killing a conscious being, for no reason other than it is unwanted and you’re too fucking lazy to try and train it. It’s not as if you can’t house train an older dog. It’s not as if most behavioral problems can’t be dealt with. You would kill it before even trying.
But because you personally don’t want to take the time to deal with it, it’s life is pointless and you should kill it off. We have curlcoat here, who actually acts like a decent human being and takes care of him until the day he keels over.
Then we have you who would kill off a dog that could have lived 8 more years because it’s too much a burden for you, and your brain is too small to contemplate someone else who might be a better person than you.
You are in fact abandoning the dog, even if you do do a bunch of bullshit to try and soothe your ailing conscience. It’s all about you, and that is borderline sociopathic.
You are anthropomorphizing and incapable of understanding a being on its own terms rather than yours.
And I am in fact not abandoning anything, because no-one ever dumped the results of their irresponsibility on me. And I am not trying to sooth an ailing conscience for something that I have never had to do that I believe would be the more responsible choice that either exposing my family to feces and urine all over the house or leave an animal alone and caged for years.
Wow, some broad painting being done in this thread. Holy cow.
I’ve been a lifelong dog owner, and I agree with the sentiment of the OP, while acknowledging that the OP’s statement was too broad. Sure there are some breeds that, by their nature, are happier outside. Okay, got it. From the moment I read the OP, I knew those were not the dogs he/she was talking about. Some of you picking the OP apart knew it too, but it’s more fun to try to tear it down into little pieces. After all, this is the pit, we have to show the appropriate amount of attitude and vile.
So, I’ll say it again, people who leave dogs who, by common sense, SHOULD be inside dogs, outside exposed to the elements, especially when those elements are extreme, are horrible fucking people. Extreme as defined by common sense. Too hot, too cold, whatever.
And for the issue of putting a dog down for behavioral issues rather than health issues, I’ve had to do it, and I challenge anyone to tell me what I should have done differently. Pure bred full size Collie, about 4 years old. Adopted/removed from an abusive household. He was dramatically underweight, teeth were in horrible condition, scared of everything, people, noises, trees, birds, you name it, he was scared of it. I took him in and began trying to nurse him back to health, both physically and mentally. Physically he got better, mentally he did not. Okay, so Taylor was never going to be a well-adjusted dog, so be it. Then one day, I had him outside on a leash walk when my neighbor fired up his loudass Harley about 30 feet away. Holy shit, instant viscous attack dog, like nothing I had ever seen before. How I escaped with out a bite, I have no idea. 5 minutes later, calm again. I learned over the next few months that he was extremely sensitive to loud noises, and the change into full on attack mode began happening more and more often. I called in the professionals. I had one of the most respected dog trainers in the area come and work with him. Nothing worked. It even seemed the more we worked with him the worse he got.
Finally I sat down with my trainer, and my vet, and we all reluctantly agreed that he needed to be put down. His behavior and the way it suddenly appeared was just too dangerous. I had learned to anticipate it and kind of control it, but all it would take is a crashing sound when a passerby was within reach, and there would be injuries and possible worse.
Sorry for unloading that here. I haven’t told anyone about that in over 20 years.
Back to your pitting and broad sweeping generalizations!!
Well, I said I don’t speak for all dog owners. And I have had dogs with medical issues that have cost me hundreds of dollars to treat. But I’ve also been fortunate enough to have had dogs that have remained healthy and have no issues eating dog food from the supermarket. The dog I have now is 10 years old and never been sick a day in his life. He’ll go through a 17 lb. bag of food averaging about $15 in a month. He struts around with his head held high and his tail wagging. Your mileage may vary (and mine has), but dogs aren’t always expensive to maintain in good health and don’t always have to break your finances. Of course, it all depends on the circumstances of you and your canine and on how many dogs you have.
Says the guy who makes his mommy do his shopping for him because it’s too much of a burden.
We had to go to the other extreme. We have two dogs, one rescued, one inherited at age 6 (he also wasn’t house trained but I taught him the doggie door rule in about 2 days). The big one turned into an escape artist one day and the little one, well, he is small enough to get under the wooden privacy fence (big one went over the top - 6 feet). So they started getting out, and no matter what we did, he kept doing it over and over, and getting farther and farther away each time, to the tune of 4 miles across two four-lane roads. The little one generally stuck close to the house. But after the last escape, where the big one was lost for 8 days in the middle of winter (and this is a greyhound type dog, not made for it), and found looking like a skeleton because he took no food from anybody, we decided it’s not worth it to let them go outside during the day while we’re both gone. I’d rather clean shit on the carpet every single day than go through that again.
So we close the doggie door when we’re both gone. And we deal with shit. Thankfully, the big one shits in the garage now (he’s broken through every door leading to the garage; we can’t stop this), and the little one, while shitting in the house proper, has little solid turds that are easy to clean. Our dogs are locked inside while we’re gone, and when one of us gets home we open the door and they can go out at leisure, until the next morning. The big one hasn’t tried to run while someone is home, but the instant we walk out the door together he’s hopped the fence - we recorded it once and it was staggering how fast he was loose.
So yeah, we trap our dogs inside 8 hours a day.
How long have you been training dogs? There are too many behavioral problems, some inherited, most created, that one can not fix thru training. For the most part, people just learn to deal with them, like Sister Vigilante locking her dogs in and cleaning up poop. I wouldn’t put up with that and wouldn’t expect any prospective home to do so, and that is minor compared to some of the issues unwanted dogs have.
There are plenty of worthwhile dogs out there that die every day because their time is up at the pound. Why waste good homes on dogs that will require management for their whole lives, and may end up getting put down anyway?