Angel
styofa doing anything
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda

★
i don't do bad sauce passes
Claire Keane
DEAR READER
NASA

titsay
Show & Tell
Today's Document
todays bird
Jules of Nature
One Nice Bug Per Day
$LAYYYTER
Cosimo Galluzzi
cherry valley forever
Sweet Seals For You, Always
KIROKAZE
occasionally subtle
Three Goblin Art

seen from United States

seen from Georgia

seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom

seen from Israel
seen from Germany

seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from Netherlands

seen from Türkiye

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Russia
seen from United States
@fullpelt
Angel
Ice
A happy pit at the Washington Square Park Dog Run. Follow us for daily pics of NYC dogs!
My Great Dane is my life
A snowy day for this Australian Shepherd
Kali is a Calahoula Leopard Dog. It is considered one of the rarest and fasted breeds out there. She is a fun addition to our pack and we love her high intelligence and ability to learn quickly.
Top Ten Things We Know About Real Dogs: 1. It’s all chew toys to them(no concept of artifacts) 2.Amoral (no right vs. wrong, only safe vs. dangerous) 3. Self-interested (no desire to please) 4.Lemon-brains(i.e, small and convoluted brains that learn through operant and classical conditioning) 5.Predators (search, chase, bite, dissect and chew all strongly wired) 6.Highly social (bond strongly and doesn’t cope well with isolation) 7. Finite socialization period (fight or flight when not socialized to some social stimulus category) 8. Opportunistic scavengers (if it’s edible and within reach, eat it now) 9. Resolve conflict through ritualized aggression (never write letters to the editor, never sue) 10.Well-developed olfactory systems
Jean Donaldson, Culture Clash (via growlinggrumpies)
Lola is a 1.5 years old, spayed, pure Border Collie looking for a home in New Brunswick or the surrounding area. She’s from a neglect situation where she mostly lived in a crate in a garage for just over her first year of life. Her reactivity to dogs is due to under-socialization and lack of training, and she’s already showing some improvement with training. She also experiences barrier frustration and will fence fight. She needs to be an only pet until she gains more confidence and learns how to engage with other dogs appropriately. Lola is extremely friendly with people and children and has a good nature in general. She does jump when she gets excited, so would do best with older children only.
Lola is house trained and does well in her crate at night and when left alone during the day. She’s an extremely fast learner and is picking up impulse control and basic manners very quickly. She’s never played with toys before, so she’s still learning her own play style and discovering what toys she likes. She’s a natural tugger, and I’m working on teaching her fetch. She seems comfortable outside and in the house. She’ll be a great hiking and camping buddy especially with a bit of recall and leash training.
Lola has no known health issues and is currently eating a mix of kibble and raw with no issues.
Please message me if you would like to know more about Lola or might want to meet her.
White and fawn pied Central Asian Ovcharka puppy, source
He is such an incredible dog.
I’m writing this with no intention to offend anyone, I am just sharing my views.
I’m seeing a lot of discussion on here about ‘properly using’ correctional collars/equipment. There is a lot of implication that, if used ‘properly’, these tools are perfectly safe. Which bothers me, since they can be incredibly harmful. Correctional collars, such as prong collars, work through being aversive. Aversives have been proven to have fallout, which are negative side effects, such as: avoidance of the person/environment associated with punishment, increased aggression, learned helplessness, and reinforcement for the punisher. While other tools such as martingales, flat collars and harnesses can also be aversive for some dogs, they are not designed to function as such. This is the reason that prong collars work.
If the tools are ‘properly fitted’, the risk for injury is lessened - but they still work through causing discomfort or pain, depending on the dog. Using aversion as a method of training can cause stress for the learner (the negative effects of shock collars were investigated in these studies - cortisol levels in dogs rose when being trained with shock collars, indicative of increased stress/anxiety). I watched a video by a balanced trainer showing the ‘proper use’ of a prong collar for the sake of understanding both sides, and there are so many stress signals shown by the dog in the video: tense facial muscles, frantic panting, pinned back ears and frequent lip licking. I also watched another instructional video which shows lots of different dogs being trained on prongs, all displaying some degree of stress. Here you can see that some dogs find it more aversive than others; compare the tucked tail and anxious body language of the Dachshund mix, to the more subtle lip licking of the Lab.
This page, from the Welfare in Dog Training campaign’s website, outlines some of the harmful implications of training methods that achieve behavioural change through fear, avoidance and pain - including references.
I feel like people need to know that there are big risks involved with these tools. In my country they are not commonly used, I actually have only seen shock and prong collars being used in an IPO club, never by pet owners. But it seems like the case is quite opposite over in the US. I’m not trying to be argumentative or antagonistic, but informative, since a lot of promotion of these tools is circulating my dash again. Claims are made that they are ‘fine’ when used properly - the ‘proper use’ can still be harmful, and still uses aversion. Which, despite popular belief, isn’t necessary in training. To name some good resources on force free training: Nando Brown, Emily Larlham (kikopup), Denise Fenzi, 4 Paws University, John McGuigan (Glasgow Dog Trainer) on YouTube and Facebook - these are just some of my personal favourites.
Inb4 the inevitable ‘this debate is overdone’. I keep seeing posts about training tools that fail to acknowledge the fallout and damage that can occur from their use. I just want to share my perspective, one that is unfortunately connected to ‘animal rights activists’ and the uneducated making claims - despite the argument being evidence supported. And I’m not interested in changing your mind about the tools - think what you like. Equally, you won’t change my mind with your anecdote about your dog who ‘needed a prong’, so save me that. I just want to make sure that information from both sides is accessible on Tumblr.
_MG_3241 by Miia Kierikki-Malinen // Swedish Vallhund
By Emily Larlham (AKA Kikopup). You should never ignore behaviors your dog or puppy does that you find “undesirable” if the behaviors are self-reinforcing. This is because by practicing the behaviors the dog will find them reinforcing and be more likely to continue doing them in the future. By repetition the “undesired” behavior attains a reinforcement history, meaning it will be more likely to happen again in the future. Even though ignoring an attention-seeking behavior is a great way to extinguish the behavior, only ignoring undesirable attention seeking behaviors, such as jumping or barking rather than doing any training can get you into trou
A reason to train alternative behaviors before just ignoring unwanted behavior.
I had a few people ask about how to stop undesirable behaviour without the use of corrections. This post is a brief introduction to the topic, because while the concept is simple, every situation could require a different execution.
Historically, the idea behind clicker training is to wait around until the animal does something you want, mark, and reward. If the animal offers a behaviour you don’t want, you ignore it, and soon the desired behaviour will increase while the undesired behaviour will decrease. The idea of “ignore the bad” came from work with lab animals and captive wild animals, and that’s why it’s not always the best course of action with a pet. It’s easier to ignore an animal in an enclosure than it is to ignore the puppy hanging off your pant leg. It’s also true that many behaviours we find problematic are rewarding for dogs. Puppies bite pant legs because it’s fun! If you ignore it, it’s still being reinforced just by being allowed to happen. The most effective way to stop these behaviours is to change the environment that predicts them.
Changing the environment to prevent unwanted behaviours and maximizing the likelihood of desired behaviours is called altering the antecedent arrangement. An antecedent is anything that predicts a behaviour will occur. For trained behaviours, cues are antecedents. For untrained behaviours, environmental or biological triggers are antecedents. Feeding a young puppy is an antecedent for needing to potty. If you’re house training your puppy, you can maximize the likelihood they’ll eliminate outside by taking them out a few minutes after they’ve eaten. If you can figure out what environmental cues trigger an unwanted behaviour, you can control that behaviour by controlling those cues.
The most effective way to extinguish unwanted behaviours is a two step approach: 1. Prevent the behaviour from occurring by controlling the environment (i.e., keep your puppy on a leash when they’re greeting people so you can move them away if they try to jump, keep your puppy in a pen away from furniture when you can’t watch them, or keep your puppy away from your kids when they’re running around screaming), and 2. Find an alternative behaviour you approve of that meets the biological need the undesired behaviour was meeting (i.e., teach your puppy to sit for attention, give your puppy chew items of a variety of textures, or teach your puppy to chase a toy your kids are throwing or running with). Control the environment until your dog has learned a strong preference for an alternative behaviour, and then you can reintroduce the original environment. As long as you’re meeting your dog’s needs with the new behaviour, the old behaviour should extinguish quickly.
Controlling your dog’s environment is not always possible, but it is the least aversive and most effective way to extinguish a behaviour. Often, this technique is combined with teaching an incompatible alternative behaviour taught with a high rate of reinforcement (lots of rewards) and careful proofing (teaching the dog this behaviour is rewarding under a wide variety of circumstances). When these methods are combined, the dog learns that sometimes they’re allowed to do a biological equivalent of what they want to do naturally, and other times they’ll be paid (not always immediately, but in some way) for not engaging with those urges.
Solving Pugs
First, encourage your friend to do the straw thing again, but for longer. If she’s coping while doing nothing ask her to do mild physical activity like walk around, wash the dishes, get the mail. If she can breath through only a straw, whilst doing mild activity, for an hour, with no discomfort, then give her a medal and send her off to a medical science lab.
Second, let’s define ‘the pug crises’. If we’re going to talk about health problems in the pug related to breeding or anatomy, we should include, but not limit ourselves to:
Brachycephalic syndrome, causing air hunger, overheating, exercise intolerance, collapse, chronic vomiting and increased risk of respiratory obstruction
Hemivertebrae and increased risk of intervertebral disc disease
Eye problems including: overexposure predisposing to keratoconjunctivitis sicca (dry eye) and eye ulcers, proptosis of the globe (eyeball popping out), laterally deviated vision, entropion
Excessive facial skin folds, leading to yeast dermatitis and chronic ear infections.
Hip dysplasia. Even though they’re little, they still get it surprisingly commonly.
Propensity towards obesity. This may be linked to the breed’s general difficulty exercising.
I think that’s enough problems to address to begin with. There’s too much flesh and not enough bone in the head. The breeding towards a curved tail, and a ‘double curled tail’ is still considered highly desirable in the show ring, has resulted in unstable backs and hemivertebrae. The desire for large, round eyes instead of more oval, typical eyes has resulted in bulging globes that easily pop out. And the ‘well defined wrinkles’ of the breed standard go too far, resulting in skin and ear infections and encouraging the breed to retain the excessive soft tissues of its head.
The purebred pug scene, and the desire to achieve a perfect ‘look’ has resulted in the suffering of this breed. The greatest opposition to change is the purebred pug clubs, because changing the breed standard would result in dogs ‘not looking like a pug’ anymore. They are also firmly against crossbreeding, even though we know that after 5 generations of crossing back, the offspring are indistinguishable from a purebred. Nevertheless, if I could change the world I would:
Change the breed standard to include a minimum nose length of 2 inches.
Allow a curled tail, but more than 360 degrees is too much.
Have all show dogs hip scored to compete. Spinal Xrays would be great while we’re at it.
Limit maximum size allowed for eyes, encourage more oval than round eyes.
Outcross to other breeds.
Personally, I think the Jack Russel Terrier, particularly the straighter legged ones, are excellent candidates to cross pugs to. The head is just lovely, they still have lots of energy, and most of their genetic problems don’t overlap. It means that instead of this:
You end up with something a bit more like this:
Really, the breed clubs need to ask themselves whether they really like the dogs or the look of the dogs. The breed deserves better.
Can you honestly say that this isn’t ‘pug’ enough to you? ‘Cause it ooks very puggy to me, but with much less suffering.
But what would I know? I’m just a lowly veterinarian.
ANIMAL DEATH TW I’ve stated often that I love love love pugs but as someone who recently lost a pug let me say all the above is heartbreakingly true. (Though if you’re convinced by me saying it and not an actual vet you need to think about yourself a while.) Tango, my beloved pug may he rest in doggy heaven, suffered from a collapsing trachea as well. You know what the trachea is, right? That tube you use to breathe? I don’t know if it’s the breed or small dogs in general ( @drferox help me out? ), but let me tell you that cough is agonizing to hear. It sounds like they just KNOW something is in their throat and they HAVE to get it out, but they can’t. He was also grossly overweight. We tried to get him to exercise. We tried diet food, we tried prescription diet food, we tried home making healthy food for him to eat, but he never lost weight. The lowest weight I saw him was they day we brought him home from the shelter and he hadn’t been there long and had been suffering from neglect from an elderly owner with dementia. This only put more weight on the collapsing trachea. Surprisingly, the trachea was fine at the time of his death, but he was having trouble with breathing. He could not catch his breath. The sound of him trying made me sob uncontrollably for a long time before I decided it was selfish to keep him suffering. Pugs are also horrendously inbred. I can’t source atm bc I’m on mobile but I think a study found the gene pool for pugs only amounted to 50 individuals? That's… really terrible. I really really love pugs. They were bred to be lapdogs to Chinese nobility so they are so sweet and so sociable and just the kindest breed anyone could ask for. I love them so much, but as I’ve stated, my money will never go to a pug breeder. No matter how much you want a pug puppy, NEVER buy one from a breeder unless they are trying to restore the breed like the lower pictures on that lovely vet’s post. For that matter, never buy a smush face dog. If you really want one ADOPT ADOPT ADOPT. I mean you should be doing that anyway. Adopting supports your local shelter and gives them money to house and feed other animals in need. Not to mention, shelters spay and neuter before you get them, so you don’t have to worry about that expense! I could really go all day about shelters so I’ll stop here. Tldr: pugs are amazing but don’t ever buy one from a breeder
Collapsing trachea is considered more common in smaller breed dogs in general, but is also considered secondary to brachycephlic syndrome. Increased internal airway pressures encourages the trachea to collapse earlier than it otherwise would have.
Sorry for your loss.
I honestly don’t see breed clubs making these sorts of changes in my lifetime, but one can hope
Kristian Lynae Irey