Attached is the latest digital pic of my dogs, if anyone would like to see. ;)

The "puppy" (8 months old...) on the left is Sheba, pure German Shepherd, and Tashi is on the right. She's a half labrador/half pointer.

That's a mighty fine pair of dogs that you have there Keg. I have a pure bred black and white Cocker Spaniel and it is amazing how attached we get to our pets. Mine sleeps on the bed at night behind my head. He thinks he runs this household. Truth is he probably does.

Cute "kids" you got there.

The Mrs. and I just got a 4 month old puppy about, well, four months ago named Karma. Took her forever to housetrain and she still chews on damn near everything (trash, lighters, compact discs, anything made of paper, the little "helicopters" from our maple trees ... pretty much anything she can get a hold of). Hve you had a problem with this? Anyone? We kennel her during the day, but even when we're home she'll get a hold of stuff.

Good thing she's cute. Now if the white one would just teach her the ropes ...

Here are Karma and Shadow (black and white, respectively. And notice who has all of the toys):

Bob Dole feels the need to jump into the fray...

Attached is Bob Dole's recently acquired bundle of poop...er, ahem, joy.

Great lookin dog's there Keg. I wish I was out in the country so I could have something a little bigger too.

BIG DADDY

Loves his english bulldog though.

While on the dog subject. I recently lost my lab to an overzelous 4X4. My lack of training, along with excessive speed on my gravel road, cost my buddy his life. While I always tried to be logical about it, knowing it would happen someday, and say, "Labs were meant to run, if he dies running, he dies happy." It doesn't seem to help much now that it happened. It's amazing how close we get with our pets.

Anyhoo, has anyone out there tried these "electronic fences"?? I am considering purchasing one (after I got to the humane society and get a couple of dogs) and was wondering how well they work. I don't want to clutter up my yard with a wood fence or metal panels. Just wondered if anyone had experience with using these.


trying to prevent it from happening again...

extreme
 

my buddy has the buried hot fence and it works pretty good now that his chocolate lab realizes something's there...the first few time he ran thru the thing, it freaked him out and we had to drag him back to the yard. he's used to it now, though.

my turn for a dog question...pit bulls. never had one and never wanted one. however, my sons came home friday and gave a puppy to their mother for mothers day. they said it had been abandoned and they picked it up off the road. i took it to the vet, and he says it's a pit bull and way too young to have been taken away from it's mother. i'm very concerned about this.

anybody out there w/experience with pit bulls? it gets along great w/the labs.

thanks,
sec

Don't have such a fence myself but I've known people that swear by them. Basicly they work by negitive re-enforcement. When the pooch goes too far a chip in his collar gets a signal from the fence and gives him a little shock. Before long he learns where the good vs bad areas are. I went for a chain-link to keep things out as well as in.

Good call on the humane society. Save a dog and get a bud, all at the same time.

Mark M,

Good looking pair of "Kids.

My Cocker Spaniel loves to chew up paper also. He is 5 years old and I still can't break him of the habit. He will pull anything paper from my pockets and run with it and will then tear it into little bitty pieces. One evening while I was watching tv, he came running from the bathroom to the kitchen with toilet paper trailing behind him and and then he comes and gives me one of those look what I did looks, good thing he is cute and lovable or he would have gotten more than a swat from the fly swatter. I have tried everything to break him of this habit and still he does it and I haven't figured out how to put a stop to it. His other habit I can't break is he loves to eat flowers and I can't break that one either. Wish I knew how to break these bad habits.

seclark,

A friend of mine married a gal who had a blond Cocker Spaniel. He got a pitbull puppy and it was raised with the Cocker. When the pitbull got to be about two years old it killed the Cocker Spaniel.
I have another friend who raised another pitbull from a puppy and she attacked a packmule. To make a long story short the mule ended up killing the dog.
I love dogs but I don't think that I would want a pitbull. They are too unpredictable.
Here in California it seems that about once a week you read where one has attacked someone. A lot of homeowners insurance companies here will raise your rates if they know that you have a pitbull. They say the liability is much greater due to dog bites.

sec--
There is a saying that there are no bad dogs, just bad owners. I have found that true more often than not ... but pit bulls are an exception to that rule. They are bred for one thing: killing. What makes them so dangerous is that they have incredibly powerful jaws and the jaws lock. Once they get a hold of something they will not let go. I would suggest you either take the dog to a no-kill shelter or get it trained ... and trained well. Otherwise, you will have problems with it and other dogs, strangers and children.

Rick--
You're the third person who has told me that once a dog has a thing for paper, they always will. I tried spraying the paper in the trash can with some sour apple spray. No luck. Tried chilli powder. No luck. I'm going to use Ceyenne pepper next. The scary thing is that she will chew ANYTHING. She destroyed a Metallica cd (case, disc, everything was in little pieces) and has almost chewed through 2 lighters. She's part Corgi (thus the big ears and little legs) and they are not supposed to be so bad. The vet thinks that she was weaned too early, thus the oral fixation. She also spent the first four months of her life in a shelter (we saved her a week before she was to be put down) and they let her chew on stuff.

I guess we'll just have to keep an eye on her. You know, we never realized how good Shadow (the white one) was until we got her. Of course, he's picking up some of her bad habits.

Still better than kids (and much less expensive). ;)

MM
~~Treats his dogs better than he treats most people.

rick and mark
 

thanks for your input guys...i dont have a very good feeling about the whole thing. cute puppy, but there's too many bad things that can happen.
i'm afraid i'm going to have to be the a-hole and say no to this pup. the wife and i both work, and to leave that type of dog unattended is a disaster waiting to happen.

thanks again,
sec

Thanks for the help on the fence...

As far as paper chewing, my lab never seemed to chew up anything. He knew which toys were his, and didn't screw with anything else. I do believe that may be due to breed. Labs are supposedly easier to train than other breeds, the only thing I had trouble with was my labs "selective hearing". If he was outside, he went deaf.

Don't know much about pit bulls...but you sure do hear about more attacks by them than any other breed. It would be a risk I wouldn't be willing to take.


my fiancee says I have "selective hearing"...

extreme
 

my oldest lab will chew the top off a beer can and drink/lap up just about every drop. she can open my cooler too.
sec

sec, Sheba (the German Shepherd) will drink any alcohol. Hmm, kinda like me... She loves beer and she'll even drink straight liquor if she can. I don't let her have much (she's too wild without it...) but it is pretty funny. ;)

She's the first, and only, dog I've ever gotten from a different source than the humane society. We looked for weeks to get a dog to spend time with Tashi, at every place in KC, and just didn't find what we were looking for. Then one day we walk into a Petland to get some bedding for her hamsters, and this cute little solid black German Shepherd (my favorite dog...) is there staring through the glass. I would never have considered buying a pet from a mall pet store (and still wouldn't...) but Tracy convinced me to let her out of the cage and play with us, and, well, you all know how that story goes...

She's been a great dog, but like some of you guys' stories, she just chews on anything, although she seems to have a thing for fabric and plastic. She tears up dog beds and carpets, especially, so her kennel has to have the plastic cover bare, but she seems okay with it. But if she can reach anything, watch out...