Bad Pet Owners

OurWildKingdom

Aww, I hope your kitty is OK!

ETA: ((((((Hugs))))))) to you and the furbabies!

indigo26

My mother is one of those bad pet owners. She adopted an aussie shepherd several years ago when her two older german shepherds were in poor health. She never spent any time training him because she was focused on the other two. Now he's the biggest a$$hole you could ever meet. He's bit everyone in the family - sending both my mother and myself to the doctor for tetanus shots (separate occurrences too). He's tried to attack any of our friends that come over, even if they're standing in the front yard. My ex was bitten by him more times than I can remember and he tries to bite my current FI as well. She's taken him to the vet and according to the vet, the dog needs training and to be worked. Aussies are working dogs and will apparently slowly go insane if they don't have anything to do but sit on the couch all day - which is all she wants to do with him. Doesn't want to train him, doesn't want to exercise him. I feel bad for him because if anything ever happens to my mom, he'll get put down due to his biting history.

Seriously - why get a dog if you don't want to spend time on it?

LD1970

That's horrible, and it happened to me twice with my last dog before the two I've got now.  She was half sheltie/half eskimo, and 22 lbs full grown.

The first time was many years ago when she was a puppy and I took her to the bike path/park across the street from my parents' house, and a neighbor kid (tween/teen) had their young German shepherd off-leash.  The shepherd ran at us and jumped on my pup; I grabbed her up into my arms and held off the shepherd until the kid, running for us, could get there and get him.  I told that kid if the dog had harmed mine, I'd have broken its neck, and then his.

The second time was at the same park, but in one of the fields along the bike path; a woman was there with two off-leash boxers.  They came running at us, and one had it's mouth open, teeth across my dog's back.  I grabbed each boxer in one hand by its collar, and held them off her.  I have no idea how; they were HUGE.  She came running up, apologizing.  I just told her if she couldn't control her fucking dogs to keep them on the fucking leash.

LD1970

charlotte989875 said:

So when it rains it pours, although I guess I'm the bad pet owner now. In all the craziness with the dog, we didn't realize the cat chewed the end of her collar off and swallowed it. She had emergency stomach surgery last night to remove the string. Apparently strings are terrible for cats and can cause massive organ damage. She's awake but groggy. Hopefully they let me see her soon!

This doesn't make you a bad pet owner!  Stuff like this happens constantly; my sister is a vet and probably sees it every day.  One of our boys, an English pointer mix, has a bad habit of eating anything fluffy or stringy, combined with a weak stomach.  Thankfully, I suppose, in him that just means he's got a penchant for throwing up if we don't catch him and take away whatever he's trying to consume.

charlotte989875

LD1970 said:

charlotte989875 said:

So when it rains it pours, although I guess I'm the bad pet owner now. In all the craziness with the dog, we didn't realize the cat chewed the end of her collar off and swallowed it. She had emergency stomach surgery last night to remove the string. Apparently strings are terrible for cats and can cause massive organ damage. She's awake but groggy. Hopefully they let me see her soon!

This doesn't make you a bad pet owner!  Stuff like this happens constantly; my sister is a vet and probably sees it every day.  One of our boys, an English pointer mix, has a bad habit of eating anything fluffy or stringy, combined with a weak stomach.  Thankfully, I suppose, in him that just means he's got a penchant for throwing up if we don't catch him and take away whatever he's trying to consume.

Thanks, that makes me feel better. My cat is sneaky, we didn't know she had eaten it and she was eating and playing fine so we didn't know anything was wrong. The vet said that's pretty normal in cats. 

I saw her again this morning and hopefully (fingers crossed) she can come home tonight! She knew who I was and tried to climb out of the cage to go with me. 

LD1970

charlotte989875 said:

LD1970 said:

charlotte989875 said:

So when it rains it pours, although I guess I'm the bad pet owner now. In all the craziness with the dog, we didn't realize the cat chewed the end of her collar off and swallowed it. She had emergency stomach surgery last night to remove the string. Apparently strings are terrible for cats and can cause massive organ damage. She's awake but groggy. Hopefully they let me see her soon!

This doesn't make you a bad pet owner!  Stuff like this happens constantly; my sister is a vet and probably sees it every day.  One of our boys, an English pointer mix, has a bad habit of eating anything fluffy or stringy, combined with a weak stomach.  Thankfully, I suppose, in him that just means he's got a penchant for throwing up if we don't catch him and take away whatever he's trying to consume.

Thanks, that makes me feel better. My cat is sneaky, we didn't know she had eaten it and she was eating and playing fine so we didn't know anything was wrong. The vet said that's pretty normal in cats. 

I saw her again this morning and hopefully (fingers crossed) she can come home tonight! She knew who I was and tried to climb out of the cage to go with me. 

Aw, hope you get her today!  We have two cats too, and they're definitely devious.  Mushfaces, but devious.

Luckily, all our plethora of other animals are straightforward.

SP29

So sorry to hear @charlotte989875! Animals are sneaky. You are definitely not a bad pet owner. Glad to hear kitty and pup are doing well.

I don't own a dog but I've definitely had a few experiences that make me scratch my head. I was running down the sidewalk in my neighbourhood one day, and one of the neighbours was out in his garage with the dog out front (off leash). The dog came running at me barking and finally the owner called the dog back when it was about a foot away. I love animals and would never cause harm, but if your dog is going to run at me and try to bite, sorry, I'm going to defend myself in someway.

I also went for a walk with my friend who has a dog and we were in a local park. Friend's dog was on a leash, as were most other people's dogs. At one point, we came across an off- leash dog and the owner had no qualms about letting his dog wander up to my friends for a visit. The owner didn't call his dog away; fortunately nothing bad happened.