I have a 9 year old female Westie (Lily). She's a barker, will go after the television if an animal or hairy man is on the screen. In the last year or so she developed an issue with incontinence - having accidents in the house almost daily. I took her to the vet, there's no infection, nothing wrong that they can see. She was on proin, but it didn't really cut it, and then she was on DES, which worked much better, but then that became unavailable for some reason, so she's back on proin. Her accidents are sporadic and rarer but definitely not gone.
My fiance, who I've been living with for about six months, has two dogs. One is an 8 year old chocolate lab (Hershey) who was abused and neglected as a puppy before she was adopted by my fiance's family. The other is a (we think) cocker-retriever mix (Moe) who will be 12 in December.
Hershey is incredibly food insecure. As a younger dog, she chewed through the kitchen cabinets to try to get at the food. Currently, she will open the side-by-side refrigerator and tear through anything she can get her mouth on. She pulls dishes out of the sink or off the stove, and will happy snatch your food if you leave it unattended. According to FH, Moe exhibited none of this behavior before Hershey was in the picture, but he is an active participant now, and will do all of those things, in addition to getting into any trash container he can find to eat tissues, q-tips, etc.
My dog's manners have gotten worse, but she's only 15 pounds so the damage she can do on her own is pretty limited.
And now in addition to all of this, Hershey's seasonal allergies are in full effect and her hair is falling out like crazy (she is improving now after a trip to the vet, but we didn't get her there early enough) and Moe has started having seizures, which are well-controlled with medication, but are still worrisome. And he sheds like a maniac.
I have started looking at these dogs in terms of their life spans. I cannot tolerate the misbehavior and it is impossible to keep the house clean when they're dragging garbage and food all over the place and peeing all over... A few days ago we came home to find Moe and Lily covered in cooking oil, as one of the dogs had pulled a frying pan partially off the stove, effectively tipping it over slightly. Thankfully it had cooled enough that they weren't injured but the kitchen was covered in oil, as were the dogs and our furniture!
The solution thus far has been to take any food that the dogs are interested in and put it on top of the refrigerator or in the pantry with a doorknob, and to tie the refrigerator door shut. It isn't ideal but it solves a good portion of the problem. The problem is that we're human, and we forget. Or I think that a bag of apples on the kitchen counter will be safe. But it isn't! The open-concept floor plan has become the bane of my existence.
I don't know what to do.
Submitted September 24, 2015 at 12:01AM by danaraincloud http://ift.tt/1L6tt5y dogs
No comments:
Post a Comment