!!! snow !!!

I…kinda feel bad for service dogs a little bit.  It’s great for the humans they work with, and I don’t have a better alternative, but I kind of don’t like how they have to work pretty much their entire lives for no pay with no choice.  Of course, they get room and board, but so do house pets who don’t have to work.

people who have this mindset clearly have no idea how dogs work and i wonder if you’ve ever owned a work driven dog before? dogs need walks and physical stimulation but they also need mental stimulation. a vital trait of a service dog prospect is the desire to work and learn, and this is one of the first things people test in puppies when looking for a sd prospect - their working drive. in other words, dogs who ENJOY working are chosen. you mentioned pay - dogs don’t have bills to pay or a mortgage ?? they’re paid in praise, treats, attention, affection, and in the love they have to work alongside humans. they don’t HAVE TO work. they want to.

i don’t know about you but im a good dog owner™ and i pay my service dog $10 an hour when he works

the idea of just adopting a shelter dog without thinking about breed is so harmful. Like, there are people who just walk into a shelter and say “this one is cute I’ll take it” and then pat themselves on the fucking back because “adopt don’t shop” but then be 100% unprepared for that dog’s breed specific needs. A Herding dog will be energetic. A Bull-breed will have a high chance of dog reactivity. A Sighthound will have a prey drive. A Nordic breed will be vocal. These are all things you need to think about BEFORE you look for a dog. Don’t go into an adoption blind, rescue or not you are doing yourself and that dog no favors.

I missed puppy day??? Lookit dem ears

Hes so scruffy omfg

Cirilla, Cirilla2 & Wolf by Alicja Zmysłowska

Khaleesi the Mudi

Nebula by Sara Nowak

what’s your number one dog-related pet peeve?

mine is people walking dogs with prong collars on flexi leads

people shaving double coated dogs for the summer oh my GOD everybody does it here and it drives me nuts

oooo yeah that one is up there on my list too

Oh boy, I have alot since I work at a vet clinic and see alot of people and dogs come through…. but yea, Flexi leads in general tend to get on my nerves. We’re a small clinic with a small waiting room and people will have their dogs running right up in other dogs faces on flexi leads or getting tangled up around someone’s legs. Also the shaving of double coated dogs. “Y'all know of a good groomer? We need to get our Golden Retriever shaved. We get her shaved every year, she gets sooo hot in the summer!” *looks at dog, dog is about 30lbs overweight* yep…def her coat causing her to get overheated not her obesity. Which brings me to my number one pet peeve, people being totally oblivious to their dogs’ severe obesity. “My dog is limping! She’s in soo much pain! I think she was abused before I got her.” Or “he’s all muscle isn’t he! Haha! But he’s been acting stiff and limping. Must be playing to hard.” And the dogs are all obese… it’s both frustrating and sad.

@doberbutts​ I think I have an answer for you, and that answer (as many in biology are) is that it is complicated and we have contradicting studies so we don’t know for sure.

The study I think you might have seen is this one, and I think a digital copy of it may not exist. A study I found that links to it says this about it: “A study focusing on the incidence of canine mammary tumors found tumors in approximately 0.05% of females that were spayed before their first heat cycle. This figure increased to 8% or 26% when the animals were spayed after their first or second heat, respectively. However, if the animals were spayed later, the risk of developing malignant tumors (MN) was the same as for an intact bitch.”

Another group has been looking at the effects of spaying and neutering in specific breeds, so they don’t have to also wade through differences in susceptibility to a disease between breeds, and they haven’t found much. For their study of Labs they found that “With regard to MC, only 1.4 percent of the intact females were diagnosed with MC. With the 2–8 year neuter period MC was diagnosed in 2 percent of females.” For Golden Retreivers: “After the initial screening, ED, OSA, and MC occurred in such low numbers that statistical analyses were not feasible. MC was diagnosed in only two cases in the total number of 364 females, both in late-neutered females.”

I’ve definitely missed stuff, so I will let this literature review on the topic talk for me: “Due to the limited evidence available and the risk of bias in the published results, the evidence that neutering reduces the risk of mammary neoplasia, and the evidence that age at neutering has an effect, are judged to be weak and are not a sound basis for firm recommendations.”

Also, feel free to go look at the data directly! I think all but the last link should have the free full text available to everyone. These studies are definitely not ideal- they are looking at correlations using privately owned dogs, so we can’t be sure there aren’t other variables affecting it (and I’d bet food and lifestyle affect it). Also, the sample sizes for the breed studies are somewhat small- only a couple hundred dogs (it took thousands of people to link smoking and cancer). 

BUT we have to base our knowledge of the world on the data we currently have, which says that spaying has no or a very small effect on mammary cancer.

Thank you for all that! I will read through it when I get home from work tonight as I’m glancing at my phone between customers and clients currently. For any followers interested in the science behind the link between mammary tumors and spaying, and anyone wondering what I’m looking for when I ask for sources.

Happy National Puppy Day! <3

She flat

Please click here to sign the petition.

Hey everyone, in case you haven’t seen this already please look. Here’s another reason why misrepresentation is dangerous; dogs getting falsely labeled as wolfdogs in places where owning one isn’t legal, because people don’t know what a real wolfdog looks like anymore.

Meet Capone. Capone is most likely a shepherd/lab mix who got out on February 24th, and was picked up by animal control in Aurora, CO. He was labeled as a wolfdog by the “experts” in the city’s animal control division, which are completely illegal to own in the city. When asked what “wolf traits” he has, the family was told Capone was aggressive and “has physical and behavioral traits of a wolf” without any further explanation. Capone now faces the very real possibility of being euthanized, or possibly re-homed/rescued and never seeing his family again. They’ve had Capone for 10 years, adopting him as a shepherd/lab mix, and he has never had a history of aggression that the animal control officers claimed. Right now his family is taking it very hard, as the children are used to sleeping with him every night. A DNA sample was sent to UC Davis for testing, which will determine Capone’s fate.

Please click here to sign the petition to show your support for getting Capone back.

Read more here, here, and here.

It’s Karma the husky all over again. As long as people continue to misrepresent their dogs as wolfdogs, people will continue to have a loose understanding of what an actual wolfdog is, and mislabel dog-dogs. We will continue to see these cases so long as people put their egos before their animals’ safety. This is why fighting back against misrepresentation is so important. It’s not to put people down, it’s to save lives. Wolfdogs are not legal to own everywhere, even if it’s legal in your state, as demonstrated by this case. Wolfdogs are also not legally protected as far as rabies is concerned; if they bite someone, they will be euthanized and tested for rabies whether or not they have had the rabies vaccine. Wolfdogs cannot be adopted out from shelters, and may be euthanized before rescues can get them. Wolfdog rescues are likewise constantly overflowing with requests to take in new animals, whether it’s a mislabeled dog or an actual wolfdog, which are very difficult to re-home due to both legalities and the minimum requirements for owning a wolfdog.

Please help fight back against misrepresentation. Too many dogs and families are forced to suffer because of it.

Flowery evening

TFW your Doberman bitch was pregnant SIX YEARS AGO and she’s still alive, and all her puppies are still alive, and they’re all doing great and your bitch is still healthy. :)