Lovely cats MrGrumpy.
Think my older animal is a Ragdoll/Maine Coon mix. Lovely demeanor but he’s getting a little 'fraidy cat as he enters his later middle years, particularly when kiddies are around. He used to love it when people came over and would love being the center of attention. Now, I think values his sleep more, as if he is not getting enough.
RichVR
1842
I’ll put this here rather than starting a new thread or putting it in a non-pet thread.
This is a question asked by someone in a PM.
We have had a heck of a time training any of the birds to do anything we want, even the baby parakeet, who seems very smart and brave and playful. They won’t go near fresh fruits and veggies, though the finches devour them like pirhannas. The other parakeets just kind of sit around in the huge cage and nuzzle each other. But Cloudy, the baby, climbs all over his small cage and plays with the sticks and cage doors every day. But not one bird will approach us when we try to handle them. There’s squawking and vigorous flapping about. Do you have any suggestions of ways we could get our birds to be more comfortable with us?
This is a big issue with small birds. Small birds are very skittish. I have just gotten a pair of parakeets. And they are bonding to each other in a big way. Maybe I can help by telling you how my birds are bonding. Right now I can tell that they are a bonded pair. The male is feeding the female. And they are only, maybe, five months old. The female is chewing on the cuttle bone a lot. That means that she is eating calcium for future egg production. Yet they are still too young for that stuff. No matter. They practice because that is a genetic thing.
As far as teaching a small bird to trust the hand, it takes a lot of work. You should first make sure that your hand is clean, wash it and rinse a lot. Birdies don’t need to taste soap. Then do as I did recently. Place your hand in the cage, through a food door or whatever. Then just leave your hand there. Don’t move it at all. Eventually one or the other will check out that big thing that’s in their house. One or the other will slowly approach the hand. Maybe they will try to bite it. In my case the male jumped up on my finger. I still did not move. Then the female came over and tasted the finger. Eventually I slowly lifted the male to a swing in the cage. He jumped onto it and ignored my hand.
The hand has to be a thing in the cage that does not surprise them. They have to be used to it in a week or so. My hand, right now, brings them millet. That’s the heroin of budgies. And like a drug you only give them half an inch of millet a day. More is bad. It makes for fatty liver disease.
baren
1843
I just came back from GDC. My boy Riley stayed in a kennel while I was out there. He was very excited to get back home, and especially to get back to his sofa. I was going crazy missing him while I was gone, so you guys get another picture.
One of my poodles; this is Virgil von Bowser, aka Bowser:
Dog photo time! Yay!
Bolt in now 7 months old, and definitely bigger than his mother (he’s the one with the collar in this pics). They both love muddy puddles. They seem to have teflon-coated, self-cleaning hair, which is a good job frankly! I suspect this might not be the case with Virgil von Bowser! Here are our two noodles have a fat time.
“Woohoo! Let’s go!”
“Give me that ring…”
Dog missile!
“That was fun!”
Those are killer pics, krok. Great looking dogs, too. Though, um, you’re sure they’re, um, dogs? They look more like wolves to me…
We get that comment a lot while walking them on the beach, but the breed is White Swiss Shepherd / Berger Blanc Swiss. They’re derived from German shepherds but are a separate breed now, mostly because they’re more like German shepherds from several decades ago before the sloping back was strongly selected for. As a result they don’t suffer from hip dysplasia to anything like the same degree, and they’re a lot more agile. They’re also extremely sweet and cuddly.
My German Shepherd, Beowulf, who passed away about two years ago at 12 and a half, was an older-style German line with a straight back. He eventually had hip issues but not until he was like nearly twelve. I love the breed but it’s a handful; standard poodles are a lot less work.
RichVR
1850
Merry and Pippin in their new home.
Cute! This is where the term love birds comes from.
Also, if you’re giving them Ent water, you’re going to need a bigger cage.
Beowulf, great name. My first dog (Dogmatix) was a GSD, much loved, but we had to put him down at 12 due to a combination of hip and spinal problems. His breeding was terrible, plus he was a bit of a runt, but I was younger and more naive and no idea what I was looking for in a GSD. They are a lot of work, but you reap the rewards. I’ve no experience with poodles, but a good friend has a really awesome black goldendoodle.
My wife is pretty much allergic to the hair on a GSD, as we found out, which is another reason I don’t have one. The poodles are amazing; they are like sixty pounds, which is all I want for what becomes a lap dog if you’re not careful, as they can be pretty affectionate. They are nearly hyopallergenic, don’t shed appreciably, and are wicked smart. They play hard too; Bowser likes to launch himself as a missile into our female, Eleanor, who isn’t nearly as thrilled by the sport as he is, being somewhat the older.
I read something recently along the lines of “Are there dog hairs in the butter? Then you probably have a German shepherd.”
For the record, I’ve yet to find dog hairs in the butter. Other places though, for sure.
“Human, I’m only doing this because I want some food, and you ate it all already.”
In the next frame, ET gives the bowl a long mournful look.
We lost our dog in November, just after Thanksgiving. It’d been a long while coming, but it still hit us hard. Despite being complete dog lovers, it took us until now to work up to getting another. And by that, I mean we weren’t ready last week, but this weekend a switch flipped. While we weren’t really “ready” to get one, we had just hopped the border between “Nope” and “Okay”. Mixed feelings, but we suddenly wanted, needed one.
And so, here’s our new addition, chewing on her favorite toy. We’ve no idea on names. She’s insane, and super cute and friendly. Border collie mix (they said rat terrier, but we have our doubts given her paw size; when she grows into them she’s gonna be decent sized).
That’s a great way to express getting over the hump. I’ve been there too, stepping over the line between “Nope” and “Okay.”
Cute pup! Border collies are super intelligent. We have a mix, too. You can see her smarts in her eyes. It’s a little scary.
Good luck!
Insanely cute. We used to have a collie x kelpie cross, she was smart, devious and cunning (in mostly good ways!). They need a lot of stimulation, games etc, but they’re great dogs. Fortunately they’re a breeze to train.
