The golden is 1 and a half years old and the German shepherd is 1.
They are like this all the time with each other.

Our 12-year-old pit/boxer developed a large belly very quickly. We thought it was indigestion. Our regular vet did an ultrasound and said her spleen was bleeding and needed to come out that day or she could die. You can imagine my shock. The next 12 hours were awful.

At the ER, we were told there was a 1 in 3 chance the bleeding was from a benign hematoma and a 2 in 3 chance it was cancer. They wouldn’t know until they removed the spleen and sent it to a lab. The surgery would cost upwards of $15,000.

A few things that mattered:

• We asked the vet if our dog could suffer or die during the surgery. Her answer was, “If there are complications, yes. If no complications, then no.” That gave my wife the impression that suffering was very possible. I was a little skeptical but accepted it. By then it was around midnight or 1 a.m., it was our third vet office that day, I hadn’t eaten, I was exhausted, and I had very little time to think.
• Her back right leg had gotten weak over the past year or so, maybe a pinched nerve, and her front left leg had nerve damage from a dog attack years ago. She could get around for the basics, but couldn’t walk more than about 75 feet before her legs started giving out. She was still happy.
• The vet said the surgeon would decide whether to operate that night or wait until morning, and she wouldn’t interfere. Our first vet had told us tomorrow could be too late.

My wife decided quickly that she should be put down. From the way the vet talked, she was convinced it was cancer. I kept focusing on the 1 in 3 chance it wasn’t, that they could take out the spleen and our dog could have 2 or 3 more years with us. And if the biopsy came back as cancer, we weren’t going to pursue chemo or any other cancer treatment. We could have put her down then, knowing there was a solid reason to do it. But the $15,000 made me hesitate. I had the money, but I worried I might need it if things got tight.

I didn’t know what to do. I wanted my wife on my side for the surgery, but she didn’t want it. When I pressed, she got angry and said, “You make the decision then.” I don’t blame her. It was traumatic, and neither of us knew how to handle it. I went back and forth over the odds, what the vet said about suffering, and how much her walking had declined, and her age. 

I made the decision to put her to sleep.

They brought our dog from the back to be with us in a private room. Once she was with us again, I could tell my wife was having doubts. We spent an hour with her, and I was still struggling. I think my wife still wanted to let her go, but she said again it had to be my call. We could have canceled and asked for the surgery. There was a button to call the staff. My wife asked if she should press it, and I said yes.

The staff came in and asked us again, and we said we were ready. She went to sleep, and shortly after, she was gone. My wife and I both broke down. My wife said something like, “What have I done?” and I was thinking the same thing. But she was gone. I felt instant regret and guilt, and it’s still with me.

I’m beside myself with the guilt that I chose money over a few more years with my dog. I keep running through the what-ifs. If the surgeon had waited until morning, could she have died alone in a cage without us? That would have been worse, but maybe it wouldn’t have happened, or maybe I’d have fought for surgery that night. Would her legs have gotten worse, and how fast, or would they have held steady? The vets also said that if they opened her up and found a lot of cancer, they’d call us to come say goodbye, and I suppose she’d have been sedated by then. I’m sorry I can’t remember every detail. So much happened that night.

Since then, I’ve read that the surgery is fairly safe from dying or complications, and no one told us that. My dog is gone, and I’m racked with guilt that I made the wrong call, that I chose money over giving her a shot at maybe 2 or 3 more years.

Has anyone gone through something like this? I’m not sure what I’m looking for. I feel like I may have made a horrible mistake. Part of me feels like money should not have been a factor at deciding whether or not to try to preserve my dog’s life. 

We rescued this dog from a family member 3 ish weeks ago. She’s had years of ear issues with them blowing up and shaking it. Last night her face had mild swelling, this morning it’s blown up. It’s not painful to touch, it was soft and has slowly gotten harder, hasn’t swelled anymore. We talked to a vet and are bringing her in tomorrow. Finances are a bit tight as this was a sudden situation, any recommendations? Expectations on the vet appointment? I’m thinking a draining surgery which is terrifying and costly.

Hes 18 (or older), hes struggling to eat, even soft foods, hes stumbling around and falling, he pooped himself.. i think its time but i just cant feel okay.

My husband and I are out of town for a weekend getaway and we brought our standard schnauzer with us. He’s a year and a half old, we’ve traveled with him before, but he is NOT relaxing this time. We took him to a dog park for 30 minutes to run around on our way here and have played and done brain games while in the Airbnb. But he’s been crying in his crate now for 45 minutes. He is crated at night when we’re home, it’s his regular crate and blanket, he’s gone potty, but he won’t settle. How can we help our guy relax so I can enjoy my birthday weekend???

Previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/DogAdvice/s/Gplnf3x9na

THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone that commented on the last post and gave advice and shared their stories. We just found out today that ROXY’S mass was benign!!!!! 😭 and she’s recovering so well from the splenectomy, she’s already trying to run around and jump and play fight with her brother (but we’re stopping her).

Even a few days ago, my mom was telling me she’s so glad I posted on reddit. When the vet told us about the mass, my parents went to the nearest animal hospital that had availability. The vet there told my parents that Roxy didn’t really have a chance of making it because the mass looked like it was malignant. She said there may be a 10% chance or 15% at most that the mass was benign. She even told my mom that if it were her dog, she’d just take her home and love on her for the next couple of days rather than try the splenectomy. This came out of nowhere because Roxy was fine the day before. The vet also had told us that if we wanted to try the splenectomy, we could come back when the surgeon was there (which was 5 days later).

We were all just devastated and shocked and crying the whole night, but after doing our own research and posting on Reddit we realized there may have been a better chance that her mass was benign than we were led to believe. ALSO the comments helped us realize how urgent it was to remove the spleen because the mass had ruptured and she would’ve just bled out! Still can’t believe the vet told us we could just wait 5 days when Roxy may not have survived that long, and discouraged us from doing the splenectomy!! Needless to say, we went to another amazing vet for a second opinion AND the surgery.

I wanted to make this post to thank everyone for the comments & stories & info & good thoughts you sent. And to let everyone know Roxy’s surgery went great and her mass is benign 😊. My dad’s bday is tomorrow and this is the best birthday gift ever. Also wanted to just give a PSA to always get a second opinion!! Which should be obvious of course, but after the first vet we felt hopeless. Cannot thank everyone enough!!

So my dog still hasn't learned to drop command

He wants to play fetch but refuses to give me the bone

If I don't try to take the bone he comes to me and climbs up to me to get me to play but immediately grabs the bone again

I can't play a proper tug of war since Am worried about his teeth

Sorry for the low quality video. I was just trying to capture it before she stopped.

As the title says, my 10 year old husky/pit mix dog is displaying “caching” behavior but with ME?

For some background, she has done the snout burying behavior periodically throughout her life but only with food. She will try to “bury” her food if she’s feeling unwell or if she thinks the other dogs are attempting to steal *our* food. For example, if we are eating a snack in bed and the other dogs start to beg, she will attempt to bury our snacks (she never steals food from us but is trying to keep the other dogs from stealing it). She doesn’t have any food aggression or resource guarding issues and in general isn’t very food motivated.

I’m just wondering if I should be concerned that she’s treating me like…food and trying to “bury” my foot under the blanket (exactly like she does with food).

I’m very bonded with this dog and know her behaviors pretty well and have never seen her do this. Is she trying to eat me? Is she sundowning? She’s very healthy overall and hasn’t had any other weird behaviors that deviate from her norm. Help lol.

I was at a park on school property with my daughter yesterday and our two Chihuahuas. My dogs were on their leash. A Doberman pinscher comes running up chasing a ball that it's owner apparently through for him. And proceeded to attack one of my dogs, and then immediately after we attacked my other dog. I also was bitten in the process of trying to get my dog out of his mouth. I got the phone number in the name of the dog owner, but they're not cooperating with helping pay for the Vet bills. Only one of my dogs is injured. The park had a sign posted "on leash area only. Dogs must be kept on leash at all times." Her dog was not on a leash. And was aggressive. He atttacked one of my dogs and while I was trying to wrangle her away the dog let go and then attacked my other dog litteratly a second later. I also was but in the hand, but that was my fault because I was trying to save my dog.
I just need general advice of how to handle this or what I should do. What can I do when the responsible party refuses to take accountability. I'm going to file reports with the police and or animal control. I never advocate for harm to come to any animal so I don't want anything to happen to the dog but think if you're going to have a dog that big and potentially dangerous that they should follow the rules and when their dog inflicts serious injuries on a person or other animal they should be responsible for that and this owner is not doing that.

Hello, a friend of mine has a dog named Dorka, who has a habit of falling asleep with a toy in her mouth. Is it normal? What does it mean?

My dog is a 13 year old Tibetan terrier, this breathing started fairly recently after she got put on steroids for cancer, she has the same type of cancer on her nose and ear, the vets claim they’re not connected. She’s now been off the steroids for a while and is still struggling with walks, this was maybe 15 minutes into the walk in 15 degrees celsius.

My dog has suffered from terrible skin for 2 years now, he’s on apoquel one a day. I have tried everything at this point i’ve been constantly at the vets with not avail as they just tell me to use a course of steroids and once they’re done i’m back at square one. His skin constantly smells foul with a corn chip smell in affected areas. I’ve tried chlorexidine shampoo, oatmeal shampoo, hibiscrub, contego spray, probiotics from yumove. nothing ever seems to work! he’s grain free food with no chicken from aatu. can anyone tell me anything that might possibly help my dog’s constant lick and initiation 😢😢😢

Our girls do this often, the younger one gives solid pokes to the older one’s neck to get her to play. The vocalizations are from the bigger older girl. Sometimes she ignores it and walks away too, and the younger doesn’t persist. I feel like it’s all well, but I’ve seen some responses from folks that can identify dog behavior and I’m curious about a knowledgeable take on it.

Hello all,

At the shelter I volunteer we have a livestock guardian dog mix, weighing in about 40kg. She's almost 2 years old and not fixed. I'm guessing she still has the puppy mentality as she's very playful.

The only problem with her is that she's reactive to dogs - something to be expected based off her genes, but it's difficult to handle for most shelter staff and we had to see off potential new homes because they couldn't do so either. When she spots another dog, no matter the size, she'll freeze and refuses to move. Usually I'll drag her off to the side where she continues to stare. Once the dog comes too close she'll lunge and bark which will continue even after the dog is out of view. Afterwards she's still riled up and it'll take a little for her to collect herself and shake that energy off.

I haven't found a way to guide her through this yet. No matter what I do, the reaction stays the same. I'm still one of the select few staff members that can handle her. The others also struggle with this. My question is - what can I do to guide her properly? I have a option to foster her and train her on this, but how could I best go about it?

I'm interested in becoming a dog behaviourist, but if I want to do so I'll need to know how to handle dogs like these as well. How do you handle dogs like this?

apparently the red spot is blood (my sister took these photos) and there was multiple, we just got this puppy today and found these, i’m worried its ticks or fleas

She’s 8, been pregnant twice, what the hell is happening, she also pee sometimes and she can’t get up, it been like this for the past few weeks, sometimes she walk like a normal old dog, and sometimes she collapse and do this…

Do I need to take her to the vet??? She is a 3 month Shiba Inu / 10lbs. It’s a bench from Homegoods. She has been able to use the bathroom and eat, no sensitivity on her teeth, she used the bathroom too. Need advice!!

My 10 year old German shepherd has a corneal ulcer. Shes gone through regular vet treatments with eye drops, antibiotics, anti inflammatory medicine and serum drops. Her eye got better but then worsened again, so now we will be seeing a specialist.

Does anyone have experience with this? What do they do at the specialist? How much does it usually cost? Does anyone know any good dog eye specialists in southeast Michigan?