Hi friends! Sorry this is so late, my laptop is being temperamental.
Let’s talk things that are bad ideas.
Just talked to my parents, they’re in their mid-60s, but like inactive and impatient mid-60s.
They definitely are driving 3 hours each way tomorrow to pick up a 12 week old German Shepherd puppy. Who already weighs 30 lbs.
I just… I don’t get it. 3 weeks ago they were telling me they decided they’re too old to have another dog.
I get wanting a pet but that’s a lot of dog. I hope they’ll be able to handle it.
We’ve always had shepherds, so they’re not new to the breed. But our last dog, my sweet boy, passed away almost 3 years ago at almost 12 yrs old. They’ve not dealt with puppy brain and puppy teeth and puppy house-training in almost 15 years.
Also I agree, I worry that they have physical limitations with a dog that big. Like I said, they’re inactive mid-60s. There’s plenty of people in their 60s who I wouldn’t be concerned with having a big dog. My parents are not in that group.
Maybe it will make them more active, walking and playing with an energetic pup. Here’s hoping it all works out.
My grandparents always had German shepherds, from the 1950s onward (the girls were always named Gretchen and the boys Bullet). When my grandma passed away my grandfather was 94. My aunt got him a new dog, yes, a 2 year old German Shepard (her name was Jessica but they just called her Gretchen, she didn’t seem to mind.) I thought it was a Bad Idea and no of course Grandpa couldn’t handle a strong energetic dog, but she made him happy and he told me he felt less crazy in the house because he had someone to talk to. He had her for 6 years and then Gretchen came to live with my parents for a couple more years til her hips went. Good Dog and Good Idea, after all.
A sweet puppy is always a good idea.
We have fostered dogs who needed surgery and post op you sometimes need to carry them up and down steps so they can relieve themselves.
Carrying even a half grown Shepherd is not something I would want to do, let alone a full grown one.
We had a GSD until he passed away a couple of years back at 12 or 13 years old. He was neurotic as all hell but he was so loveable. The nice thing about shepherds is that they generally do really well with training. But damn I wouldn’t want to commit to a puppy, and I’m relatively young and healthy. Puppies are work man. I guess the flip side is that we got our dog as a rescue at 2-3 years old (they didn’t know) and he clearly had tons of inherited problems from whatever his life had been before.
I’d have been concerned about that much puppy in my 20s. When I was a kid, we had a rambunctious, large puppy that I took for a walk along a golf course during a snow day. He saw something on the course, ran for it, and in the process knocked me over. Unable to regain my footing and chase after the dog, I instead took an involuntary toboggan-less toboggan ride as he dragged me across the greens and through a [covered] sand trap. Big, powerful puppies are a handful at any age.
Oh man, my parents are superb when it comes to bad ideas.
Let’s just go with my dad. (Conservative Christian Trump voter? You betcha.)
Broke his hip at the start of 2018 on his frozen, icy brick front porch. No handrail. Have they added a handrail since? Not even. Why the hell not? Dad has not seen a handrail that “fits with the aesthetic” of his two-story Colonial. (Do they make single-story Colonials? They do not. WTF, Colonials? Did you not get too old for stairs? Did you die too young for this to be an issue?) Has Dad actually been searching high and low for an aesthetically pleasing handrail? No. He’s just looked around his neighborhood, and has not seen anything he likes.
Is he retired? Yes. Does he know at least vaguely how to use the internet? Yes again.
I could kill him, but I’m pretty sure his house will do the deed for me.
How do they have homeowners insurance without a handrail on their front porch? I thought that was a standard requirement.
Maybe it’s only 2 steps? Pretty sure the rules in my state are 3 steps or more need a rail.
That’s probably it. Whether it’s in the regs or not, get a fucking handrail already. They can afford it, even after overhauling the kitchen and the finished basement.
I am always for getting more dogs. I will say that the Chiweenie boys have been a bit of shock; they were 5 months when we adopted them. All our dogs are mill rescues and we are used to managing health and behavior issues. But we tend to get middle aged to elderly doggos, so all that puppiness was a lot. The two girls are in their teens and have dealt graciously with the boys. The boys turned two in December and are improving. But they loose their tiny minds when I leave the room, let alone the house. Working from home makes 4 dogs feasible. We had a grand shepherd when I was in college. He was a very good boy. I hope that your parents are delighted with their new puppy.
New subject, who had a cat that had eye surgery? Was it this week or is it on Monday? I was hoping it went well…
That would be @BigDamnHeroes, I hope the kitty is well.
My dad’s just a stubborn dickwad about getting any other breed except a German Shepherd because that’s what he always had. I’m like…. you could get a 40 lb mix from the pound or one of the numerous rescues that might be already past that derpy puppy stage. But ooohhh no, has to be a German Shepherd.
I love puppies, they’re adorable. They’re also a lot of work.
Other people’s puppies are always cute. Your own puppy is always a pain in the butt.
It me. Surgery is Monday. I’m not stressing too bad about it yet.
We made a decision to decline the histopathology analysis they included in the quote – sending the eye off to a lab to confirm cancer and see if it looks contained. We decided it wasn’t going to be helpful info in any case – either we’ll find out we made the right call and all is well (the most likely outcome based on what the ophthalmologist could see), or it was nothing and we did unnecessary surgery, or it’s spread and we did unnecessary surgery. We’d rather just do the surgery and be at peace with the decision, assuming we made the correct call.
@BigDamnHeroes, I agree with your choices – and they are never easy to make. Again, best wishes on Monday.
Voting for Republicans is always a bad idea.
On a related theme, I was the one with the bad idea. Our previous dog was a female German shepherd that we got at 12 weeks. When she died after having lived an astonishingly, record-breakingly long life, we decided to get another one. On the drive over to the shelter I said, “And remember, I want another female, I want something that won’t grow too big, and I don’t want to raise another puppy.” Long story short, I fell in love with the Loyal Hound. He (not a girl) was four months old (so yes a puppy) and 40 lbs. (so already above the weight limit I kind of had in my mind.) I almost killed him more than once, but he’s now 7 1/2 and is at 115 lbs. and is the Best Beast. But what the hell was I thinking?
No doubt we will be getting a successor. I can already see history repeating itself, I’ll fall in love with some huge puppy hound. I hope the Better Half has the presence of mind to seek out the shelter’s on-site vet and say, “Doctor, this is a matter of some delicacy. Do you see that man that I’m with? I’m afraid he needs to be euthanized. Do you do that here or do we need to go to a different facility?”