The pets thread aka my house smells of cat/dog/other piss

Their first album was a banger.

Aren’t we all? Sigh…

I fucking love seeing this thread hit page 1 with your name on it

Those little shitbags are 999% adorable. Pics or I will hunt you down

Sorry to break the tone of the thread, just need to get something off my chest.

My dear old sainted silver-haired mother, who's (by her own admission) decrepit and failing, has a 14 year old Jack Russell that is also decrepit and failing. She's now at the point of talking about a one way trip to the vet. She's putting it off- the dog doesn't appear to be suffering, but is totally blind, and needs to be helped to the garden. I've got this horrible feeling she's identifying quite a bit with the dog, and doesn't want to say goodbye (same way any dog owner would, to be honest).

Fuck getting older, for people and for pets.

Edit: to make up for my January grump, here's a pic of our alleged Cocker looking majestic as fuck:

so much arsehole

The breeder we're getting our puppy from is giving us some concerns.

They haven't vaccinated him, and we'll be getting him at just under 9 weeks. We've got a vaccination booked as soon as we can, but we won't be able to socialise him for another week after that. They apparently haven't vaccinated any of their dogs, so the pup won't have any maternal immunity.

Also when we've emailed asking about the contract (basic things) she's responded without answering any of the things about the contract, just things about the puppy.

And we haven't seen him walking about. When we saw him he just lay there, when we held him he stayed still. Looking at pictures of him on the Kennel Club again he's lying down sleepy.

I'm sure these are mostly jitters but it's all making us hesitant. He's been advertised on the Kennel Club website so we thought they would be adhering to certain standards.

How was your experiences with breeders?

Most breeders would get a batch of pups their first vaccinations before they're let go to their homes. The first vaccination is usually at 8 weeks. I would also expect the vet to have checked the litter for things that are known issues with the breed, heart problems, joints etc.

Not all, but my friend who breeds does the first set. Major had his 8 week vacc.

Generally, if a breeder is on the KC Assured breeder scheme, they'll be visited every 2 years to check they're doing stuff correctly but them being KC registered isn't a guarantee of anything alone. My mate does it, but he says it's largely just a money maker for the KC and so he can tell people he's KC Registered. They don't actually check unless you're on the Assured thing.

That sounds a bit weird Cubby, especially the bit about none of the dogs being vaccinated. For our new pup, we had lots of videos, pics. All very active. We nearly pulled out at the last minute, after they suggested the night before we meet in a car park to do the handover, as they lived "in the middle of nowhere", and it would be easier for us.

But we insisted...they did live in the middle of nowhere, it was a pain to get to, and she was heavily pregnant - so didn't want a bunch of possibly Covid infected people arriving. But glad we made the effort, it was good to see where she came from, and we understood her position about visitors. And we got to meet the mother dog, who was definitely still showing the signs of feeding the pups.

Our other dog, I think we were vetted more by the breeder, a professional gun dog guy, with a big training operation out in the hills. The "puppy farm" as I had to discourage the kids from calling it...

If you have doubts, I'd get them assuaged or give it a miss. There will be other pups.

Dougs, thihnk I've said before but also check your cat's diet. Ours were on Felix and it turns out that has a reputation for cats that are on it over grooming to the point of creating sores. Seems like its possibly purina in general. Felix is shit anyway, but our cats sadly got addicted to it in a cattery where they were given it. Took ages to wean them off it.

They're on this stuff.  They like it, it has high meat content and as far as I can tell, better than the supermarket stuff.  We tried loads of different wet food but they went off it all.  This is the only one they haven't turned their nose up.  Sure it's a mite or still fleas that we haven't shifted etc as it only started a few weeks ago.

When we went through a breeder we had a little guy picked out but as it was growing it seemed he wasn't developing enough and they would not risk us having a potentially sick puppy so they gave us a choice of a couple they were saving for breeding. We had to drive to Valencia and meet them at a McDonalds, lol then drive 2 hours back with a little ball of fluff.
We were shattered but it was probably for the best, I do often wonder if the little fellah made it.

As long as there is a vet statement saying it's healthy bar the vaxes then you should be right.

Now the part to unnecessarily guilt you.

What could happen if you did walk away?
Breeders and country folk have known to be ruthless in the past especially if another buyer can't be found.

One of our cats is sick. Though in true cat fashion we don’t know how sick. Since Friday she’s not interested in food (at least not the special meals we give out occasionally) and is throwing up foam occasionally, but she’s fairly private anyway and we don’t know if she’s been eating her regular food (we free feed) or drinking enough. She’s clearly a little miserable and hides away under the bed, which isn’t like her, but is also intermittently being social at times too (she’s hanging out on the couch with the dogs right now) so I don’t know what to make of it. Playing it safe and trying to get her an urgent vet appointment. But wrangling her into transport will be another issue - she’s very sweet but hates being picked up, I’ve had to use long sleeve leather gloves every time to stop my arms being torn apart.

Hope she turns out to be alright. Definitley need a vet if you're not sure she's drinking enough as they suffer quite quickly if they're not.

When ours have had dodgey stomachs we've fed them encore chicken and rice as that's usually what the vets tell us to do. But they don't throw up foamy stuff.