Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been so busy it's unreal, now I am so far behind here it's gonna take a week or more to catch up!
We lost our dog to heart failure caused by Cushing's disease on May 12th, then I spent the whole month of June teaching my yearly class. I am so far behind on everything it'll take a month or more to catch up on life in general.
Friday June 23rd we drove 6 hours away to buy a new puppy because the only puppies available here are from puppy mills. We didn't want a mutt, we are hooked on the dachshund breed so it had to be another dachshund and the only way to get a good one was to go far away. Now we're spending a lot of our free time being shredded by a teething puppy. lol

The good turtle news is the puppy has already learned that the turtles belong here. After he got over wondering what the heck they are, he's already learned to leave them alone.
I get them out to let them roam the same as always, he jumped around them and barked the first time he saw them so I used some Dog Whisperer techniques to show him that the turtles are part of the pack and that he must not bother them, it actually worked.
This morning I took him outside to do his business not knowing that Hobo was sitting in the general area where I always take him out. He saw Hobo, he went over to sniff him then he left him alone.
I am SO HAPPY that this new puppy is learning that we leave the turtles alone. Like with the last dog who also didn't bother them, I would never leave a dog alone with a turtle but I feel like it's safe to at least be able to blink my eyes without worrying that the dog is going to hurt a turtle when the turtles are out.
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PHRatz

Ratz, I'm so sorry to hear about your dog. But, it's wonderful to hear about your new puppy!! Also, it's great to have you back. This board isn't the same without'cha.

>>Ratz, I'm so sorry to hear about your dog. But, it's wonderful to hear about your new puppy!! Also, it's great to have you back. This board isn't the same without'cha.

Thanks Ken! We miss our boy but it sure does help to have another. I hate being without a dog.
I've missed being here but it's been one thing after another in just the last 2 weeks. I try to get signed on then I get interrupted. There was work, the trip to get dog, emergency surgery for a relative, a wedding, moving the mud turtle into a new larger tank which led to a filter hassle and a trip to the hardware store. Then there was pyometra in one of my rats which led to emergency surgery for her, she's just fine btw. Then finally we bought that new storage building yesterday, big mess getting that thing delivered. Now I can get all this junk out of the house & junk up the storage building instead. lol

Now tomorrow without fail I can make those phone calls to get that fence builder who built our fence back over here to build my turtle pen. DH just does not have the time.
We can't just stack the cinder blocks because the sulcata might knock them over onto a turtle or herself so we need a real brick layer here to do this job the right way.

I would've stayed here earlier to post more but my feet were under attack by the crocadog. lol
He's asleep finally so I can type a little.
I am just so happy that even though I still can't get it through his head just yet that he must not use the carpet for a toilet, at least he's got the point that he can't touch the other animals around here with his teeth.
The pack just isn't complete without a dog to be here with all these darn critters.
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PHRatz

Hi Ratz,
Sorry to hear about your sausage. I was heart broken when my wirehaired dachshund died years ago: he was my best bud. We have several mutts now, but when the time is right (in a few years) we'll be getting another dachshund, maybe even two.

Stephanie

Steph you know how we felt then. It was very hard because we knew his illnesses were going to kill him eventually but the night before it happened we had no idea that he wasn't going to live through the next day. That was really tough. His heart failed suddenly and that was that.

We lost him on a Friday then I had a mandatory seminar to attend the following Monday on laboratory safety. I got maybe 12 hours total of sleep that entire weekend then had to show up for that thing feeling like a zombie.
What was worse about the thing is that it turned out to be a two day nightmare. Eight hour a day for two days of listening to one man lecture. It was like being in hell! LOL
It was the most boring thing I've done in a long time. There's not that much you can say about lab safety and keep it interesting.

I find this interesting though, I've met a lot of people who love turtles and also weenie dogs. I know quite a few people who have both, a lot of them also have pet rats.
Interesting that turtle loving people often seem to have the same interests in other species as well.
We thought about 2 puppies but decided no, now I'm glad we did. I can't imagine all this "puppy in holy terror mode" but two of them! lol
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PHRatz

"We thought about 2 puppies but decided no, now I'm glad we did. I can't imagine all this "puppy in holy terror mode" but two of them!"

When the weiner was getting old, we adopted two terrier mutts, a brother and sister, and we figured for sure that they'd be super destructive, but they ended up chewing on eachother more than anything else, so that's why I'm thinking of two 'links' next time around.

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>>When the weiner was getting old, we adopted two terrier mutts, a brother and sister, and we figured for sure that they'd be super destructive, but they ended up chewing on eachother more than anything else, so that's why I'm thinking of two 'links' next time around.

We considered that they might chew each other up, lol.
I dunno, maybe we should've but then the breeder we got this one from is an AKC judge, the one we got is the only one she had for sale. The only reason he was for sale is because he has an under developed eye so he can't be a show dog.
He can see it's just that one eye is smaller than the other & it's a bit cloudy.. I'm always a sucker for the "under dog"
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PHRatz

As soon as I saw "Cushings", I thought Dachshund, before I even finished the post. I have three myself - and a box turtle of course. I guess they do go together somehow, although I'm pretty sure my dogs would use the turtle as a chew toy if they could.

>>As soon as I saw "Cushings", I thought Dachshund, before I even finished the post. I have three myself - and a box turtle of course. I guess they do go together somehow, although I'm pretty sure my dogs would use the turtle as a chew toy if they could.

Yup even though Cushing's can happen to any dog it seems that dachshund owners are about the only people I meet who even know what it is.
Funny how the puppy millers & BYBs around here don't seem to have any idea what Cushing's or thyroid diseases are. That was a huge turn off for me when meeting local breeders.. plus my vet telling me point blank that if you want quality in a dog you have to get out of this area.
So far little Stevie Ray KlingVaughan doesn't seem to have any interest in using the turtles for chew toys. They do go together somehow. He really does seem to have gotten the point that these turtles live here & that's that. He still hops around the tortoise like a goofy little long bodied bunny but she only outweighs him by 57 pounds lol.
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PHRatz