Recent content by Flyinsbt

I don't know how you fix it. My old dog, Elmo, was like that. If you played ball with him, it had to be the ball you started the session with, if he lost it, and you tried giving him another ball, he'd ignore it while obsessively searching for the first one. I used it to train him scent...

I have Staffords, so yeah. Though in person, most people do like them, and also usually just think they're small pit bulls or pit bull mixes. Most of the stuff I hear about them is online. And entertainingly, also includes a subset of pit bull fanciers who trash my breed as being squatty...

The Gordon Setters I know are not super high energy. They're active, but not crazy. I have a friend who always has 3, so I've known 4 or 5 of her girls.

I'm not flipping anything, nobody here was. And yes, growling is communication, it's aggressive communication. At least in this case (as has been pointed out, sometimes it's play), it was clear "I don't like that bitch" communication, and once we understood that was what he was saying, that...

6'. Usually nylon. I'm not all that picky, just so it's sturdy enough to hold the dog. I don't give the dogs the full extent of their leashes when we're on the sidewalk, but when we're walking through a park, or if we're hiking, I let them have the full 6'. For agility, they have...

I am another person who would be quite shocked if my dogs growled at somebody, and for the same reason... it's very out of character, they never have. I would sure want to know what precipitated that odd behavior. For that matter, I was shocked when my Pirate first growled at his litter...

The kids that have run up and grabbed my dogs didn't yell anything before they did, they generally just come out of nowhere. And no amount of "asshole vibe" would have kept them away, they weren't paying attention to me, they were focused on the dogs. I can't see how giving off an "asshole...

Most people in my area would ask before petting, and certainly even more people than that don't feel the need to pet them. It's just those occasional very small children that tend to come from out of nowhere to grab at the dogs. One of the first I encountered was with my first Stafford, Elmo...

It's not "ok", but it happens. When the kid rushed my dogs in the park, the parents knew it was a scary and wrong thing, and I bet they worked harder on avoiding it in the future, because they knew how lucky they were. I certainly don't encourage kids to suddenly latch onto my dogs. But kids...

Not me. I am lucky enough to own bull breed dogs who aren't particularly dog aggressive, but even if they were DA, I would still rather deal with that than with a spooky dog. Spooky is just too freaking hard to predict. I was walking my 3 Staffords, on leash, through a nearby park once...

He looks masculine to me! I'm always surprised that people in other breeds correctly identify Tess as a girl, since she's a blocky little thing, and of course the Staffords are more heavily built than the average dog. But really, she doesn't get mistaken for a male. Except once, at a dog...

I think so. And people do generally get it right, so I'd say yes. In this, I think you can see the feminine vs. masculine. Obviously, Staffords are a relatively blocky breed, so even a bitch isn't that dainty looking, but you can definitely see the difference.

I don't think my first Stafford, Elmo, was suitable for the average pet home, which I base on the fact that he went through 3 of those before I got him. He was a good dog, and not really that difficult, but he really did need something to do. As long as he got regular work, he was no problem...

Frankly, if he's getting a midday meal, it sounds like they're already trying to keep weight on him. I wouldn't expect a pup that age to eat more than twice a day, unless they needed frequent small meals to meet their calorie needs.

Staffords are absolutely the right breed for me. And my dogs are perfect. So I suppose the answer is yes, to both.