The weather has been very nice in my area lately so I’ve been sleeping with the windows open. Boy was that a mistake.

It was probably 1am or so and I saw a bat fly in and land near my boy. Needless to say it bit him, so I took him to the emergency vet and they did all they could but to no avail. This is irreversible. He is a vampire now.

Happy Halloween 👻

Rescued from Dumb Friends League on Jan 26 2018, he was estimated to be around a yr old.

I think cattle dogs and very ADHD people are a match made in heaven.

Also, the ears! 😍😍

My boy Einstein was almost 15 but it doesn’t feel long enough. Just wanted to share my beautiful boy before he was hurting. I miss him

Dog shrimp, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burgers, coconut shrimp…

Many teeth. He’s focused on his llama toy. I’d love to see other derpy heelers!

They’re a weird dog who photograph weirder. Show me your worst/best?

In pursuit of a raccoon, our ACD mix got out of our yard, bust through our neighbor’s yard, and climbed a tree and fence / garden trellis as high as she could.

Did my best to get her down through the fence and it wasn’t pretty but everyone is ok (I cried).

We adopted her 5 years ago with elbow dysplasia and early arthritis (she was a stray beforehand, so either born with it or an early-in-life injury) and the thought of her being fully physically-abled sends shivers down my spine.

Love her to bits, just curious.

I started my dog on the native pet daily supplement and I noticed she now has a small bald spot. She was on the probiotic for quite a bit and I never noticed anything like this. She hasnt been scratching or acting like its bothering her so I think im gonna rule out a bug bite or anything. I dont think it could be her food or anything but I will maybe switch it if I think thats it.

edit: I should add she has been having diarrhea. I think the supplement is the culprit

My coworkers have absolutely no concept of personal space.

I might need a word with HR....

Anyone else working under cattle supervision? Share pix pls!

My ACD mix is obsessed with shoving his butt at people for rubs or just climb straight on top of you. It’s hilarious but I’m wondering if other peoples ACDs do this or if he’s just a weirdo

Having a bit of a lazy day today

and he takes his job very seriously. not sure if he loves doing it, but he’s very good at his job

We just bought a pen to help keep my dog safe during some home renovations. But i cant open the gate. Am I doing something wrong or have I bought a lemon?! Nothing on the latch moves or squeezes and im wondering if that metal pin on the right side should be removed.

Im not sure im in the right community. I dont usually follow or post about dog stuff on reddit

Hope everyone has a chill Friday like these boys are, post walkie and clocked in for nap time.

Seriously they crack me up with their sleep positions sometimes.

Hi community thank you for adding me gosh, this is hard to write. We adopted our pup, a 2 yr old blue heeler, last December from a rescue. After a month or so he started exhibiting extreme fear behavior towards my husband culminating in a bite. Since that time we’ve learned that he had at some point, experienced a chronically dislocated hip and who knows what else before he came to us. Fast forward 10 months and we have had surgery for the hip, started him on fluoxetine and gabapentin, and hoped that lack of pain would change his reactivity to the husband. Now we think we see a little bit of improvement and we’ve started backing down the dosage on fluoxetine, but he is still very fear reactive to my husband but only sometimes, mostly after walks and around meal times. At these times, he will suddenly stiffen, charge, start to growl, and snap his jaws rapidly at my husband in a threatening way. This is accompanied by what we call scream barking, where he runs to his crate and continues to bark and growl from inside of it . Other times during the day, he is calm and sweet and interactive. Due to his history of having a hip injury he is a very low energy dog for a for a heeler, but we’re trying to manage his recovery and behavior with longer walks. When he acts out, he is crated for a short time to avoid escalated interactions. In the mornings, he is sweet and pliable and allows us to touch him and we have wonderful morning walks and fun. we absolutely love him and want to help him but I’ve had a very little luck with having our vet or trainers that we’ve hired really understand what’s going on with him. Behaviorists are very expensive and hard to come by so we’re wondering if anyone out there has any experience with this kind of behavior, it almost seems like his reactivity to my husband is a seizure effect, but I don’t know. What do you think?

Yesterday was Diesel's long-awaited annual wellness visit. He was scheduled for three vaccines and a blood draw. On his last visit in April, he tried to bite the vet tech, nearly choked himself, and thrashed all over. Since then, we've been doing a lot of work: muzzle training, regular happy visits, finding the right drugs, getting him used to being hug-restrained and palpated.

And we did it! A vet tech and I held him and reassured him; I bribed him with hot dogs and whipped cream; and another vet tech and the vet did their thing. It took about an hour, with all four of us on the floor. By the time it was finished, there was fur and whipped cream everywhere, but we were all still friends.

I'm so grateful to have a vet who's willing to work with us on this. In addition to vet phobia, Diesel has separation anxiety, so he totally loses it when they try to take him "in back" at the vet. Letting me hold him in the exam room made it possible. And Diesel didn't even try to run out when it was time to go. He wanted to greet everyone and let them congratulate him on how well he did, even though he made it all much harder than it needed to be.

All my life I’ve seen, mostly “older people”, with a dog that they treated like a human child.
Well here we are. My wife and I are empty nesters. A few months back we acquired “River” she’s an ACD and she was 6 weeks old. On the way to pick her up my wife says “this is going to be YOUR dog”, “YOU are going to be responsible for her”, etc. River slept in our bed that night at my wife’s insistence.
So now, as River is 6 days from turning 6 months old, my wife refers to herself as “momma” when speaking to River. River jumps into the shower with my wife who bathes her, we keep a steady supply of snacks on hand (in the house, in the vehicles and in the camper), we’ve turned into the middle-aged couple with a dog that we treat like a human child.
I got River for the purpose of having a companion while fly fishing in the mountains. River has turned out to be so much more, she’s our baby, a family member!
Something I didn’t expect but wouldn’t change for anything.

Edit: River, like a couple of her litter mates, was born without a tail.

Long video, but Rune (3yo) had a tooth pulled a few months ago and now she LOVES things that crunch.

He so cuteee but he so evil

Loves to chomp my feet at 1 am every night lol

I’m pretty amazed at some of the noises that come out my ACD Puppy. Squeaks, growls, tweets bops mixed in with a few barks as exclamations.

This morning I was having a conversation with him and I swear he was trying to mimic the words I was saying.

How vocal is your ACD?

Cookie and I recently moved to a new place, with a lot of our neighbors having dogs of their own. Whenever we come across them during walks, I find that Cookie will be curious and calm with people, just smelling them up close is enough. But other dogs? She just can't stand them.

There's unfortunately been quite a few interactions like this, and observing them closely, Cookie is always the one to show her fangs and attempt to lunge at them (I always make sure to have a firm hold on her harness). After these interactions, however short they may be, she suddenly becomes aggravated and will bark even at passing cars (something she never does normally) and it takes a little while for her to calm down.

I'm seriously considering a muzzle for her, and I'm wondering if this is something only a trainer would be able to address. For further context, Cookie is around 5 to 6 years old (we adopted her back in early 2021) and unneutered.