Hello pawbly friends! We are very excited to be gaining a new rescue GSD to our home. In the past, whenever the first introduction has occurred, it has been during the day and we have been able to have a nice long walk including all the dogs involved and then after they’re good and acquainted and tired, we go int the house. This rescue is a little different as the pick up time is late Sunday night. My two dogs will be “in bed”. My thinking is to bring them outside one at a time to greet the new addition, and then take a short nighttime walk and then all go in together. Please share any wisdom to help make the transition as smooth as possible? Thanks!!!??

Hello pawbly friends- we have found 3 dead crows on our property in the last 10 or so days. I am wondering if I should call “someone” ( who would that even be) or if it is not uncommon. I’ve never found this many in such a short time period before. I should mention we live by many farms, who may or may not have sprayed some sort of pesticides.

Hi pawbly friends? Our new love-Riva- is fitting in so seemlessly. It’s fantastic. A few hiccups but nothing catastrophic. My question is, preventatives. Hers are due and our other GSD doesn’t get his until the 1st. For my own sanity, I’d like to have them on the same day. What’s the protocol for changing the schedule? Is there a way to space them out so that I can still have them protected but get them dosed on the same day?

Good morning pawbly friends. Apologies for the long question. I feel like the worst dog mom in the world right now? We recently rescued a beautiful black gsd- Riva the Diva. We have acreage, so while we do leash train, we also collar train (we cannot afford to fence in although we do have a small fenced section). We use the collar when we do our long walks around the perimeter or when we are playing in the yard, etc. we haven’t even started training Riva on it yet… I’ve only been putting it on her in the morning (“let’s get dressed” and taking it off in the evening “time for bed”) for the last three days. Yesterday afternoon I noticed she seemed uncomfortable and when I went to check her, her neck where the bulky part of the collar is was all raw! We haven’t even turned the collar on yet. I could easily fit 2 fingers width under the collar. Obviously I took the collar off right away and cleaned off the raw area. She slept completely collarless, and is without any type of collar at the moment. I’m only putting her regular collar on for short walks. This morning she is much happier and her neck looks much better already. My concern is what happened… was the collar too tight even though I could fit my fingers? Is there an allergic reaction? My other concern is, we travel/vacation with our dogs to the mountains, woods etc. and depend on these collars. This has not ever happened with any of our other dogs.Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi pawbly friends…
It was a snowy, no school day here. Try as I might, I could not get the dogs to stay in while the kids were out playing in the snow, and all that running and horse play took a toll on our 12 year old GSD Butch. He just fell going down the stairs…. not the whole stair case, the stepto get onto the landing. My husband picked him up and rather than having him try to use the stairs tonight, we brought him round the outside way to use the hill instead. He seems fine on his walk just now, but slow going. My question is this: he’s got rimadyl that we give him sparingly for pain from his arthritis. Should I give him some tonight, or wait til morning when he will probably be really stiff, or give tonight and tomorrow? Thanks for anyand all advice!

Hi pawbly friends-
I was just walking my dogs and we came across a crow. It is somehow injured, though I don’t really know what is wrong with it, other than it seems unable to fly. It flaps both wings, and can run away from us. I put the boys in a sir stay, and scooped the bird up carefully. He/she is resting in a paper- lined box on my front porch at the moment as I am really not sure at all what to do.

Our German shepherd has suddenly developed what feels like a tiny scab on the tip of each of his ears. You can’t see it, but when I was loving on him earlier this morning I felt it. Upon further inspection I realized that it is like a little scab on each tip. It doesn’t seem to bother him. Both dogs have been outside a ton since the weather has finally been nice the past few days. I’m wondering if it could be allergies acting up?

Oh my gosh! How dangerous is febreeze for pets?

Good morning pawbly-
Writing because I know that stainless steel is the best option for food dishes. The issue is, both of my boys have stopped eating out of their stainless bowls. Not at the same time…first Butch wouldn’t eat out of it. That started about a year ago. He would go to eat and then stop and look at me. I would take the bowl out of his feeder (we built raised ones) and then he would eat. Then he refused that way after awhile. The steel bowl would scrape along the floor, so I bought a rubber bottomed plastic one as I did not find a stainless one with a rubber bottom. Then he got finicky about that one too! My husband would dump the dish on the floor and then he would eat it. I wouldn’t dump it, and eventually Butch would eat. Then recently Dierks decided he wasn’t going to eat out of his bowl. Same deal-same bowl switch- same situation- dump the bowl, then he would eat it. I’m not having them eat off of the floor. Dish soap has not changed. I’ve been leaving treats in the stainless bowls, and of course, they eat those.

Hello all,
My German shepherd is getting older and has a lot of trouble jumping into the back of the car now. Friends of ours have been lovely enough to loan us a ramp for him. While I have been able to train this dog to do tons of things, I am having a hard time teaching him to use the ramp, and I can’t figure a way to make this work. So far I have used treat rewards for each time he puts his front paws onto the ramp, I have had our other dog Dierks go up and down it to show him, I myself have also gone up and down the ramp to show Butch. I have also tried lining the treats up the ramp in an effort to get him to follow his nose. Lastly, I have laid thenramp flat on the ground and tried to get him to walk on it… all of this to no avail. We have been working at it for about a week now. I never go more than 10 minutes at a time and I always end our little ramp session with something I know he can already do so that it ends on a happy note. Any and all suggestions on how to help him understand the concept of the ramp would be greatly appreciated!!?