a small back story, my mochi was in good shape before but she got pregnant but her baby died before she could give birth to her puppy. days passed and she stayed the same weight as she did when she got pregnant. at first i didn’t really mind it, i thought she would go back to normal but a year or two passed by and she’s still the same way. i don’t really mind if she looks like that and it doesn’t seem to bother her but lately it’s been really really hot in my country and she pants like crazy! i use the ac at night which calms her down, since i’m not always home since i go to school so i can’t always have my ac on. can someone please tell me why my dog stayed the same way or do you have any tips??

we took her to the beach two days ago, something we don’t normally do, and when we returned the next morning i noticed some swelling. we went to our vet who gave her some meds to see if it was an allergic reaction but her swelling only went down somewhat and temporarily. the next day they said we should call them if it hasn’t been resolved, so we did, but they just told us to get antibiotics. her swelling seems to be getting worse but it hasn’t been 24 hours yet. i’m extremely worried it’s a tumor or cancerous. i think the most possible conclusion is that she needs to have a tooth removed.

thank you all so much for your help. to answer a few common questions:

1) she did not go into the water. she’s old and we kept her on leash the entire time. the likelihood of her being stung at the beach are pretty low.

2) we trust her vet, he’s known her for quite some time. i do believe if it was an emergency he would reach out.

3) the antibiotics take 24 hours to work and it has not been 24 hours yet.

This is my very sweet dog, Mel. She is very active and loves to play, and we do a little bit of agility once a week.

However, about two weeks ago, I started noticing that her drive to play was decreasing and that she was getting tired much more quickly. About a week ago, her knee (or at least what we think is her knee) started making popping sounds when she moved, and it has been getting worse day by day.

On Monday, we went to see the vet. He gave us some joint supplements and pain medication and said that it looks like she may be growing too fast. Her bones and muscles might not be developing at the same rate, which could be causing the problem. He said we could have an X-ray done if she does not improve after this treatment.

Based on other symptoms, such as swaying her rear legs from side to side, not sitting properly, and doing a bit of bunny hopping (probably because of the pain) I suspect that she may have some degree of hip dysplasia.

For the next week or so, we are limiting her physical activity. However, if she gets better, I would like to start carefully strengthening her back leg muscles so that they can provide better support for her joints.

Has anyone dealt with anything similar? If so, how is your puppy doing now? I am not really sure what the right next step is. I am considering visiting a physiotherapy centre for dogs, but I would like to start training her as soon as possible, provided that her health allows it.

Noticed this spot on Monday and it’s gotten progressively worse over the past couple of days. Not sure if it’s something bacterial or fungal or something worse. Gonna take her into the vet ASAP but just thought I would post here for some peace of mind.

We already went to the vet today and the vet ruled out any bee or insect string, allergies, and tooth infection. They ended prescribing antibiotic for infection because blood draw from the site showed a high white blood cell count. I hate seeing my girl uncomfortable and though they did rule out some things, there wasn’t a definitive cause of this and it’s making me nervous. Has anyone’s dog had anything similar before?

Small one is 1 year, big is 5 years old.

We are staying in an air bnb in California whith no air conditioning and the thermostat says it's 86 degrees inside I shes awake and I know dogs pant when there hot but how do you know when there over heating

Edit: the temp says it's cooler outside so we are going to sit in the shade whith water outside I might have been projecting how hot I am onto my dog because of my autism I am really sensitive to heat so we are going to lay together on the ground whith as little movement as possible till my parents come home

Hi everyone my girlfriend and I got a sweetheart who’s only a year and 2 months old and after some roughhousing (zoomies) running around our apartment she seemed fine but we all went and took naps and out of nowhere she had a severe limp were taking her to the vet today but I’m trying to see if anyone has any good guesses what it is

Hi all! I took my husky on a trip recently to visit my folks in CA, she mainly stayed in their house with their German shepherd and we spent a couple nights at a hotel. We walked on the beach one of the nights but nothing crazy.

We got back a couple days ago and the next day she woke up reverse sneezing, it lasts prob about 10 seconds and then stops, sometimes she may gag. And it prob happens a couple times a day Other than that, she seems completely normal. Eating and drinking normally, going on walks etc. I’m nervous because I’ve never seen her do this before.

Any ideas/ advice welcome if anyone has had a similar experience!

We have a vet appointment on Monday

I just found out my Pomchi Pippen has a mast cell tumor on his side today, which seemed to have sprung up very quickly, and I'm feeling incredibly anxious and upset. I was hoping the bump was just a lipoma, which is also what the vet said before checking the cells. Unfortunately, it was not.

He has surgery scheduled for the 30th of this month to get it removed, and I'm just hoping and praying that it's benign.

I'm absolutely devastated and I can't even fathom him not being here with me anymore.

Does anyone have success stories about MCT? Thank you for any advice.

My boston terrier has these weird black spots on her lower back, and she is 11 years old, about to turn 12 this October. She is a pretty healthy Boston terrier. Compared to most and i know stuff usually comes with age on dogs, but I was just making sure that this was nothing major.

I have 13 1/2 border collie and up until July 1st of this year she was just living her best life. 3 long walks a day , eating and drinking good, interest in walks and smells. At her old age she was averaging 15-20k steps a day no problem. Than on the 1st she woke up ….she could barely walk , she wouldn’t eat , she just laid there ….so I let her rest ….around midnight she starts going really heaving panting and irregular breathing patterns all labored so I went to the ER ….i spent 8 hours there for them to finally tell me she has liver cancer …”she has 2.2 cm mass and her liver is 3 times the size of a normal one and pushing her stomach into her spine where she already is forming arthritis “ boom first time I cried in 30 she is my everything. They put her on meds and tell me to get a checkup with the regular vet. So in the last 3 weeks ….for the most part during the day she’s the same dog she was you couldn’t even tell anything was wrong but when the night comes she’s so uncomfortable and I can her every part of her insides thumping really loud ….kind of scary ….but this isn’t every night I’d say 3 out of 7. Put those nights are intense and I feel like I’m making her suffer ….but than when I look at her during the day I’m like no way she’s ready to go she’s fine. What do you guys think it’s way too early? Has anyone been through a liver cancer experience

My 8 year old min pin mix has been having stomach and health issues all year. His vet thinks he has developed allergies to something, so we're going to a dermatologist next month and just started a prescription food.

His stool has been healthy for several months now and we thought we were all good, but last month he started lip licking, yawning, and burping. I emailed his vet who put him on Prilosec because we both thought it seemed like acid reflux. Unfortunately, that didn't work. About 2 weeks after those symptoms began, he ended up at the ER because he stopped drinking water, got bloated, his ear became inflamed, and he got follicular conjunctivitis (basically an eye issue due to allergies).

The ER put him on prednisone because the Apoquel he was on was clearly not working. The next day he was sleepy but you could tell he was feeling much better. Unfortunately, the lip licking, yawning, swallowing, burping never really went away, but it did get better so his primary vet decided to keep him on the prednisone until we can get to the derm because it seemed possibly related.

2 days ago, things got bad again. he's been lip licking, yawning, burping, and hard swallowing all day and night and seems uncomfortable. His breath also started to smell. Sometimes it smells rotten, other times it's like poopy dirt.

We are going back to his primary tomorrow, but just wanted to see if anyone has seen this before? We originally thought nausea, but his poops are healthy and he's not vomiting at all.

He had a dental in May because I noticed him yawning and lip licking too much and decided to check his teeth. I found a broken premolar, which was removed, along with 3 others, and the rest were cleaned. We thought that would solve the issue, but it clearly hasn't.

When he got nauseous I made his vet do a poop panel last month even though he's not having diarrhea, and nothing came up.

He doesn't chew anything hard and doesn't eat hard food. He won't really let me look in his mouth anymore, but the extraction sites for the premolar and other teeth were fully healed and closed.

It has been months of this. If you know what this is, please comment because we're very scared and he seems so uncomfortable.

I think my pup scraped herself rushing after a bunny over the weekend. I noticed the scabs and cleaned the area and put on some Neosporin. It doesn’t seem to bother her but I am worried it could be something else.

My dog does this sometimes. any reason why?

This is my doggo Bella, she's about 7 years old. She ran into the oven door the other day (she's a little blind, running into things isn't particularly uncommon). A day or so after, this happened to her eye and I'm not sure what exactly to do, it's obviously causing her pain.

Her behavior has shown little change aside from being more clingy, she follows people around much much more, always close and practically leaning on my legs. She sits in my lap much more often too, something she regularly does only when there's storms or fireworks.

I've been putting a warm rag on it to try and help a little, this showed up around yesterday morning so it's still pretty dang new. My mom isn't home and I can't drive nor afford the vet at the moment.

Hey guys, so I am petsitting for my landlord as I've done once previously and I'm a bit worried about something.

The dog is an elderly female who can normally go outside on demand since my landlord often leaves the door open when he's here, but she can also hold it. I know this because last time I cared for her she could hold it for x amount of hours when she was inside.

Yesterday I took her for a walk from about 9.15 to 9.45pm, and when I came down the next morning at around 7.50am I saw a puddle of pee. I felt bad for her and decided to buy puppy pads in case this happened ago. I also decided I was gonna let her out one last time at around 10.30pm, but when I came down to do so just now I saw she had already peed in the pad.

She didn't even bark to ask to go outside like she normally does, which I found kinda weird. Maybe she doesn't trust me enough to ask, but even then, why pee so shortly after a walk? Could she be missing her owner? Or just old dog problems?

Hi everyone! Found this sub and hoping to get advice on my shelter dog, Linus. Although I did adopt him 3 years ago so it has been awhile, he hasn't overcome a lot of his initial behaviors despite spending thousands on training and dog sitters.

I want to start off by saying that Linus isn't aggressive, violent or nippy with people. He's a chihuahua/jack Russell mix (he's small too at 25 lbs) and overall very sweet, gentle BUT extremely emotionally fragile. He has severe separation anxiety and since the day I adopted him, he hasn't been able to be alone for more than 5 minutes. For a few months or so, we were able to extend his alone time to 10 minutes, but he quickly regressed after spending a month with my parents while I was on a work trip.

I work remotely and live in a studio apartment so obviously it's not easy to get him used to being "alone", where I can close a door and have him develop that trust I'm "there". Whenever I shower, he runs in to make sure he's there watching me. The times I've closed the door just to get alone time, he pees/poos himself and whines the entire time. I'm not angry with it, but I am burnt out, annoyed at times and honestly drained.

I really mean this in the most objective way possible, but Linus has minimal personality aside from clinging onto me (or any dog sitter available), food and eating treats. He does NOT like walking, he doesn't like to explore, he has no interest in playing (unless there's treats available but I can't overstuff him) and he has no funny, obvious "quirks" that other dogs have. Even when he's getting treats or attention, he always seems to have the same worried, droopy expression. I know some dogs naturally look like that, but after three years it's honestly emotionally draining because it feels like he's never happy about anything.

I'm a very social person and also active too. I also live in a big city in the US and love hikes, going out with friends and exploring events. Although he has a stroller, I cannot take this stroller to my hikes or at every single bar or event, especially because a lot of noise and people around overwhelms him. I have to hire a sitter every time I go somewhere he's not allowed to go, and that's always $70-$80 for just a few hours. It's been a huge expense and he always whines for at least 1 or 2 hours when I'm gone (I live also in one of the most expensive cities where dog sitters are in high demand, so I spend around $1500 a month on all his expenses including training, sitters, etc.)

I don't have a car since I live in a walkable city, but I've tried taking him to quiet parks so we could slowly introduce him to new things and stimulation, but he wants to go back into the stroller or tries to cling to me. After his pees and poops, he's basically done. He's also extremely reactive towards other dogs and will lunge and attack (we've been working on this with a trainer too, but again very little progress since he hates walking even on sunny days). I've taken him to trainers and a vet, and my two trainers said he's "very slow in progress" with his separation anxiety. He's been on lexapro and trazodone (prescribed by our vet) since 2024, but I don't see any noticeable different in his demeanor or behavior.

Lastly, I'm a lot more busy at my remote role since I just got promoted, so I don't have as much flexibility to continue to "train" him, even if it goes nowhere. My life revolves around Linus and honestly as terrible as this sounds, his perpetual sad, whiney, clingy demeanor is very draining and disheartening because he's never excited or joyous about ANYTHING. I don't really see him clinging to me as a signal of a "bond" because he clings to anyone the same way, just as long as he isn't alone. It seems more driven by need than connection.

Whenever I spend time with friends' dogs, I'm reminded how different the experience can be. They get excited to explore, play, sniff everything, or just seem genuinely happy to exist (and some of these dogs are also former shelter dogs too!). I leave feeling happier. With Linus, I feel like I'm permanently in maintenance mode. Every interaction feels like managing his anxiety rather than sharing an experience together.

I had so much hope for Linus and was extremely optimistic that enough love and attention would make his true personality come out :/. But after 3 years, I feel at a loss and I wonder if this is actually who he is. Any advice or hope would be appreciated.

This is a screenshot my mom sent me of her conversation with a hobby breeder she’s been talking to. She found this lady on a local craigslist-esque website and she’s picking up an 8 week Shih Tzu x yorkie puppy from her tomorrow.

I’m generally very cautious about breeders and turned down most of the affordable breeders she had asked my opinion on in the last few weeks. I sent her links to a few different breeders in the area who I felt were doing their due diligence based on their websites, but she either thought they were too expensive or didn’t want to wait for them to have puppies available.

I don’t think I’m going to change her mind on this puppy at this point, but how much of a red flag is this? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a puppy making it to 8 WEEKS without any solid food.

EDIT: thank you all for confirming I’m not crazy for being weirded out by this. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful in changing her mind, but I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that she AT LEAST starts out on puppy formula and a very gradual transition to a good puppy kibble. “Breeder” did not provide vet records to confirm shots or age, but claims puppy got her first round of shots. When she takes her first vet trip soon, I’ll make sure she shares the situation with the vet and does whatever is advised there. Fortunately, My parents have the resources to handle it if any complications pop up, and I’m certain this dog won’t end up back in a shelter if any long-term conditions rear their head.

The weirdest thing is that my parents have only ever had shelter dogs (mostly border collie mixes) and they’ve had amazing luck! It might not sound like their judgement with dogs is sound anymore, but they used to do tons of research to find a dog with the energy and temperament they want from shelters.

On top of that, my mom has MORE THAN ONE friend who have had dogs purchased from breeders drop dead suddenly in the first 1-2 years. The connection to a widespread terrible culture in dog breeding just isn’t clicking.

I think the reason for the rush is my mom having some intense grandbaby fever because none of her children are delivering fast enough, I guess. That’s a whole other thing.

Anyway, sorry to assault your eyes today with the existence of people like this byb!