We have a 4mth old puppy (Foodle). We both work 1hr from home and cannot come home to attend to Burt during the day. He is has full run of our garage which is an internal access garage, fully insulted (we live in New Zealand) and has all his toys, bed, water etc to keep him occupied and safe. We have a young girl who comes by twice a day to take him outside for walks and to feed him his lunch (he's still getting fed 3x times a day). She does this 3 days a week and the other 2 days he goes to doggie day care (which is loves so much he never wants to leave!). We also have a webcam in our garage which provides live streaming, so we can see him. I can assure everyone that most of the time he either plays with his toys or sleeps. We believe we have done the very best for our wee pup to ensure that he is not cooped up all day and that he gets good socialisation with other dogs, and because of this he is the most well behaved, adorable, loving family member. We would love to spend all day with him if we could, but we think we have provided the best arrangement for him and us. I would recommend for those that worry about your dog being stuck home all day, to invest in someone to drop around at least once a day to walk and play with him/her. A small amount of $$ to give you peace of mind and for your doggo to have some outside play time, is worth it.

Okay, I'll say this and duck and cover: We have been looking at Cavalier King Charles Spaniels to adopt from rescue because DH has just about melted anytime he sees one, and behaviorally, they are the dog for us. We are now being considered to adopt one I found at Petfinder that lives locally. So I spent last night going to different sites to learn more about the breed. I knew some of their health problems - heart murmurs (38% seriously when young, 100% by age 10) that can develop into valve disease and require heart surgery, luxating patellas (20 - 30%), hip dysplasia (11%). Heck - I've got all that myself! What I didn't know is that their cute, round little skulls are too small for their brains and they can develop a horridly painful condition that requires brain surgery - and the surgery does not always work. About HALF of CKCS have this! - although not usually to the extreme end. Then there is the problem where the dog will suddenly have paralysis of its hind legs from running or playing too hard. It goes away fairly quickly and the dog resumes its activity (usually). Luckily, this does not seem to be a life-threatening problem very often. They think it is a metabolic muscle problem, but they are not sure. It is unique to Cavs. The list goes on, and the hilarious thing is that I share a good number of the same problems! Like thyroiditis, stenotic nares, cataracts (30% have one eye disorder or another), white blood cell problems (50%). I guess I should be glad that I never reproduced! Then there are the ones I don't have: mucous plugs in the middle ear that are very painful and require surgery; Cushing's disease (prevalent), Diabetes (susceptible); dry eye syndrome (many); epilepsy (prevalent); curly or rough coat syndrome where the dog suffers very painful skin disease and dry eyes that are so bad that many think that the poor dogs should be killed at birth rather than suffer horribly it's whole life (half of all puppies born in Iceland in one recent two-year period had it, prevalence elsewhere is unknown); epilepsy (prevalent), eyelashes that scratch the cornea(very common), inward rolling eyelids (relatively high incidence) fly-catcher's syndrome (prevalent), congenital and progressive deafness...the list goes on. All of these are hereditary diseases - inherited. I just gotta say it - so which one is the Designer Dog? The purebred CKCS or some body's backyard mix? CKCS were created in the 1920s by getting the undesirable longer-nose puppies from the litters of the English Toy Spaniel. The English Toy was the surviving breed that was pictured in a lot of old paintings as a beautiful lapdog. Back when the paintings were done, the breed was not a pug-nosed dog like the English Toy Spaniel is today, though. So some people who wanted to recreate the look of the the dogs in the paintings bought and bred the unwanted longer-nosed English Toys and created a whole new breed and named it the Cavalier (from the name of one of the paintings) King Charles (King Charles II bred and loved the dogs) Spaniel. So, since someone did this in the past, it is now a "breed". I imagine that the dogs were so inbred in order to establish the breed that the genetic disorders just got more and more concentrated. The English Toy Spaniels are known to have a few of these disorders, but not in the same numbers as the Cavaliers do. Interesting factoid: the English Toy was created by MIXING the little spaniels of the paintings with Chinese dogs to get the pug face. Designer Dog, anyone? If it happened a hundred years ago, it is okay, but we can't do it anymore today? Because....why? Think about it. The smushy-faced English Toys that bred true (and consequently had a good mix of genes with the Chinese dogs) have FEWER genetic defects than the CKCS, that was created by breeding only the THROWBACK longer-nosed English Toys that did not meet the English Toy Spaniel's new breed standard. Does that not best explain how dog breeding works? Create a specific breed with a few original parent dogs and end up with concentrations of genetic malformations that seem to come with almost every dog! Look at the breeding chart in the link below. Only the A+ dogs are free of the three main genetic diseases. Yet it is okay to breed them with all but the worst dogs! You can still breed a CKCS who had a dam and sire that may or may not have had a heart valve murmur, who has a little bit of the horrible brain problem, and a skull that is too small with a perfectly healthy dog. Why? Obviously because there are not enough perfectly healthy dogs to use to breed healthy CKCS! Why, o why didn't somebody mix a little Brittany or English Springer Spaniel in there 50 years ago! So, that is my thinking on purebred genetics. It is fine if you are breeding a relatively healthy breed like the Brittany, but when you end up with what the poor CKCS have to endure, is it really worth it?

deb18 What a sad but typical story. These people obviously couldn't care for one dog. Many people of this type decide to obtain several dogs to abuse and neglect. Perhaps if owners were required to take a class, pass a test, and pay for a license these people wouldn't have killed that dog or endangered your family with the vicious dog they created. Perhaps if the laws were more preventive rather than reactive these people wouldn't be allowed to own a dog or own a vicious dog. The laws as they were written weren't able to help the dog nor were they able to protect your family. The laws aren't very responsive after a tragedy either. Those dog owners would have a right to their dog even if it attacked your kids, you, or your pets. They have a right to that dog and a chance to harm the dog and the community again. They might get a stern lecture, a small fine, and then they get to break the law again. The community is not protected nor is the dog protected. You were lucky in one area - the dog didn't attack you or your kids. You chose not to directly confront the dog owners and the humane society didn't make the situation worse by revealing that you complained about how they don't care for their dog. In many communities animal control won't do anything to help the dog or the community but will go out and talk to the dog owners that are abusing/neglecting their dogs and reveal who complained. This does nothing for the dog as they are unwilling to help the dog. Often the unstable dog owners will start to harass their neighbors, shouting at their neighbor, vandalizing their neighbor's property, threatening their neighbor etc. Animal control believes that these dog owners are reasonable people who just don't know how to care for their pets and will shape up with some education or that these people are just innocent dog owners that are persecuted by their neighbors. Under current laws these people have a right to own a dog or dogs even if they aren't taking care of the dog or dogs. Your lucky you moved after the dog died and before they got more dogs. My neighbors trained their dogs to bark constantly. Their dogs became vicious of course and eventually attacked a child. They got rid of the dogs a few months after the attack and got about a half dozen smaller barking dogs. I had no break in between to sell my house - despite all the dog owners out there no one seems to want a house next door to half a dozen dogs that bark constantly. Maybe their should be zoning neighborhoods for dogs and neighborhoods for people. Ideally people would only own dogs if they properly care for the dogs. Those that couldn't care for the dogs would have their dogs immediately seized to be either adopted by a responsible owner or euthanized. Those dogs who aren't owned by professional breeders or dogs that are unsuitable for breeding should be spayed or neutered. There are way too many dogs and cats compared to people and its even worse when you narrow it down to responsible and knowledgable people who want to own and are willing and able to care for a dog or cat.

My previous cat had a similar problem. It is possible your cat may be sick so you should take her to the vet just to be safe. However, it could be an issue that your cat is eating her food too quickly and it's too much at once so they throw it up. My previous cat suffered from this for a long time. There are several ways to tackle this problem. First, you could give the cat only a little bit of food at a time. Give a little. Wait 10 minutes. Give a little more, repeat process until all the food given. This is a simple method, but I also realize some people are busy and don't have 30 minutes to feed / wait / feed wait. Second, (and this may sound a little weird and it ONLY for dry food, not wet) but put large SMOOTH stones in the food bowl. The purpose of doing this is that it takes the cat longer to pick out the food bits around the stones / crevices. It basically forces the cat to eat more slowly. Third, you could give your cat only wet food. This method worked very well for a friend of mine who also had a cat who threw up all the time because he ate too quickly. In general cats take longer to eat wet food. Anyhow, I understand the frustrations of cats throwing up all the time. It gets a little annoying cleaning it up constantly. Good luck!