Owlet
Well-known member
I know from the sounds of the title it's bad, but I do not mean the dog to be interacting with the parrots directly. Hear me out. Sorry for the long post in advanced. It's mostly rambling.
TLDR: I might be getting a puppy next year and I want advice on making it go well.
My situation has become complicated and I need to retire my service dog. She's healthy and young but she has lost her drive to work, and that's okay. I'm not gonna force her to do something she doesn't want to do. She will live out the rest of her life with me as a pet. Now, with this dog, Seph, I got lucky. When we got her I was in a very bad place and me and my parents had no idea what we were doing and just got a random puppy with intentions to train her up. Now, if you don't know, with service dogs you USUALLY a very particular with the pups and go to breeding pairs that have good temperament and then temperament test the puppies and etcetc. You don't just pick up a random puppy. So we got lucky that Seph is as wonderful as she is. She was neutral to the birds from day one. I only had Lincoln at the time I got her but even as a tiny pup she just did not care about this bird that was as big as she was. When I first got her, i had a wire crate shoved against my bed for her to sleep in. Lincoln climbed up that onto my bed and came to say hi, and she just slept through it. (Picture here). After I got Apollo, she was obsessed with Seph. Seph would lay under my desk while I was at my computer and Apollo would sneak down from her cage and climb on top of Seph. Seph didn't care at all, just relaxed. Obviously I didn't encourage this though and would move Apollo back to her cage and etc. Anyways, in short, I got lucky that I didn't have to do much of any management to deter prey drive in Seph.
Now, since Seph is being retired, I need to work towards getting a "replacement" for her. I'm doing it right this time around and I've already been in contact with a breeder that I feel confident in. We are aiming for sometime next year, but for a variety of reasons it's not guaranteed that I will be getting a puppy next year. I'm hopeful, but there's a lot that goes into it. This breeder seems like she would be very willing to work with me in finding the perfect puppy to train up for service work. She is very experienced and has shared a lot of her process with me and has produced prospect quality pups before. She just finished raising up a litter that had a few prospect quality pups in it and I COULD have gotten one but I simply didn't have the finances or ability to take them at the time, another reason why I'm waiting till hopefully next year. The breeder is debating if she's gonna use the same mom/dad pair that produced this litter or use same mom/different dad, or if she's even gonna breed at all next year. Apparently a lot of quality breeders are considering holding off on breeding for a bit because during covid a lot of backyard breeders were just PUMPING out puppies and the economy is kind of in shambles.
IF there is a litter next year, I plan to ask her if I could bring one of the birds in a carrier over to see how the puppies react and hopefully go for a pup with low reaction to the bird(s). I am sure she would let me, but I want to ensure the safety of the bird first. The bird will never leave the carrier, and the carriers I have are rather puppy proof so I'm not worried about the puppies getting to them. However I would still likely request only 1-2 pups at a time instead of just putting the carrier in with all the pups. And I would be holding the carrier the entire time. Do yall think this would be okay? I would probably take Aster as she wouldn't be scared and still being relatively active. Lincoln would just sit there unphased, I think Apollo would be to freaked out.
I have a lot more experience with training now than I did when I got Seph. So even if the dog does have some prey drive, I am confident I could train self control into the pup and have it be non-reactive. But I just want to ask yall if you have experience with managing these kinds of situations just encase I'm missing something. I don't intend for the pup to have free access to the birds, they will still be separate, but I want the pup to be able to go into the bird room with me and have no issues.
(Note: if you saw my post about maybe getting rabbits, that will not longer be happening. Service dog > rabbits)
TLDR: I might be getting a puppy next year and I want advice on making it go well.
My situation has become complicated and I need to retire my service dog. She's healthy and young but she has lost her drive to work, and that's okay. I'm not gonna force her to do something she doesn't want to do. She will live out the rest of her life with me as a pet. Now, with this dog, Seph, I got lucky. When we got her I was in a very bad place and me and my parents had no idea what we were doing and just got a random puppy with intentions to train her up. Now, if you don't know, with service dogs you USUALLY a very particular with the pups and go to breeding pairs that have good temperament and then temperament test the puppies and etcetc. You don't just pick up a random puppy. So we got lucky that Seph is as wonderful as she is. She was neutral to the birds from day one. I only had Lincoln at the time I got her but even as a tiny pup she just did not care about this bird that was as big as she was. When I first got her, i had a wire crate shoved against my bed for her to sleep in. Lincoln climbed up that onto my bed and came to say hi, and she just slept through it. (Picture here). After I got Apollo, she was obsessed with Seph. Seph would lay under my desk while I was at my computer and Apollo would sneak down from her cage and climb on top of Seph. Seph didn't care at all, just relaxed. Obviously I didn't encourage this though and would move Apollo back to her cage and etc. Anyways, in short, I got lucky that I didn't have to do much of any management to deter prey drive in Seph.
Now, since Seph is being retired, I need to work towards getting a "replacement" for her. I'm doing it right this time around and I've already been in contact with a breeder that I feel confident in. We are aiming for sometime next year, but for a variety of reasons it's not guaranteed that I will be getting a puppy next year. I'm hopeful, but there's a lot that goes into it. This breeder seems like she would be very willing to work with me in finding the perfect puppy to train up for service work. She is very experienced and has shared a lot of her process with me and has produced prospect quality pups before. She just finished raising up a litter that had a few prospect quality pups in it and I COULD have gotten one but I simply didn't have the finances or ability to take them at the time, another reason why I'm waiting till hopefully next year. The breeder is debating if she's gonna use the same mom/dad pair that produced this litter or use same mom/different dad, or if she's even gonna breed at all next year. Apparently a lot of quality breeders are considering holding off on breeding for a bit because during covid a lot of backyard breeders were just PUMPING out puppies and the economy is kind of in shambles.
IF there is a litter next year, I plan to ask her if I could bring one of the birds in a carrier over to see how the puppies react and hopefully go for a pup with low reaction to the bird(s). I am sure she would let me, but I want to ensure the safety of the bird first. The bird will never leave the carrier, and the carriers I have are rather puppy proof so I'm not worried about the puppies getting to them. However I would still likely request only 1-2 pups at a time instead of just putting the carrier in with all the pups. And I would be holding the carrier the entire time. Do yall think this would be okay? I would probably take Aster as she wouldn't be scared and still being relatively active. Lincoln would just sit there unphased, I think Apollo would be to freaked out.
I have a lot more experience with training now than I did when I got Seph. So even if the dog does have some prey drive, I am confident I could train self control into the pup and have it be non-reactive. But I just want to ask yall if you have experience with managing these kinds of situations just encase I'm missing something. I don't intend for the pup to have free access to the birds, they will still be separate, but I want the pup to be able to go into the bird room with me and have no issues.
(Note: if you saw my post about maybe getting rabbits, that will not longer be happening. Service dog > rabbits)