Couch 232: Not Sully!

Abandonment is a good topic to talk about with T.

I’m just home after a long day. At least loam dog is good company. And dog people—he doesn’t seem to know how to bark? I know he’s young, but do dogs have to learn to bark, or are there dogs that just aren’t into barking?

I've heard there are dog breeds that don't bark much. I've never personally met one of them though.

Don’t think it’s the breed. It’s like he wants to bark but just...doesn’t.

This made my night

I think beagles howl (bay?) rather than bark, based on a friend's experience and some research from when we were going to get a dog.

I got scammed out of $3500 a few months ago (just got it back, thankfully!). It was stupid of me in hindsight, but the person was so darned professional and gave me his name and case #, and it made so much sense at the time. Eff. I will always feel ashamed of that.

My dog (a mixed breed) barks maybe a half dozen times a year and only in the backyard when he is excited about a squirrel or something. One time I saw him moving his mouth funny through the window and went outside thinking he was going to throw up, only to realize that he was barking. Actually he probably throws up more often than he barks because he is not always very discriminating about what he eats. He is probably about nine years old (we've had him since 2013), and he's just always been minimally barky.

We used to live in a very rural area where we had 30+ acres of woods behind us. Our dogs slept inside, but were free to roam about during the day if they so chose. The roads weren't busy and there wasn't much danger to them and they usually stayed pretty close to home anyway. I wouldn't let them roam as free now, but that's how it was then.

One day we were outside and heard this horrible, loud, animalistic baying noise that at first I couldn't even determine was dog. It sounded like bloody murder. Then a bunch of smaller crashing followed by larger crashing all the while this bloody murder noise continued. I finally realized our dog had surprised some sort of small animal and was highly, highly excited by this turn of events. The noises finally tapered off and no trophies were presented so I assume my dog did not understand the concept of stealth when hunting. I was relieved and felt a little bad that poor animal had to endure that stress, but damn if my dog didn't enjoy the chase.

Your dog being excited by a squirrel made me think of this.

ETA: Roxy, such a good girl.

I will lead scammers on sometimes before singing the Sponge Bob theme song, but usually i just sing the the song and they usually hang up before i can sing it a third time

Thanks! Can't chew gum because I have dentures, but I've got my vape, patches, and hard candy. I'm really determined this time so that I can have my 2x a week with L.

Does he snuffle?

Could he have been debarked?

NP- Roxy has such a sweet face.

If you want him to bark... think long and hard about this!... you should bark at him when he is doing this behavior. I'm serious. I did this with my puppy, whom I got at 9 weeks. It tells them that it's okay to bark and somewhat teaches them the sound-- although of course he will make whatever sound he will make. Now he's 8 years old and will Not Shut Up!

But really that's not true, he just barks like crazy when there are people walking by the house (he has a perch to watch out the window) or when it's 8 PM and is time for his nightly treat. How does a dog tell time? I've no idea!

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Yes.

The vet said no when she looked him over at his first general checkup last week.

Okay, maybe I don't want him to bark too much...

Hi @@ We had a dog who was a runt of the litter once and she didn't know how to bark. We dog sat another dog and she taught him how to jump on the couch and he taught her how to bark! She still didn't bark a lot and it was sort of like she barked "backwards" but she did it. It was the strangest thing. Good luck! HUGS Kit

One of my dogs barks a lot and the other (same breed) does not. They never bark at people coming to the door, ringing the doorbell, walking in, stealing stuff, attacking me and so on. But they are hell towards skateboarders and scooterers (we have a lot in my city). I would not teach a dog to bark if they didn't do it. I don't like barking.

I don't know how anyone who is really sick navigates western medicine. I think it just tortures you so much that death is a happy release.

I often think that these days when people say they're afraid of death they really mean they're afraid of the dying process--being poked, prodded, on heavy drugs, hooked up to machines, and generally dehumanized.

The writing for wellbeing part of my work resumed today, online. A participant shared something intensely personal that touched a nerve with some of what I'm going through at the moment.

I'm still trying to decompress. I'm probably going to bring it up in session tomorrow, but do you have any thoughts, Couchies?

I just got an ad on here for toys. The intimate kind of toys. I'm not a prude, but that doesn't really seem appropriate for this site and I'd prefer not to get ads like that on here. Sometimes stuff like that can be a little triggering for me.

Oh wow, yeah, that doesn't seem appropriate for this site at all. I got an ad on here the other day for commemorative Trump coins that bothered me for other reasons (I don't think there should be any sort of political ads on here).

Dr. T suggested an episode of an NPR podcast to me today because he thought it related to something I recently dealt with. I've listened to half of it, and I feel like I'm losing brain cells with each moment (the hosts and a couple of the guests are just really annoying to me). And I can see vaguely why he thought it fit, but, considering a bit of the content, like how one of the situations turned out, I'm not sure it was the best that he suggested it? But, he was trying. And had apparently thought of me when he listened to it, so that's nice to know.

I was feeling paranoid because my case manager didn't text me back after I texted him yesterday. So I was convinced they were having a secret meeting to kick me out of IOP based on what the pdoc said about going to the hospital. So I texted him today and was like, R--what's up? I'm feeling paranoid. Are you trying to kick me out of IOP? He was like, "Oh no, you're good. I just had a lot of client crises yesterday." Whew. I still feel a little paranoid. But I am going to try to trust that he doesn't want to kick me out of IOP.