:iagree: If Dog A lives in the middle of 100+ acres with a single person or couple, never has delivery men or family friends coming by, can run around loose and doesn't live with any other pets then his socialization requirements may be vastly different from Dog B who lives with a family with young kids and other pets in a suburban neighborhood or urban environment that requires him to be leash walked. And of course both dogs will occasionally need vet care. So unless the owners are going to have a mobile vet come to the home, both dogs need to know how to handle coming into close contact with other dogs w/o reacting in an undesirable manner. Does that mean they have to love other dogs? No. But it does mean they have to tolerate them calmly.

We're liberal non-church-going Christians. I've tried to weave religion into our study of history as much as possible and to point out the nuances of religion as it relates to current events. As others have said, it seems to me that it would be impossible for someone to be able to fully grasp what's going on in the world today without a good grounding in at least the basics of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. We've also studied a bit about Hinduism and Buddhism. When youngest DS is in high school I'd love to work in a comparative religion course. At this point what I want both of them to grasp is that often criticism of a particular religion is due to ignorance about what that religion truly teaches and that they should NOT assume anything they hear about another religion is true until they research it themselves. Any religious book/teaching is the sum of its parts, not just one part that's perhaps taken out of context.

DS typically stays in the car when I have to run an errand before/after one of his doctor or dentist appointments, before/after ball practice, after we've been out to eat, etc. Almost always in those instances it makes much more sense to do my errand(s) when we're already out than it does to take him home and then go back out.

My 13-yo stays in the car sometimes and has for several years. Our city has a population of about 100,000. Of course we lock the doors and don't let him stay in the car if the weather's too hot (cold isn't a big issue here). It's usually for no longer than 15-20 minutes. But he's big for his age and built like a linebacker, so I doubt many people would be quick to mess with him.

I think one point ktgrok is trying to make (and I agree with) is that there's nothing inherently unique about GSDs or the behavior that this one is exhibiting. I wouldn't put a tremendous amount of weight into the fact that the breeder/trainer has GSD-specific experience. If there's a good trainer closer to you so that you'd be able to work with him/her more, then I'd certainly give that a lot of consideration.

Ditto everybody who mentioned NILIF. It seems very simple, but the results can really be amazing if it's implemented consistently.

I'm generally not a fan at all of sending a dog away for training. Training is IMO about 75 percent human and 25 percent dog. So when you send it away the dog gets its 25 percent but the human(s) gets none. But in your case it sounds as if that's your only real option. The best case scenario is if your trainer/breeder will be willing to spend some time "training" you, too. And please understand I'm NOT saying that as a slam on you. Not at all. I'd say the same thing to anyone. For the dog to learn to obey you you're going to need to work with him and earn his respect, and you're going to need to know how to go about that. That's the 75 percent you miss when you send the dog away for training.

:iagree: I'd say more specifically that no dog should be taken lightly. But in particular people (in general, not only directed at the OP) need to fully understand what they're getting into with a large dog who's been bred to have protective instincts. Unfortunately way too many people naively think they'll get the "good" of the protectiveness w/o training and w/o any of the "bad" that can so easily go along with it, and that the dog will somehow magically be able to differentiate who is okay and who is not. And unfortunately it usually doesn't happen that way. IMO there is a lot of responsibility that comes with owning any dog; with a large dog bred for protection there is a tremendous level of responsibility that's required. Good for the OP for realizing something needs to be done.

I had a Duet front loader and never had any trouble with a smell at all. I'm guessing it's because I do laundry almost every day and always leave the door open. Any water left in it never had a chance to sit long. All I ever did was run it through a "clean machine" cycle with bleach every few weeks. But it died of unrelated causes. As far as the dryer (my Duet dryer is still going strong), if it's like mine there's a time dry setting. All you have to do is set the dial to that and use the up/down buttons to set the time.

I think this is the closest NC comes to a "home alone" law: I started leaving both of mine home alone for short periods of time when they were around 10. When youngest was 10 oldest was 13, and at that point I felt they were both plenty mature enough to handle being alone together. And we've always had at least one trustworthy neighbor who was home most of the time. Now youngest is 13 and I feel comfortable leaving him alone for several hours at a time.

It's been a few years, but I'm pretty sure we did the aquarium in half a day or less w/o rushing. The World of Coke was at most a couple of hours for us. Make sure you go to the room where you can sample drinks from around the world. And ditto the CNN tour. It's well worth the time. I'd highly recommend one of the carriage tours in Savannah.

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I'm also one who would MUCH rather give directly to a cause than to buy some over-priced item(s) I don't need for which the school/cause/group will only get a very tiny percentage of the purchase price. My son's cross country coach this year is asking for donations rather than doing a fundraiser. In support of that, he gave the parents facts and figures about how little the team makes from selling stuff once all the dust is settled. It was a ridiculously small percentage of the purchase price of items sold.

I heard on some news report (I think it was CBS news last night, but I can't say for sure) that the video had been on YouTube for a couple of months mostly unnoticed. Until some extremist talk show host on Al Jazeera (sp?) mentioned it a few days ago. It does seem to me that the attack in Libya must have been well planned. I doubt your average protestor even in a country like Libya carries around rocket propelled grenades. It may be sheer luck that the protests occurred at the same time and provided such good cover.

It's becoming more and more common around here. Just a few weeks ago one of my mother's neighbors died. Her husband asked for money in lieu of flowers because there were so many outstanding medical bills. It's also common when someone dies for the family to request donations to a scholarship fund if there are surviving school aged kids.

Given the ages of your children, I think they'd be fine.

Start working more on obedience training. Implement the Nothing in Life is Free Program (Google it). Make sure everyone in the family does it. Let the kids feed the dog her food (you prepare it, let the kids take turns placing the bowl in her eating spot). It won't stop the dogs from humping each other, but it will help to gently reinforce the idea that the humans in the house are in charge. But FWIW dogs humping each other isn't always a sinister move to take over the world, nor does it mean that your kids are next. It can be a rather benign play activity between two dogs who get along very well. Something along the lines of kids playing king (or queen) of the hill. I almost always have multiple dogs around here, and most of them do it to some extent. Never to humans, though. As long as they don't do it in front of company I don't care (and that only because too many people don't understand that the activity isn't sexual). The key is that when I say "Stop" they know to stop. And they do.

Street name + School. (In NC you have to list a school name when you file your Notice of Intent.)

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:iagree:

I only do it when I know a pet has a sensitive digestion (like my IBD cat). Otherwise I do a cold turkey switch. Almost all of my pets are used to eating a wide variety of pet and healthy human foods and have cast iron stomachs.

Are you free feeding? Sometimes overeating can cause loose stools. And have both kittens had loose stools while eating the same food? It doesn't seem likely to me that two kittens would react badly to the same food. If they were mine and I was going to switch foods again, I'd look for something that's limited ingredient. Innova is a great food, but it has lots of things in it. Fewer ingredients means less chance they'll react to something. California Natural is a limited ingredient brand of food made by the same company as Innova, but it can be harder to find. You might also look for something that's meant for cats with sensitive skin/digestion. Contrary to the experience of a previous poster, one of my cats has IBD and does fabulously on Purina One sensitive systems dry cat food.

Have they been checked for worms?

It sounds like a seizure, but I also wonder if it could've been some sort of stroke. Honestly, at her age I doubt a vet would do a lot of testing unless you pushed for it. IME vets don't medicate for seizures until the pet has several of them within a specific time period. But FWIW (and I realize you didn't ask), for a 15 yo dog I would be much more concerned about quality of life than quantity. So if she were mine and acting okay today, I doubt I'd go running off to the vet. Of course everyone handles these things differently, but 15 is a great long life for a dog.

I've prepared home-cooked food for my dogs, but not for the cats. I know several very knowledgeable raw feeders, and I occasionally give my dogs a raw bone for recreational chewing. But I wouldn't give an older pet with a health issue or any immune-compromised pet a raw diet. JMHO.