Dutch Shepherd Forum

Hi Everyone!!!
My name is Alyssa and my fiance is Aaron. We are both recent graduates of the University of Idaho and moved to Texas! We got a puppy around thanksgiving and she is the light of our lives! She is so sweet! When we got her, she had been an abandoned dog in Spokane, WA and we just fell in love with her the first time we saw her. We were told she is a shepherd/hound mix, but we have our doubts about the hound but shepherd seems to fit her physical appearance and attitude. We decided to join this forum to hopefully get some feedback on whether or not everyone else thinks she could be DS. We ran into a couple with a pure bred DS in Dallas and they swore our girl had to be DS as well, but nothing is for certain! I am looking forward to learning about living and growing with a DS mix and what we have to look forward to!

Hi,
She does look cute!

Welcome fellow Texan!

Owned-By-Hendrix wrote:Welcome fellow Texan!

Hi there!!! Question for ya! So my DS mix Daenerys was a fall baby and she obviously hasn't really experienced heat yet, though since we moved here from Idaho a couple months ago she already pants when its only like 75 out side (much like me, haha I'm not a huge fan of the heat as I was Seattle born and raised). How does your DS do during the summer?? Does your DS have a hard time staying cool??

My guy had a hard time his first summer here - as we all do! - and had a few rounds of extreme hear exhaustion before we learned. Build up tolerance slowly - chilling outside, doing activities outside. I go out for as long as my dog can take it. If I start to see slowing down or excessive panting we go back inside and rest and rehydrate. That's honestly going to be the hardest thing to do, keeping them hydrated. A lot of time I have to force him back because he'll keep going and going, so it's equal parts watching him and best judgement. Usually we don't get a nice "warming up" period since the temperature spikes all over, so one day it will be beautiful and the next two weeks of 90+ degrees makes it harder to slowly adapt into the heat. If his tongue is out really far after 10 mins we head back inside ASAP. My rule of thumb is over 90 degrees no one goes outside - cement is too hot and it's 4-5x the stress on them - and 85 and above it's a judgement call. There will be times you have to break the rule because it's 92 degrees at 10 pm. Humidity is another part of the equation - it may be 85 but humidity makes it 95 degrees. So that's another best judgement call. So.... Basically a lot of indoor activities or early morning/late evening.

Wonderful! I feel like that should be pretty easy... being from the Northwest I tend to become a hermit when the temperature gets above about 90 anyways haha. Thanks for the info!