Dutch Shepherd Forum

Hola:we are blessed to have adopt a 5 year old little girl. She was brought in to the shelter with no hair on her back & ribs showing & front teeth bad. She barely weight 30 pounds. She wouldn't bark & she coward when you look at her. That was 10 months ago. Now she is beautiful 50 pound girl with a full shiny coat. She loves to give kisses & is even allowing us to give her hug, brush (what is left) her teeth & file her nails. She doesn't know how to play. She can walk off lease staying by our sides. She is just starting to bark & talk. We praise her constantly to try to bring up confidence. She is smart but can be stubborn. Any suggestion on training or play? I'm not sure what kind of "jobs" to give her. Please note this is our first DS. Our last dog was a Chinook-she had jobs-carry things to the recycling, find people. So with this girl having bad teeth it's different. Any suggestion will be helpful. Thank you, Lisa (aka Wendy's mom)

Welcome Lisa (and Wendy). Thanks for rescuing.

I am sure some of the members are going to help with ideas on training and jobs. You can get some ideas from searching this site.

welcome !!! wow, sounds like you are great humans !!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you for rescuing her.

For training, you can teach them anything. they can help you put things in the garbage, she can help with recycling too ! Hiking and long walks are always fun, if the will play with a ball that would be good too.

Thanks for some advise. She doesn't know how to play & really doesn't have front teeth - see below. So long walks & lots of hiking

Its hard to see in that picture, are there teeth? or are they in bad shape? Yes long walks and hiking is great! let her sniff and check things out.

Yep that is all she has for front teeth...I feel so awful when I look at them. We believe she was left to eat rock & grass. She does have her back teeth & we do keep up with brushing them.

poor thing. do what your doing and see how it goes. maybe get her a tug and show her how to play, they can hold it with their back teeth

Have you taken her to a vet to have her teeth removed that are broken? That has to be painful for her. You can get titanium replacements and get them capped. I'd look into those options so she can live a normal life. Very good that you took her in and gave her a good home.

I'll have to check in on tug. My vet said she has some broken teeth but she didn't want to anything yet until Wendy was more secure. I need to go back & ask about replacements. Thank you all again. Good news is she is starting to protect us & bark at people coming to the door. We are now working on some agility stuff like the weave poles & a frames.

agility will be so good for her!!!

Wendys-mom wrote:I'll have to check in on tug. My vet said she has some broken teeth but she didn't want to anything yet until Wendy was more secure. I need to go back & ask about replacements. Thank you all again. Good news is she is starting to protect us & bark at people coming to the door. We are now working on some agility stuff like the weave poles & a frames.

My neighbors little dog next door doesn't have enamel on his teeth. Some kind of genetic problem. Well they went to see the vet and they could seal some of the teeth and crown other teeth but it's not cheap. Another option I suggested is that they contact a veterinary school and offer the dog as a "guinea pig" for the veterinary students as a teaching situation to learn to work on dogs teeth with a professor of course over seeing things.

I would definitely start getting estimates or finding a way to get your dogs teeth fixed, that has to be painful to have exposed roots like that.