Cat

Me and my sister got Chinchillas as an early Christmas gift in December. Unfortunately my parents got us a brother and a sister chinchilla pair and one cage. They officially turned 4 months the first week in January. We got the male neutered one week after that. We put him in a fish tank for a month after a ton of complications from the neutering and to let the last of his sperm die. They are back together now. They are around 5 1/2- 6 months old now, obviously she can't get pregnant now.

My questions to other chinchilla owners are:

1) What is the earliest a chinchilla can get pregnant? (I looked online, but there are a lot of conflicting answers from 2 months to 8 months)

2) What are the signs that the chinchilla is pregnant?

I have two puppies, one is 7 months this month and the other is 3 months this month. They are well behaved and will jump around, chase each other and seem to get along alright most of the time. However when we give one dog a chew toy or any toy they insist on taking the toys from each other and playing tug with every toy they own. We literally buy two of every toy and they still think the other one has something better. Also the 3 month old will tease the 7 month old until she goes after the toy he has.

The 7 month old puppy sometimes gets aggressive after the 3 month old takes her toy or won't let her take his toy. We split them up and take away whatever they are fighting over and it does work temporarily. The 7 month old used to get aggressive when he tried to get her food and water however we got after her and she stopped almost as quickly as she started by scolding her when she started growling now they can and do literally drink out of the same bowl at the same time.

They are both toy poodles and the 7 month old is spayed. The 3 month old was bought a few days after we had to put our 14 year old toy poodle to sleep, and yes we were ready for another dog and he minds us perfectly its the 7 month old that he seems to have a problem with. We bought the 7 month old 5 months before the other dog was put down, We have only had the 3 month old for 3 weeks.

My questions are

1) Is it normal for dogs to constantly want what the other dog has?

2) Are we expecting too much too soon only having the puppy for 3 weeks?

3) Do you have any advice for helping our dogs get along all the time?

I understand cats and dog come from mills and it is terrible to buy them from a pet store, not to mention they are over priced and I never would. However animals like hamsters and fish are pretty difficult to find in shelters and newspaper adds in my area

However I have a local pet store that is really shady in the mall. They sell puppies, obviously from mills and sometimes kittens. However, I have bought two other pets from them, around 5 years ago my mom bought a hamster from them and after we brought this 'slightly over weight', according to the pet store, hamster home a few days later low and behold it had a litter of babies in it's little cage. The little pink things scared the crap out of my sister who was only 6 at the time and she dropped the mom and suckling baby on the ground. Needless to say they were not happy and when they called the pet store they claimed it wasn't pregnant when we bought it, however they would pay us $5 a piece for the babies.

One was only around 7 months ago, a Betta fish, that I didn't realize at the time was suffering from fin rot also they had several dead fish still on the shelf and some in plastic containers they couldn't move in. I had to buy medication for my fish to get it better, that was 6 months ago now.

We now have a Petco in my area and they seem like they take much better care of their animals.

After my experience with them I never plan on buying from them again.

However my questions are:

Where do pet stores get their animals from that are not cats and dogs, and is a reputable pet store like Petco a better place to buy animals from?

Is it illegal to knowingly sell animals that are pregnent and sick without informing the customer?

I posted a question and apparently people misunderstood what I was saying and thought we always left our older dog in a tiny crate. We do not. I was rushed and apparently did not add enough detail which led to the conclusion that I was abusing my 14 year old toy poodle. So this time I added every bit of detail I could think would be relevant.

She gets out to walk/run around the house, once we finally get her out of her crate, and when it is not too cold or nasty outside, the 12' by 12' dog run outside, we have hawks in our area that we were told by our vet would carry off a small dog if given an open opportunity and he told us to build a kennel for our dogs to keep them safe if we ever left the outside unattended even for a few minutes. We make sure she gets exercise everyday.

We have a 14 year old poodle and since the day we got her her crate has been the place she sleeps at night and usually spends time in it when she chooses to go in it during the day, the crate is open. She has always stood in the door way and watches us, we offer to let her join us, however she does not want to. We get her groomed once every three months and she goes to the vet once a year unless she falls ill than we take her in immediately. We spent $1500 to get her a hysterectomy because she had a puss filled uterus 10 years ago.

She never liked to come out of her crate to play even as a puppy. She is friendly when she is not in the crate. She sits on everyone one's laps constantly and always has. She plays with toys, but only if someone holds her on their lap while she does it.

The biggest problem we have is getting her come out of her crate the last few years she gets aggressive and throws a fit when you try to get her out. She is going blind in one eye although our vet told us that if we touch her on the side that is not blind she shouldn't be scared and aggressive. Yesterday she bit my grandma drew blood. I understand a lot of people think that you should let the dog come out on their own however she had to get out of her cage because she had an accident in it and it needed cleaned, and I know someone will say it yes we had given her a half our to come out on her own, but she didn't. She has never gotten in trouble for having accidents, because we realize that when dog's get older they sometimes have accidents.

We recently got a puppy, and no for those of you that will say the puppy is going to hurt her we don't allow the puppy to play with her unless she initiates it by playing with the pup first. The problem is that she has become harder to get out of her crate since we got the puppy. She went with us to choose out the new pup and seemed to like her until a few days later. Yes the 14 year old had been around other dogs before and been fine.

We asked our vet and he had us try letting her come out on her own, which she would do however only for a few seconds before running back into her cage and bribery, which got her out to get the treat than she would run into her crate to eat it and not come back out unless it was for another piece of food. Once we get her out if we close her crate she relaxes and stays out with us, however I don't want her to think that she can't go into her crate.

So my two questions are

How do we get the 14 year old out of it's crate without it biting us or being scared?

Is it normal for a dog to constantly want to be held and petted or hide in their cage?