SHe does the bunny hopping quite a bit when he jonts around the back yard...and also misses the bottom steps of the staris...anthe r thing...he stands there looks at you and starts to move and trips over himself...i think thats a combo between "I am soooo awkward at 10 months cuz I am big and clumsy and the possiblity of growing pains"
Beau used to do the bunny hop thing when running and playing.
Now he does it every once and a while.
Mastiff's are not always comfortable around stairs. I was told the fewer stairs the better. Beau can go up but not down. Took my husband and I half an hour to get him down the stairs from the office - one paw at a time. He hasn't gone back up since. If he encounters 2 or 3 stairs somewhere else, he always jumps them. I think it's because their stride is too long for the width of the stairs. If the stairs were a couple of feet wide, there would be no problem!!
Beau still trips occasionally when walking or jogging, and used to do it all the time as a pup. To the point I took him to the vet to have him looked at. After strutting around the parking lot for 10 minutes, she came to the conclusion that he was just a teenager and not grown into his body yet.
I just dont want to take hime to the vet...he hates it and my heart hurts when i have to DRAG him through the front door....yes yes yes it's that bad.
The girls at the front desk at my vets gave me the best advice EVER before I even got Beau.
The told me if you have a big dog that's afraid to come in, there isn't anything you can do to get him comfortable at the vets. They told me to bring my pup in about once a week and just sit in the waiting room (after he had all his shots and was 'safe'), weigh him on the scale, let the staff fawn over him and feed him cookies etc. It was the best advice I ever got. I now tell anyone with a pup, as I think it would work for all breeds. When Beau sees the vets office he gets very excited. He goes into the door and drags me over to the scale and sits on it. He gets cookies and everyone tells him what a good boy he is. It showed him that good things happened at the vets office and people liked him! There was no issue with taking him in for his neutering or a couple of other procedures he had done. You could still work on that.
Following the vet visit I took him to our local strip mall and walked up and down. He met all sorts of people, heard cars, saw kids, lots of loud noise etc. There isn't much that phases him now.
I recently took Luke in to get checked as he got very congested and I was worried about pneumonia (?). They wanted to xray him. I told them I would have to be there with him as I didn't want him put under and could we just try first.
He's only 160, and it took 3 of us to get him on the table. I took a minute to settle him down, and he stayed VERY still for me. I held his head and talked to him the whole time and he was the
best boy. I was very proud of him. They said they couldn't believe that he was no trouble and that if all the dogs were like that they'd be in heaven. He was no worse for wear and got many treats and hugs after.
Sorry for the novel!!!
Chris