u/ChemicalWeekend307

My (25F) mother in law keeps RSVPing to events, specifically weddings and wedding showers, on behalf of my husband (30M) and I. It’s beginning to drive us crazy. We have had conversations with her that my husband became heated about regarding not RSVPing for these events for us.

I am pregnant and she RSVPd to a wedding we never even received an invite to for the beginning of September. By then I will be 28 weeks pregnant and the dress code to this wedding is supposedly cocktail attire. It’s hard enough for me to find clothes I fit into comfortably right now between the intense nausea that still hits me and my apparent chicken aversion… but cocktail attire??? That’s impossible and would also require my husband to buy a new suit which we can’t necessarily afford when we are also putting our spare money into savings for our baby. The wedding is almost 2 hours away and at 5:30 in the evening until 11:30 at night. My husband and I have three working dogs and a farm we have to take care of. We have told her time and time again not to do this anymore because we cannot just drop everything to go to events that far away. This was after she RSVPd for us to attend a wedding that was 5 hours away at the end of May and we straight up told her we were not going to attend. Which we didn’t.

I don’t even know what to do anymore. My husband gets so angry every time she does this and she lives next door to us. We have repeatedly told her we do not like nor appreciate it when she just says we are attending events. And again, we never received an invitation to this wedding and its people neither of us have ever met. So I don’t want to cause conflict in that way. But she literally sent us the link to RSVP less than 30 minutes ago and said to remember to RSVP. And then ten minutes ago said that she just RSVPd for everyone in our family. What am I supposed to do? What are we supposed to do??

Edit: I didn’t expect to receive so many responses to be able to respond to everyone. Thank you all so much! To clarify some things, my MIL does not have dementia as far as I’m aware. She just loves to overstep. My husband did set a firm boundary with her and she said she “forgot” that we had the conversation back in April about this same thing for the wedding that happened in May. MIL hasn’t read our mail or anything like that, she received her invite and the invite had a QR code on it. Our names were on a list of people invited when you scan the code and you’re supposed to just click your name or your party’s name and RSVP that way. There’s a little search bar at the top as well where you can just search someone’s name and RSVP for yourself (or in this case another person) that way. My husband said we will be going to this wedding as of right now because supposedly the groom was like his cousin growing up and he just hasn’t seen him in years or talked to him because of adult life. So now a whole other conversation we are having is just what the hell I’m going to wear because he insists I could wear a sundress and the RSVP link clearly says formal cocktail attire which I could very well not fit into when I put it on come the day of the wedding. SMH.

I’ve noticed that any time I eat chicken I vomit. I randomly gag sometimes and will also vomit from that. I’m constipated and the only thing that has helped me actually be able to *go* is drinking apple juice. But I’m just wondering when the vomiting and gagging will end? I thought it was supposed to end near the beginning of second trimester but it more or less kicked back up at the beginning of this trimester since this has only really been going on for a week.

I have done extensive research on breeding and raising meat rabbits but could not have predicted this. Three days ago, my doe gave birth to 8 kits, one was pink/stillborn but all others seemed very healthy. A day later, smoke from the Canadian wildfires rolled in and she started behaving weird and very stressed. We found she had taken two kits out of her nest and separated them from the rest, she put them in two separate corners of her hutch. We avoided interference because we knew that could stress her more and cause her to reject the others. She was thumping but eating and drinking normally.

Yesterday those two kits she had separated had passed. So we removed them and did a head count of the others (not touching them). Today, we did our morning check and the remaining 5 kits were all scattered about - three were dead (like she didn’t feed them) and two were alive but separated and moved out of the nest. One of them is squeaking and moving around, but the other is only slightly moving and not making any noise. We aren’t sure what happened, we think the wildfire smoke has messed with the kits and our doe’s “mothering”? Is she maybe just not a good doe for breeding? TYIA

I have an 18 mo female giant schnauzer who is working line. She absolutely loves people, anyone and everyone she sees she wants to greet. She starts whining, wriggling, and sometimes barks when she wants to get someone’s attention. I don’t let everyone pet her and haven’t allowed it since she was a little puppy because I want her to be neutral with people in public. Instead, most of her obedience goes out the window and she won’t refocus on me even when I try to redirect. The only place I can redirect her is at the vets office with a chuck it ball around all the people and their dogs in the waiting room. Anywhere else it’s like I don’t exist and whoever is nearby is more important.

For example, my husband and I took her to Petsmart with us a few days ago on a day it was more busy than normal but not super busy. We walked to the back near the cricket and fish tank section and there were people that started crowding into the area while we waited for crickets. I asked her to center heel so she was out of the way which she did but proceeded to focus on a lady standing a few feet away from us who was waiting to buy a couple of hermit crabs. She started whining which turned into her barking a couple of times and then the lady asking to pet her. Her kid came and ran up to my dog before I could respond and just started petting her which led my dog out of center heel. I made her sit because she got so overly excited and was jumping up onto the kid. But after that there was no regaining control. She tried to jump onto the check out counter to see the guy working behind it, refused to heel, didn’t want to lay down, whined at the guy behind us in line, and then started barking at me while I was paying for the crickets.

We work with trainers weekly with private sessions. They say the best thing is to keep taking her into public spaces which we do. But we seem to have hit a wall where she just struggles to refocus on me because of people’s actions beyond my control or because she sees people close by. And in some stores like Bass Pro she won’t focus on her favorite thing in the world - her ball - she just looks around it every way she possibly can to see a person she is interested in greeting.

Does anyone have an overly friendly giant? Any tips or tricks or ideas on how to work through this so she is more neutral with people? TYIA

Just down the road from where I live there are two large orange signs that get posted out front of a house saying “AKC Giant Schnauzer Puppies” with a phone number attached at the bottom. Last year, I was curious and called them to ask about their dogs. This is the 4th or 5th breeding they’ve done with these two dogs. Neither are OFA/CHIC tested (I asked and they didn’t know what I was talking about). I asked if the dogs were otherwise health tested and they said no but they take the dogs to the vets and they’ve never had any issues health wise. I asked if the dogs were show line or working line and they responded by saying they guess that a few of the males from that litter could work if we really wanted them to. I asked if they had any titles on their dogs and they laughed at me and said no, they are just pets but they like breeding them.

My husband and I drove past their house again and saw the signs posted today. I’ve seen what their dogs look like and something isn’t quite right and their answers to my questions never sat well with me because there are actual ethical breeders who care about their dogs who are doing this. I got frustrated when asking the questions last year and just stopped after they told me how much they charge ($2,800 per pup) and they continue to claim the dogs could be shown despite large white markings on the puppies faces, paws, and chest (despite being black - not salt and pepper) which would be considered faults by the AKC and GSCA making them unshowable.

My husband and I are beyond frustrated with this because this is our breed, we absolutely love them, and are dedicated to its preservation. We have breeding mentors, are working towards titling our dogs, know their lineage 5+ generations back, are OFA/CHIC testing, spending thousands on training and vet checks and countless hours taking care of our dogs before even breeding them - and we won’t if they don’t have good OFA/CHIC tests and aren’t titled… it’s just frustrating when we see people constantly exploiting these animals and constantly breeding them but knowing nothing about their own dogs at the same time, and quite frankly it’s kinda discouraging because every one of their puppies sell but that just puts more unethically bred dogs into the system. I’ve seen two of their pups end up in the local animal shelter this past year and a half which I immediately recognized because of the white markings and head shape which were the same as a pup in a photo I saw of the puppies from a litter last year. I just don’t know what to do or think anymore. Do I call them and educate them about what they’re doing is wrong? Do I just leave it alone and hope they stop breeding after this litter? Do I ignore it? Or just tell people not to buy from them if they’re in the market for a puppy??

Hi everyone,

I have two working line giant schnauzers. One of which is 11 months old and has always had amazing prey drive for bitework. However, his obedience work is very difficult. He knows sit, down, recall, out/drop it, and place but doesn’t want to hold any of those for more than a few seconds. He doesn’t want treats no matter what we offer (turkey, dried liver, you name it), we have tried toys too and instead he just gets distracted and will go find something to pee on. He isn’t neutered which could explain why he gets distracted so easily and why he marks everywhere but it doesn’t explain why we can’t keep him engaged. He loves to play in our house, on our property, and in our backyard but when we take him anywhere else it’s like crickets. We have tried lots of movement to keep him interested in what we have similar to how the decoy’s movement in bitework works. We have tried different toys and treats as mentioned above with the only thing coming close to being interesting enough for him is a toy baboon octopus thing that squeaks. But after 5 minutes he is just done and wants to do his own thing. When playing fetch (to build engagement or test a toy so he thinks it’s a game) he will wander off and drop the toy to do his own thing after one or two throws.

We work with trainers with each dog (we have 3) every week who are amazing, never had any issues with my other giant who is 15 months old training for the same sport. She is motivated and constantly engaged with me and at his age she knew sit, down, place, recall, recall to heel, out/drop it, focus heel (with a toy/reward and we are still refining it so she isn’t “crabbing”), center heel, watch, and bite (decoy). But my husband cannot seem to get his giant engaged enough to go beyond sit, down, recall, and place. I’ve tried and he does ok with me, whenever we use a toy in obedience he is so excited that his teeth literally chatter. But after a few throws of the toy and some tug as a reward he is just done, especially in new spaces. The trainers say it could be a maturity thing but if my husband can’t keep him engaged with him then everything at trials will be based purely on luck as to if he feels like working with his handler (my husband) or not that given day.

We have spoken with his breeder who is also a dog trainer. He has said to focus on bitework for now and work on obedience later.

An unrelated issue to the title but he also pees constantly in his crate with no warning. He will just lay in it until it bothers him and then will start scratching at the crate door. We take him out every 1.5-2 hours to try and avoid this but if he hears us walking across the landing at the top of the stairs, he will pee and then start barking. If we walk in front of his crate when prepping dog food, he will pee. If we let another dog outside, he pees even if he was just out. Every time he goes outside he pees 5-6 times in various places and then will come inside and still pee in his crate. It’s not like he is in his crate all day, it’s just when the other dogs are eating or we are rotating the dogs outside because he doesn’t know how to play with them without harassing them resulting in being corrected by our oldest dog. My husband and I work from home, so it’s not like he is ignored all day or doesn’t get to go out frequently to be worked or played with. He just isn’t interested in anything except for peeing on everything outside of the house or outside of his crate. He won’t pee in the house or on the furniture. It’s exclusive to his crate and outside.

We know giants are hard to potty train and that there is a relapse in house breaking around this age (went through it with my female too), but that combined with the constant peeing on everything else and the lack of interest in any toy or treat we try has been frustrating. He isn’t where he needs to be obedience training wise at this point and we don’t know what to do. Any advice is greatly appreciated. TYIA!

TLDR: 11mo male (intact) working-line giant schnauzer falling behind in obedience work because we cannot find anything that will keep him engaged beyond bitework. His priority is peeing on everything outside and in his crate even when we take him outside every 1.5-2 hours. My husband is at his wits end with trying to figure out what *will* work. We have spent thousands on working with trainers every week, board & trains, toys, and various foods/treats to try and find what works to no avail. Any advice on how to get him more engaged with us for obedience training so he can get to where he needs to be training wise before trials is greatly appreciated!