CK

My German Shepherds are 3 and 4 now. My female isn't the problem, she whines sometimes, makes little yip sounds, but when my male starts to bark he does NOT stop, and it makes her bark too. I've had trainers say "Let them bark it out." Tried that, he will bark for over 8 hours if I let him. Some trainers have said teach him to bark. He barks on command, but won't listen to saying no bark (it's like he can't hear me over himself). Some have said separate them. Tried that too, doesn't work. I have bark collars and that works a little bit. They live in the garage during the day (or the yard weather permitting) and they'll bark at me through the garage after hearing the car pull up without their collars. The collars USED to stop their barking, sorta. Female would bark once, get shocked, then be hesitant about barking again, but still continue if he does. Male will just bark, shock himself, scream about it, and then continue to bark. MOST of the time this happens it is when I am coming home, though they could be doing this when I'm gone and I wouldn't know. I have NO idea what there is left to do. They have a plethora of toys and other things to do, they get lots of exercise (two mile walk or a one mile jog a day). They just do NOT stop barking, at least until I come in the house once I return. I'm sure my neighbors HATE me for it, and I can't afford to keep going to trainers who are yielding no results.

What do I do?

So, my hobby has grown substantially and so I thought I'd try to breed. Got a gorgeous male copper morph rosie for my two rosie girls. He refused to mate with one (she's massive and I think scared him) at first, took right to the second girl, and then was very happy to, within a day or two I believe, mate with the larger female.

I don't think a sperm web was made between both matings, however, since mating with each the first time, neither female is respective anymore. The larger, more gentle one sort of throws him away and spooks him off, threatens him. The smaller, much more aggressive one will try to attack him. The last attempt I made at putting them together almost resulted in his demise, so I haven't made another attempt in weeks and have decided to just enjoy his beautiful splendor until he kicks the bucket. Even though I wasn't able to get anyone to mate a second time, several good insertions were made by both palps for both girls.

His behavior after mating changed too. He's not running around anymore, he's not trying to escape his enclosure constantly anymore. I realize he's apt to die soon, but he began to behave this way the day after mating with my second rosie, so it was surprising.

I guess I was wondering, since they are both suddenly aggressively unreceptive where as before they pretty much walked up to him and got in position, would they likely be pregnant?

I don't have too much experience with tarantulas. The only one I've really had is a 7 year old G. Rosea and because of the abuse she was put through before I received her (or at least that's what I think it is), she's only molted once, and it was a good clean molt. I did have a A. Geniculata sling for a few months but it died during a molt, suffocated because it could not free it's book lungs and I was not present at the time to help free her.

I now bought my N. Chromatus and she was a few molts in. This is the first molt I've seen her go through. She molted on her belly NOT on her back, which I know is WRONG, about three days ago. I've left her alone until today. I tried to gently remove the molt from her side to see if I could sex her from the caste and apparently a leg is stuck, and it's been stuck that way the entire time. This is the second main leg on the left side.

I know they are SO fragile at this stage, but I carefully removed all of the molt except for the caste still left around the affected leg and, upon examining her, also noticed that the leg in front of that one was bent all the way back and curled around the wrong way. It's still soft but she does not wriggle it at all like she does the rest unaffected legs.

I did NOT attempt to bend it back OR pull the rest of the caste off the other leg.

Unfortunately, despite being as gentle as I could it woke her up. She jumped up to her belly and struggled a little. I gently put her back on her back and she jumped back up and I'm just leaving her alone again. She's wriggling about once more, stretching her new body out while it hardens.

I'm worried though, not so much that I've damaged her from waking her up a little early, but that the two legs that seem damaged are in the front on the same side. I know legs can regrow with another molt or two, but the problem is will she be able to hunt and eat and support herself long enough to reach that point? I'm pretty sure those two legs won't be usable as they are.