Category: Top Dog

Hello! We adopted a 1 1/2 yr old German Sherpard/Husky mix in August to be buddies with our 3 yr old Cattle Dog. She spent 6 mo at the shelter and was on a farm before hand, and she was not potty trained. She is pretty smart and caught on to basic training easily. The one thing we cant seem to shake is peeing/pooping in the house. We take them both out frequently for at least 15 minutes. They will run around and play, do their business, then come back inside. We praise and give treats outside. We go on walks. She is fed the recommended amount of food. If she goes inside, we use an enzyme cleaner to clean it up. She will poop and pee outside. We take her inside and within 10-15 minutes sometimes she will poop/pee again. We dont scold her for it as she is usually sneaky when she does it. Do we continue what we are currently doing or is there something else we can do? If she doesnt poop? We will kennel her then take her out in 30 mins or so. I do think the scent could still be there, so we are planning to replace the carpets this winter (saving up still) with hard flooring. I appreciate the time and any advice given!

Hey everyone, I have a 6lb Yorkie who is becoming increasingly more anxious the older she gets. She’s a very playful and energetic dog and hasn’t gotten to the point where her anxiety has taken over everything but we’d like to get ahead of it while we can.

She’s stops and shakes at the common big ones like storms and fireworks, however the worst noise of them all is when the refrigerator makes a popping sound. We believe she’s slowly developing separation anxiety when we leave the house.

Does anyone have recommendations for anxiety meds or calming chews that actually help?? We want to help her without completely “doping” her up.

Does your dog turn his head when he hears an odd noise? Does your dog bury their food with your pants? This is the thread to ask why.

Please keep this thread to non-medical issues only.

My husband and I adopted a puppy earlier this year that turned out to be a husky/shepherd mix. He is now 1 year old.

Weekends and evenings are amazing! We go hiking, go for runs, train, and play with other dogs at the park. He is well socialized and does great in all of these situations. The problem is weekdays. I work from home, but I need to be logged on by 7am (my company is based in a different time zone than me). In the morning I usually I take the dog for a 45-60 minute walk, give him breakfast, and then give him a kong frozen with pumpkin or yogurt, or some other engagement toy. This worked great until about one month ago. Now, it's not enough. He enjoys the toy for about 30 minutes and then he looses his mind and starts destroying the house. I'm feeling lost and frustrated. Nobody is at the dog park at 6am, and it's too dark to go hiking or to our regular training spot in the morning (training/scent work in the house bores him now and isnt stimulating enough). The closest doggie daycare is a 45 minute drive one way, but I'm considering taking him there a few days a week just to get him some enrichment.

Any ideas on what I can do? Are there any toys out there that are very stimulating and engaging?

we have two dogs, one female golden mix and one male golden. my mom is adamant on having her have puppies, and i was against it. in the end we settled on only one litter. every now and then i still try to advise her against it, mostly just because im worried about where they will end up at, if they’ll get good homes, or will end up at a shelter (and a few other reasons). She wants to keep the runt of the litter, as the female was the runt too. the male is still a puppy (about 8 months) so we still have time, and we now have a house with a huge yard. I brought up the suggestion that we tell whoever we give puppies to that if they for whatever reason don’t want it anymore, to give it back to us and we’ll take care of it and/or rehome.

~question is, how do i prepare for the puppies? how do i ensure they get good homes? is there a for sure way for them to give the puppy back if they don’t want it and end up giving it up at a shelter? is there anything i should know?

i’ve tried to many times to convince her otherwise, but she’s the one who bought the dogs and pays the fees, im just the one who takes care of them

We have 3 dogs in total. Our most recent shepherd/cattle dog mix is 10 months old. Shes had a lot of issues chewing up things. Even tho she has toys she enjoys chewing on, she'd much rather eat my boots, or my glasses. I'm a stay at home wife so I have all the time in the world to work with her I just don't know how. When we rescued her we didn't know she'd be a cattle dog breed.

But we moved to an 8 acre lot of land, but the current season makes it very hard to exercise the dogs. We have a really bad issue with burrs during this season and the girls don't want to go outside anymore. And our puppy gets car sick so we don't wanna drive her to a park rn. I do training with her inside once a day, and she plays with the other dogs but it's not enough to wear her out.

My girlfriend and I got a puppy a little over 5 days ago, he was super sweet when we met him and he still is sweet but it’s just a lot. My girlfriend doesn’t know if she can do it anymore because she feels like he’s just not even listening and we have no time to do anything anymore and she’s worried it’s always gonna be like that. He bites some parts of our couch and carpet but just isn’t as treat motivated as all of the other dogs I’ve seen in training videos.He also has just been completely stopping when we try and take him out to go to the bathroom and won’t move until we practically drag him. He also keeps barking at dogs but we are hoping it’s just cause he’s scared. I told my girlfriend that she comes first but I don’t want to have to rehome him but if she says she can’t do it anymore we might have too. He is super sweet and just loves to lay on you but when he’s not doing that he’s biting the couch or whining for attention even though all we did was get up to go to the bathroom or walk away. Any tips to maybe help or advice?