Category: Top Dog

Duncan our 9 month old Yorkie mix (8 weeks when we got him) has a physical reaction whenever I put a collar on him. He collapses, he retches, when I pick him up to let him know it's okay he goes limp and I know it's not too tight. I have tried to wait him out twice and made it to 45 minutes before I took the collar off. I tried using a ribbon thinking we could work up to the death necklace but he acted the same way. Don't even get me started on how many harnesses I have tried. He is just the best boy – he house trained right away he is picking up basic commands quickly it's just this one thing and it's a big thing we are very active and want to take him everywhere but not off leash. I promised him a big life but I can't give it to him if I can't help him over this – does anyone have any idea how I can get my boy to wear something so I can take him out and show him the world?

I’m so thankful for you all and this group. I’ve posted a million times on here but have had so much amazing feedback. We are 13 weeks and she’s getting a lot better with the crate but is such a bitch when it comes to us correcting her on bad behaviors. She will just turn around and snap at us and be so defiant. It makes me feel so stupid and not respected. She respects my older male dog. I wish I had that respect.

I just got a 5 month old doodle, and she hattesss being brushed, which is really unfortunate because she needs to get used to it if she doesn’t want to get all matted up. 😅 I’ve tried brushing her while she has a lickmat, but that doesn’t help. I’ve also tried barely touching her with it, as I brush, and she still won’t tolerate it.

Thanks for any tips!!

I got a 8 week lab husky puppy on Saturday. I take her out every 2 hours, after every nap and meal to avoid any potential accidents. She’s picking up everything super quick and she already knows to go potty first thing when I take her out. She also knows to look to me for a treat the second she’s done.

It seems like a decent portion of the time, she doesn’t actually have to go, but she squats to pee anyways. Is this just her way of following the routine I’ve set, or is it possible that she’s trying to dupe me? I know it’s not get being constipated because she has separate spots for pooping and peeing and she only does it in the pee spot.

I’m curious because I don’t want to reward the wealthy thing. Should I reward her every time she squats, or actually goes?

Hi everyone, I adopted a dog from my local shelter about 5 months ago.

It wasn't until we got him home and took him for a walk that we discovered he's terrified of motobikes and goes crazy lunging and barking at them. He's a big, strong dog so it's becoming dangerous on walks and no matter what time of the day we walk him, there are still bikes, even late at night. While he was at the shelter they never saw him around a motorbike so had no idea he hated them that much.

Has anyone had a similiar problem? If you have did you do anything in particular that helped calm your dog down around motorbikes? I think it's the noise that he reacts to. Thanks in advance!

We have an almost 1y old aussie mix (3/4 aussie, 1/4 lab) who we now think is quite toy-motivated. She will do anything with any distractions for a NEW toy, but as soon as it becomes predictable or she knows the toy, then she seems to lose interest.

How do we build general toy drive? We have beepers, leather tugs, faux-fur tugs, and we keep rotating these 6-8 toys. This is our current reward approach:

• Call her name and tell her to recall / heel / middle. If in low distraction environment, ask for more tricks.
• Get out the toy (it's hidden until then).
• Be exciting (taunt her with the toy / run away from her / make weird noises).
• Let her get the toy, then tug for like 5 seconds.
• Ask for "drop-it". Sometimes re-engage immediately as a reward for dropping it.
• Put toy away and reward with medium-value treat.

Now this worked 100% well for a few weeks, but now she will either 1) not listen to the initial command (in a more high-distraction environment), or, mostly, 2) lose interest while tugging and disengage.

Anytime we buy a new toy she's fully invested again for like 3 walks.

She knows a lot of tricks and listens really well inside, but building recall and focus around other dogs is still a challenge. I sometimes see these herding breeds hyper-focused on one toy and their handler, how does one get there?

Our baby is 8 months old and our 4 year old Beagle has been peeing on our bed, on the babies play gyms, his play mat, the rug in the babies room, and floor bed we literally just put up for our baby 2 weeks ago. She also has been barking to the point of being aggressive towards people she doesn't know that come to the house. In public she's fine but at home she's charged at people. If I pick her up and have them pet her while in my arms it helps but I can't do that for every amazon guy/gal that comes by when she's already outside.

She's good with the baby but all she wants to do is lick him in the mouth (like tounge inside of babies mouth) which our little weirdo baby loves ( he will open said mouth and wait for the licks) and when I stop her (by pulling her away and saying dont lick the baby) she's like fine and goes and lays on her pillow and then just stares at us while we play. When my son and I play she just stares at us giving little puppy dog eyes looking so depressed. Or when we're playing she'll come over and try to get in between me and my son to get the attention instead. I feel so bad. I know she doesn't get as much attention. We literally used to take her everywhere. 75% of the time we left the house she went and now it's like 10%.

When she pees on stuff we smack her butt, rub her nose in it and put her outside for half the day. Which I'm worried about, i dont want our son to see this and think hitting her is ok. It breaks my heart to do that to her but ignoring it isn't working. I let her outside to pee every 2-3 hours now. She gets treats multiple times a week. My husband and I call her over to cuddle with us when our son is asleep at night and she won't come over half the time.

Please. How do we fix this. How do we get her to stop peeing on stuff and how do we get her to stop being as aggressive.

I have a 1 year old Boston Terrier who since getting him as a puppy has more or less never been scared of anything — most of the time for the better but also sometimes for the worse.

He loves playing with other dogs. However something with him is I have never seen him start a fight, but I've also never seen him end/back out of one either.

An example of this is my neighbor's dog and him love playing together — specifically tug. Every once in a while however, my neighbor's dog can become possessive of the toy and will start going for my dog. Rather than backing away, my dog engages in the fight and even after my neighbor grabs their dog to create some distance, my dog will continue going for him.

Today at the dog park, a husky came up to my dog and quite quickly started applying some aggressive and dominant behavior on my dog and quickly this turned into a fight. Thankfully the husky's owner was aware of the situation and started pulling the husky away to create space. However my dog even with more space went right back up to the husky to continue the fight.

This was a rather stressful situation as since my dog is so much smaller, it was incredibly hard to gain control of him as he was more or less tucked underneath the husky (my dog is only 13lbs).

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In short, when it comes to it, it seems like my dog has no fight or flight response, just a fight response. Is there anything we can do to work on his response to situations like this – to prevent him from making the choice to fight and help him make the choice of flight?