Category: Top Dog

I have a 5 year old intact male pomeranian mix. I got him almost two years ago when he was an abandoned, severely abused rescue who has since transformed into a wonderfully happy, personable, responsive dog – except for one specific behaviour, which I have no idea how to work with: Barking which has no specific pattern except that it only happens at one location.

When I go to visit my parents – whom he ADORES, and who also have a small 9 year old female neutered dog (who is relatively aggressive and resource guards everything in their house from my dog, if that has any relevance) – sometimes, he's very calm and happy. Other times, like today, he kept barking at my parents and their dog. He looks completely surprised and baffled if I try to redirect or use any tricks that have previously worked to stop the barking (certain sounds distract him, petting him when a 'trigger' might come up keeps him mostly silent, at times putting him on my lap stops it) – but it's like the bark is a 'surprise' to him as well. He's totally calm and collected then something snaps and loses it.

Today was especially bad – if their dog entered or left his view, insane barking. If my parents left the room and he heard them walking around outside of his vision, insane barking. When we were going to go for a walk, crazy barking running up and down the house. But there's zero lead up, zero 'explanation' for it, since these aren't consistent every time we visit, and it's not every time he sees them/the dog/they leave the room.

I'm at a loss of how to train this, since it A) is not consistent other than location, B) is ONLY at my parents place, so it can't be regularly worked on outside of being there, and C) is completely random depending on energy levels/his apparent excitement/how many people are in the house/who knows what whether he barks at all. As said, at home, on walks, with other people, he's a happy, calm, silent dog, except for their place – to which my father today angrily told me to "shut that dog up" and commented on how "badly trained" he is. Which broke my heart a little, since obedience/responsiveness/barking is never an issue aside from in their home.

Any tips on how to go about training something like this?

Hi all, first time poster here. I have a male pomchi who is 2 years old and unaltered. He has always had the tendency to mark around the house. He was initially raised as an apartment dog and now that we have moved to a bigger place, he has been marking around the house.

What I know is that he is having trouble settling in to the new place with what he has learned since being a puppy.

What I have done is to use enzyme cleaner to clean the marked spots. I also walk him at almost the same time every day, and keep him supervised when I am home. When I am not home, I keep his area of activity constricted and away from the few usual spots.

Any tips/advice or past experience are welcomed 🙂

Hi everyone,

I need help, I’m really frustrated.

We started crate training our 11week puppy. We got him at 8 weeks and immediately went into a crate. Breakfast is at 6:30am, dinner at 6pm. We wake up at 6 and go out for potty, then come back have bf & water and that is the last water as we leave for work at 9. Same goes for dinner last water is around 7pm. We go multiple times after eating for potty breaks, and he used to go potty after 15min of eating. No accidents in crate until last week. He had diarrhea for one day last weeks and had a crate accident. After that moment he is pooping in his crate!! I take him out after eating and now he doesn’t go outside as he used to, even though I’m taking him out every 30min. He waits until he is alone in his crate to poop. I don’t know if it’s because it’s cold outside (-30°C) or because he figured out he can poop inside? Please help

Had a foster puppy (almost 4 months old) come back due to mismatch. New house thought they could manage a suspected working breed in an apartment (spoiler alert they could not).

However when he initially left my care he was still part of his litter. He has gone from his litter to an apartment when he was never ever left alone. Because of that we’ve got a lot of barking and vocalisation any time he is left out on his own.

I know all the usual stuff-don’t give attention when he is barking, praise quiet time etc.

However the neighbourhood already has a very hated barking dog, that unfortunately lives across from us. So little puppy it triggering the barking dog so it’s not necessarily feasible to wait it out when we’re keeping the neighbourhood awake.

Ideas to fast track this? Little guy is an angel inside and in human company but we need to kick the developing separation anxiety pretty quick to keep the neighbours sane.

We need help getting our little dog to sleep soundly! This is a bit of a long post, but stick with me.

My spouse and I have a 13-month old small dog named Murphy. We got her at 9 months old. Before we got her, she was sleeping in bed with her previous owner. We don't want her to sleep in our bed. The problem with having her sleep outside of an enclosure in our bedroom is that she is constantly trying to jump up onto the bed. In the four months we've had her she's really struggled to sleep well. It has been a saga.

We started with a crate. We knew it would be a transition for her (new home, new people, new sleeping situation), so we toughed it out for about 3 weeks before she started sleeping quietly through the night. That lasted for about a week before she started regressing, HARD. She was panicking in the middle of the night and she was getting very little sleep. Unlike some dogs, she did not like being enclosed in the crate. She was panting and scratching and howling at the top of her lungs for most of the night.

We then switched her to a pen that we had in the living room. At her last home, she was kept in a pen and was very comfortable with it. We had a dog bed in her pen and after a brief transition, she was sleeping soundly. The problem is that the pen is too large for our bedroom space, making it not a sustainable solution. Plus, we had to haul it back and forth between our bedroom and the living room, which was a pain.

Sometime before Christmas I decided to buy a pop-up pen. It was a polyester and mesh material. I thought it might be better because it was a smaller size for our bedroom and it would be easier to travel with when visiting family. There were several issues with the pop-up pen. First, within 5 minutes of setting it up she chewed the zipper door, making it in usable. She wasn't even in the pen yet! 🫠 Thankfully I had a warranty and I got a second one, and we watched her closely with it. But the second issue with the pen was that it was too lightweight. She could push her body weight on the side and it would tip over. So we had to put weights in the bottom of it to keep it sturdy. But when she learned that she could tip it over and potentially get out the top of it, she was determined to do so. The weights prevented her from getting it tipped over, but she was scratching at the material so much that she made a hole in the mash and was able to escape. The pop-up pen had to be thrown into the trash and it was back to the metal pen we already had. During this time she would whine a lot and scratch at night until she would eventually give up and go to sleep, but sometimes she would also wake up in the middle of the night before settling.

Finally, we bought another metal pen that's a bit smaller, just for our bedroom. At first it seemed like it was going to be the ideal solution. It took her about a week and a half of transition time before we had TWO glorious nights of silence with no whining, scratching, or barking. It was incredible!

Now you're caught up to last night. Last night we went to visit a friend and took Murphy with us. We got back late at night and pretty much went straight to bed. Looking back on it now, I can see that she didn't really have much decompression time. Even though she did go to sleep quickly and silently, she woke up anxious in the middle of the night. She was whining, scratching, and howling. Unfortunately, she figured out that she could climb out of the new metal pen. It's actually the exact same height as our living room pen, but something about the design made it so that she could climb out.

The first time I heard her jump out, she jumped on our bed, and I got up and gently put her back into the pen. The second time she got out and then hid under our bed so that I couldn't grab her. I was able to get her out from under the bed and I put her back in the pen. The third time she jumped out of the pen she again went under our bed. This time I didn't bother trying to get her out. I just let her be. She slept under there or at least on the floor for about 3 hours. Then the jumping began. She jumped up onto our bed many times throughout the night. But because the pen wasn't working and I was too tired to bring in the other pen from the living room, I just calmly told her "off" and gently placed her off of our bed. In the times that she wasn't trying to actively jump onto the bed she was sleeping on a pile of clothes on the floor next to my spouse's side of the bed. The main difference between her sleeping in the pen versus last night's free roaming, was that when she was free roaming she didn't whine or cry. Even though she tried to get into bed with us she never got panicked or two overly anxious.

Our bedroom is kept edit decent temperature so I know it's not an issue with her being too cold. She's also a young and healthy dog and I don't believe there are any health issues going on here.

At this point I'm not really sure what I should do next. It feels like we've been constantly cycling through new sleeping arrangements for her. Again, having her sleep in our bed is not an option. I know that works for a lot of people, but that will not work for us. Should I continue trying to find the right pen or enclosure for her to stay in? Should I try to not have her sleep in an enclosure and instead work on her sleeping on the ground in her dog bed without a pen? How would we prevent her or teach her not to jump onto our bed?

Here are a few more details I will add about her general routine. She gets three walks a day (we get at least 7k steps), we spend time training her each day before meals and throughout the day, and she gets lots of pets and cuddles especially when we watch our shows at night. She is potty trained so it's not a concern about her going to the bathroom in our bedroom when she's not in an enclosure. Outside of this sleeping saga, she is an absolute delight of a dog. She's very smart and loves us as much as we love her.

I'd love any advice people have, especially those who have been through something similar.

Hey all!

I was diagnosed with Celiacs this past year. It has been a huge barrier to my health and enjoyment of adventures!

I am (was) a huge foodie & chef. Food is a huge part of my day to day enjoyment, and this diagnosis has really caused a lot of difficulties with socializing.

I would like to train my current dogs to start scent work focusing on being a disability support dog for determining the safety of outside foods. I’m aware that the likely of an ideal result is next to nil, but I love my dogs and learning should never stop for people or pets.

They are schnauzer/beagle mixes, ages 8 & 10. I’ve trained them to be companion animals primarily. My 10 year old took naturally to being protective. I trained him to remain alert and standoffish when approached by strangers and have a hold and release command for the behavior. He’s getting a little “loopy” as he ages so I him at home due to this.

My 8 year took to ratting, and has been excellent in this role, while still having restraint and recall, which is excellent.

My concern for her being allowed on adventures for scent work is other peoples dogs – she’s 12 lbs. she has excellent recall and directs behind me when approached by large dogs.

I don’t intend to get any further digs until they are passed so starting from scratch with a puppy that has a better temperament is not a choice I’m willing to make right now.

They do understand recreational scent work (ie – find “it” games, etc) so they have the overall concept of identifying a scent down, which is a good start.

I understand that they may not be trainable to the degree a well bred, properly raised, and properly trained of dog would be. I’m not expecting perfection, or even a level of success I could trust.

I would like to invest in the time and the skills to learn (for myself) and possibly get them to a point where they enjoy having a new job and can do it relatively well.

Does anyone have any recommendations for learning materials – Books, YouTube, suppliers, etc? Any thoughts on other skills we should be building on first?

I’d love all perspectives and any amount of contributions and discussion about this subject!

Adopted a 9 month old mutt a ~week ago and he has already bit me twice and my husband once badly enough to need stitches. He has an obvious trigger: being touched on his back half (vet checked, no medical issue). But its not every time, I can pet him all over or even pick him up and it's no problem, until it suddenly is. No warning growls, sometimes will air snap first. I've never dealt with a dog so quick to bite before and am seriously considering returning him to the rescue.

I've searched the sub and seen mentions of hiring a behaviorist or trainer, but want to know how how quickly they would be effective. I'm not comfortable having a dog where its russian roulette if he's going to bite me this time I put on his harness or not. I have muzzle trained him now, but that's only a short term solution, I'm not sure where to go from here? Am I overreacting and this is still part of the 'getting settled' phase?