Category: Top Dog

Our dog died and we're trying to adopt a new one from a shelter. Everyone is telling us a dog can't be alone for more than 4 hours but I have to work from the office 2 days a week. My husband works full time at the office. I can maybe negotiate it down to 1 but that 1 day is really important. With commute it's 9 hours away from home.

The shelters are asking us to come up with a solution. I can't imagine everyone with a dog has one person who is full time remote or doesn't work, right? What are some solutions you all find?

I used to judge people who put their pets in outfits. “Dogs don’t need clothes,” I said. “Let them live.” Then the weather changed, and my tiny, dramatic dog started shivering like he was auditioning for a survival documentary. I knew I had to get him some clothes but I was really reluctant because I didn’t want to become “that person”. After a couple days of watching him suffer I just had to get some clothes. I ordered a couple pieces of dog clothes. I won’t lie, the tiny hoodie looked kind of cute in the pictures. The day it arrived, I told myself it was purely functional, this was about warmth, practicality and definitely not cute. I put it on him and… I froze. He looked ridiculously adorable, like unfairly adorable, he did this little strut around the living room like he knew he was serving a look. Later that evening, I took him on a walk. Within five minutes, three different people stopped me. “Oh my gosh, look at him!” My dog soaked in the attention like a celebrity on a press tour.
Now I’m that person, the one comparing dog clothes options and pretending it’s about comfort. I now make it a habit to check the online shopping sites to see what they have. Yesterday I scoured through alibaba, eBay and etsy to see if they have anything interesting for me. I'm obsessed, I know but it's not my fault. He just looks so cute and adorable I’m going to be dressing him up no matter the season. At first I told myself it was just for the winter but the cuteness overload has turned my brain to mush and now I can’t help myself. I especially love the tiny puffer jackets, they make me want to just hug him and shower him with kisses. Not that I don’t do that enough already but it makes me want to do it more. Anyone else turn into the exact type of pet owner they swore they’d never be?

hi all! i have a 8 month old toy poodle that I got from my cousin. she never worked with the dog, so he does not know how to use a pee pad OR even pee outside. i would like to get him to use a pee pad over going outside, as he’s a small dog. i grew up with a shih tzu who used the pee pad just fine for her 15 years of life.

the dog (prince) will go on the pee pad a couple times, then just stop doing it. we are doing positive reinforcement, we’ve tried putting him in the crate and limiting his amount of roaming in the house, etc. we will do the same routine but nothing is helping. in fact, this week he has started peeing on the couch! he does not like going outside, so he won’t pee outside. trust me, i’ve tried lol. he keeps peeing on our rug and couch when he was just doing good with the pee pad.

we rub his nose in the pee and say no, then carry him over to the pee and show him to go there. when he goes on it, we give him lots of praise and a treat. but he is still getting worse at going on it, going way less than when we first started working with him. i don’t know what to do and im exhausted.

any help is appreciated, just please nice comments only. i am a cat person, so having my own dog is very different. my childhood dog used a pee pad just fine

1.5 year old male dog still squats to pee.

Recently my MIL got a rescue dog, shes around 2 years old and from what we know she was a stray. She’s super energetic and a terrier.

Anyways, my dog who’s five is having a hard time getting along with her because every time this dog sees her, she goes to bite her neck, no play initiated or anything. My dog will just walk by and as soon as she sees her she launches for her and immediately bites her neck. It doesn’t seem aggressive, the other dog’s tail is wagging and she’s super excited but my dog absolutely hates it. She ignores her and when that doesn’t work she bares her teeth.

I’ve stopped bringing my dog around but my MIL loves my dog and she’s been missing her so I feel bad and want to find a way to fix this. Can anyone tell me why the other dog is doing this and what can help?

My partner and I adopted a 1 year old daschund/chi mix from a shelter back during Christmas and are looking for advice on how to minimize barking for when we move to our new apartment. Our girl is moderately reactive to people and very reactive to other dogs (barking at people and barking and lunging at dogs). This started about 3 weeks after we adopted her. We never really have people over so this isn’t a problem and her reactivity is manageable on walks and trips to go potty. After 2.5 months, she has really begun to chill out and is finally able to settle and go to sleep on her own during the day without enforced naps. I would say she is a pretty normal-ish barker, but she barks when she gets frustrated and I don’t know how to fix it. There are three times she barks 1) trying to get food from the counter, 2) reacting to things she sees or hears (mostly has been solved with some privacy film on the windows) and 3) frustration about being crated or left alone at home. She responds well to corrections for the first and second situation. It is usually a few barks and then she stops so within a completely normal amount, but I am worried about the barking when left. It isn’t seperation anxiety because if I leave or crate her while she is already sleeping or resting she doesn’t bark at all, but if I crate her or leave her while she’s active or awake she gets frustrated and will bark or whine for a few minutes probably 3-7 before settling and going to sleep. I have always ignored her barking, but it hasn’t worked even though I have been very consistent. I think the barking itself is rewarding because she is just frustrated and so barking relieves her frustration a little. I am hesitant to use the frozen kong trick because she is only 12 lbs and it wouldn’t take much extra food for her to become overweight. Right now, we live in a pretty soundproof townhouse so it isn’t a big deal, but we are moving in June and I am so paranoid that we will get a complaint and have to rehome her. Is there really any solution to this other than a long lasting treat? I tried busy bones, but they don’t last long enough for her to not start barking once she finishes.

Sure, I totally get that he wants to tear his toy apart and get to that thing making the sounds, and sometimes he just wants to crush their little plastic larynx and leave it at that, but sometimes he gets in there and really starts piddling and picking and eating the whole plastic thing. I catch him in the act when he does it, and he only gets toys on supervision because now he can't be trusted alone until the squeaker has been removed.

I just don't get why the plastic? It can't taste good, like even cat shit's gotta taste better than that. I'm just wondering if there's any smarty pants on here that could tell me why my dog is so obsessed with literally trying to eat these things?

Thinking of driving from Pasadena to Salt Lake City with our boxer, Mookie. Any suggestions on routes and safe stops to make along the way. Thinking of doing it in one day.

My dog is 12 and his anxiety has been increasing. We live a few miles from a train yard, where they pull the trains in, couple and uncouple. It makes some deep booms, and he seems to register that like thunder, which he developed a fear of at middle age (along with fireworks). So some nights he shakes, cries and cannot calm down.

I often have to go to the sofa where he sits right in front of me. At least there, I cant feel his shaking so badly as on my bed, and he usually seems to calm after hours, and then climbs onto the cramped sofa. I'm in my 40s and the poor sleep is wearing at my sanity. I spent a month traveling to help family recently and he only has an issue one night, during a storm. We've been back a week and hes had multiple nights of crying, shaking and no sleep for me. I'm trying to find a new rental but struggling to meet all of his needs of a yard, window to watch out and no stairs. I have other stressors and him freaking out for no good reason I can identify is so upsetting.

Part of it: I suspect hes upset to be here with only me and is lonely / pitching a fit. Hes a cattle-dog / husky mix, very particular. I've tried lots of calming remedies and meds. Some of them give him gas, which GUESS WHAT? Also freaks him out. I'm so tired, so burnt out. I don't know what else to do except move and I'm trying to do that but things keep falling through. I've tried ignoring, acting like its no biggie but nothing helps. He has never been a snuggly dog. I'm afraid I'm getting mad and making it worse because we are safe and fine, I just need him to let me sleep

I’ve been looking at dog training videos on teaching a dog to speak and have been running into two issues.

1. Dogs can be trained with toys like balls and ropes.

Issue: My dog is not toy oriented at all.

1. Dogs can be trained with treats by making them impatient which results in a bark.

Issue: My dog is entirely too patient for this method. Which I know isn’t necessarily a bad thing overall just for training. I stood with a high value treat for a half hour and didn’t get so much as a whine out of her.

Any tips or suggestions are welcome!