Category: Top Dog

my chihuahua (5 months old) is an angel to be honest – sleeps all night in his crate, can be alone with 1 or 2 visits in the day from a pet sitter while im at work, getting better every day with walks and meeting new dogs and people, and loves learning new things. It's just this potty training taking us so long!

It took a long time to get his vaccines sorted as I had a problem with the breeder not being honest, and as I don't have a secure garden I was using a patch of grass in the corner. I then had a relationship breakdown which was a blessing in disguise as I had to stay with my parents who do have a garden, so we got him potty trained in 2 weeks – holding it all night in his crate and everything.

Since we came home to my apartment we had 2 major setbacks; 1. he got a bad stomach from eating something he shouldn't have which meant he was having diarrhoea with no chance to scoop him up and run him outside and he started getting 'used' to going indoors for 2 days, and 2. he started looking for the grass patch i since removed and at first was a great signal for me to know he needed to go and take him straight outside, but now he runs off and goes on something as I'm putting his harness on like he cant hold it, or he is going in his crate overnight which is really hard to manage without disrupting our sleep routine.

I definitely feel like we are back to square 1. He goes every time we are on a walk but it's still set us back in terms of him going in his crate at night or when he's home during my days in the office he doesn't hold it and wait for the sitter anymore like he did before.

I understand now that I cant wait for his signals anymore and I'll have to go back to taking him out every time he drinks, naps, and plays like when he was really small, but I'm curious. How have people managed potty training in apartments?

Some background: I have an adorable 19 week old puppy. Crate training at first was a little tough. But she’s been great for weeks now! Even when she was getting up in the night to go potty, she’d settle back down in the crate rather quickly.

Now the issue: The last week or so, she has been getting up in the middle of the night (new as she’s been sleeping great through the night for weeks) but now on top of that, she is not settling back down after going potty. She keeps crying and will not settle. Sometimes this is happening twice (and well before our wake up time)

Any tips? Or is this simply the sleep regression period and it’s temporary and you just have to ride it out? If you dealt with this, how long was the sleep regression/what age?

Thank you in advance for any advice.

I have a 13 week Australian Labradoodle. He scored all 4s and 5s on his volhard and the trainer that tested him labeled him a 3 out of 10 energy level. This has absolutely been exactly what we have seen over the past 4 weeks. He is calm and sweet and has no prey drive at all.

But he does like to sniff the cat. He won't chase him, pounce on him or really do anything of consequence to him at all, BUT the cat hates his space being invaded. Our trainer suggested just letting the pack dynamics play itself out, but I really don't like that idea because if the cat is having to defend his personal space, then it's stressing him out and I don't want to do that to the cat.

I've seen how to teach the "leave it" it command for food, but I'm not sure how I would go about teaching him that the cat doesn't want to be his friend…

Has anyone ever had a permanent "leave the cat alone" training plan. I know it's not an overnight fix, and really the problem is fairly small, these interactions are happening maybe once a day, but I don't like the cat having to be stressed out like that, he's not a hissy or swatty cat, so I don't want him to have to hiss and SWAT because he feels like somebody's all up in his business.