Category: Top Dog

hello I got a new puppy, i’m not sure what kind of puppy she is but she looks like she’s going to be big. They had told us she looks like a mastiff mix. I am also not sure how old she is but she’s definitely around the age of teething. She got fixed yesterday but since she’s been home she has been so active and this is something i’ve never seen before. I’ve only had cats and my fiancé really wanted a puppy so our son could grow up with one. I’m just not used to the high energy and I am a sahm so I have plenty of time. we want to crate train her but eveything i saw said to start the second or third day she’s in the home so she can get acclimated. I just am not sure what to do or how to stay training her or the methods of training a large dog. she’s biting and trying to chew on eveything. potty training isn’t a big deal she’s good with that but she barks demanding attention and i’ve tried to have a activity food potty and nap schedule with her but it didn’t seem to work she just wants to play all the time. my cat won’t play with her right now and my fiancée works at night. I need to be able to feed my son and have a little time to clean at least and i know it’s only been a day but i’ve just never experienced this before. So if anyone has anything they know helps with super active pups who are teething and just anti nap please lmk!

Has anyone else not been getting along with their significant over and bickering a lot more because of the stress of a puppy? We’ve been together 15 years so I’m not worried about us but dang, we’ve been fighting a lot more lately 😂😅

My parents got a German Wirehair pointer puppy on New Year’s and I’m currently living at home and work from home so I get to be with it all day while my parents are at work. For the first week I could not work my full hours because I was constantly picking up or cleaning pee or letting him outside every 30 minutes (only for him to still pee and pop inside).

My parents are very simple people. They’re 63 & 62 years old, and have never had their dogs professionally trained. My dad is the type to slap his dog if he is misbehaving bad enough and you better not try to tell him that’s bad otherwise you may be in for an hour long red in the face argument where all of your previous failures in life get mentioned.

My dad is a mechanic and hates his job at this point and when he gets home he showers and sits down and basically does not get back up. When he gets home I take my personal time to do what I need to do alone considering it is his dog after all and he’s home so he should be happily taking care of it. Well instead he just lets it piss on the floor because he doesn’t want to go outside because his legs hurt and he’s honestly just lazy. But then when he finds the piss he screams at the dog BUT STILL DOESNT TAKE HIM OUTSIDE!

I’m at my wits end I don’t know what to do. I’m trying to help train this dog the right way but it just feels helpless as this point.

I guess any suggestions I would appreciate idk why I even made this post honestly I’ll prolly just get dragged in the comments.

I have a 5-, almost 6-month golden retriever puppy. About a week and a half ago he had emergency surgery to remove a cat toy from his intestine. I didn't know he had eaten it, otherwise would have taken him to the vet right away to have vomiting induced. Because of the particular toy it was, I know it was in his system for more than a month before being removed.

I had noticed for about a week before the surgery he was acting strangely. He would no longer settle in his play pen, would panic when I left the room, and started waking up about an hour earlier than usual. He had softish stools, and was going more frequently than he had been previously, and had pretty bad flatulence. This all coincided with my returning to work after a 2-week holiday break, a gradual food change and some pretty bad teething, so I wrote it off. This was about 3 weeks after he had eaten the toy, and in those 3 weeks he had been completely normal.

He's been home after surgery for just over a week. For the first week I kept him on a higher dose of the sedative meds the vet sent him home with and he pretty much slept in his crate all day.

The past 2 days I've cut back on the meds and all of the behaviors he was exhibiting the week before he went in for surgery have returned. He is pooping more than normal, farting, unable to settle, and is waking up in the wee hours of the morning. When I let him out of his crate he jumps all over stuff and plays really aggressively, which the vet has specifically told me to avoid. If I leave him crated, he barks and scratches in the crate and I'm worried he's going to hurt himself.

I'm at a loss. I don't know how to handle this in the interim while his incision heals, and I'm worried it means something larger is wrong since the surgery has clearly not fixed this. Is this just normal puppy stuff?

Let me know if this makes sense. I'm so tired from the lack of sleep. Thanks in advance.

My fiance and I just adopted a ~4 month old puppy from a shelter. She had kennel cough after the shelter immediately brought her in but once she was medically cleared we picked her up. It's been two weeks and we just had a trainer come for the first time and I feel a bit discouraged and was not expecting that reaction from the trainer.

When she knocked on the door our puppy barked and we are staying in an Airbnb for a short time due to home repairs from a flood but she barked and once the trainer walked in she acted completely appalled. We have noticed our puppy takes a little to warm up to people but she eventually settles in an hour or so. She was giving treats but our puppy was still barking. She was also barking to get attention. The trainer then said "this happens every 1 in 7 dogs she trains when she walks in the door" and "I'm sorry this is your first dog experience" which I felt was a bit odd to say… my fiancé and I had childhood dogs but this is our first dog together. She then proceeds to tell us about a re-homing a dog situation because one dog she trained kept biting.

Our puppy is usually a snuggle bug but we definitely notice she's got a lot of energy. We have a lot of enrichment toys we use since we both WFH. But the trainer then proceeds to tell us that Hills food has whole grain corn which prevents serotonin growth and its why she's continuing to bark at the trainer. She's in a constant fight or flight mode she said. She suggested we change to Acana or Orijin.. anyone here use this instead of Hills? Our vet recommended Hills too. Seems like these two food options are higher protein.

After the hour, we just felt pretty discouraged and we knew this was going to be a process and we're ready and committed to our puppy but I think I was just anticipating a more positive trainer attitude.

This must be by 30th post today alone, so I apologize in advance lol.

Picking up 8 week old pup in a few weeks. It’s only about a 20 minute car ride from where we are. Just for the sake of it being to spend a million dollars on puppy stuff at once, do you think we need to buy him a puppy car seat and seat belt right away or could we pass with whoever the passenger is just holding him until he gets a little bigger?

Getting a mini petite Goldendoodle who will likely be only a few pounds when we get him, so very small. All the pens I’m seems for inside seem to be extremely small, and with the addition of his crate inside of the pen I find it to be way too small. Is that how it should be?

Are we supposed to literally keep the puppy in the pen all the time and not roam around the house at all?

I got my almost 6mos pup a 10” collagen stick by Nothin’ to Hide. She has had the small ones and loved them (honestly have yet to encounter a treat or food she does not like lol) and i was looking for long lasting chews to stock up on so thought this would be a good option. It’s pretty big!!

I gave it to her after dinner today and she chewed it for a while. I could hear her munching on it while I ate my dinner and the last I saw it, it was still decently big! But then all of a sudden… poof. Gone. I feel crazy. I know she probably ate it but it just seems like it was way too big still to finish it off?! Maybe it’ll show up somewhere in the house lol but does anyone else’s pup do this?? The first week I got her this also happened w a different but smaller edible chew and I was freaked out until my friend assured me she probably just wolfed it down 😂 it’s fully edible so I believe it’s fine but I know people have horror stories for stuff like this and I need reassurance that this is normal and okay!! But will be giving these things to her few and far between from now on if they aren’t gonna last more than one sitting!!!

Hello. I try to pay attention to my puppy’s body language when meeting other dogs, and give her space to decide if she wants to approach or retreat, but one thing that’s puzzling me is that often she will tuck her tail as if frightened whilst still trying to approach the dog / pulling insistently toward them. Is this a “feel the fear but do it anyway” sort of thing? Or is it that one signal might mean something else in this context? She’s ten months old but has been doing this for a while, even with dogs she’s met multiple times, when we pass on the street or at cafes.

Hey, I've been having a problem with my 12-year-old dog for some time now. For about three months, she has been keeping me and my family awake at night. As soon as I go into the bedroom to go to sleep, the dog (who usually sleeps in the house) goes up the stairs, lies down on the landing, and waits for someone to come down and let her out. Sometimes the dog actually needed to pee, but sometimes he just wanted to go out.

I have no idea where my dog's behavior comes from. She is a twelve-year-old female dog who is spayed, has no health problems, is vaccinated against basic diseases, lives well, is well-fed, and is cared for by the whole family. The only thing I've noticed about my dog is that she's more sleepy, indecisive, stumbles, gets tired more quickly, e.g., on walks or when playing, which I consider to be signs of normal canine old age. Last year, the dog pooped in the house, but it was more likely due to stress from the family's week-long trip (I was left alone with the dog at the time).

What should we do in this situation? Has anyone had a similar experience? How did it turn out? The dog sometimes goes up the stairs several times during the night, and the rest of the family and I haven't had a full night's sleep in several months. Above all, we are concerned about the dog's behavior. We want to find out how to help the dog.

Please help.