Category: Top Dog

She is a street dog, 3-4 months old, had her for 2 weeks. My knoledge is limited and before her i had a labrador that was so easy to teach.

New 3-4 month puppy owner here that needs adivces. She has unkown traumas cause she lived on the streets and in the first week we worked on trust. She is so smart that even tho she is scared of us she is trying so hard to trust us. I am very confused in some situations. I go out with her for 10+ times a day, we play in backyard, i let her sniff, dug in dirt, everyting but she won t poop and pee. I can stay with her for 1 hour but the minute we get in she will go use the pad. We even take the pad outside and she will smell it but not use it. Even leaving her alone in backyard won't do cause she will cry. In training we still have a lot to learn, but when i'm commanding her, she will do it for a few minutes than she will start grawling or barking and jumping on me. When she wants to nap she will not do so if i m not in the room. The minute i move, she will go after me. I am still trying to make her go in her bed, but again when i train she barks. When we play she will bite very hard and won t listen to stop, and if we give her toys she will try to bite our hands. When we walk around the house she will be glued to us to the point we will step over her and fell. We don't want to teach her to stay on the couch or our bed but we found her on the couch. When my bf is leaving for work in the morning he will take her oustide and leave her in kitchen with all her toys and bed, but the second she is alone she will cry and destroy the floor, jump on doors, me being next door. This is new. We only have her for 2 week and I want to belive we can be better than that. I will distract her but won't listen, neither saying no, neither timeout etc, and I confess that i wasn't a good parent sometimes and i hate myself for that I do not know what to do so please help me. It's very overwhelming and we live in a place where street dogs are so many and she won't survive. I'm glad i saved her, and i love her, but i want her to be more deciplined. I am crying everyday cause i get angry and i feel so sorry for her to the point i lock myself in other room for hours. I don't have money for a trainer, nor a create so every tip is hopeful. Sorry for bad english.

Hey all,

I’m about to welcome a puppy in our family in 2 days. We have the gear, the toys, the food.

Everyone in the family has read and discussed key principles about welcoming the puppy home.

Anyway, I’m keen to test our sleeping arrangement with you all. Dogs aren’t allowed in the parents bedroom, but can go in our kid bedroom.

We will crate train the puppy, and understand that we need to sleep near the crate initially, until pup is happy with the crate and sleeping on his own away from his litter mates.

I could set up the crate in our bedroom and move it later, but thought it’d be confusing to be allowed in the bedroom then not.

Other option is the living room or dining room, and sleep on a comfortable camping mattress right next to the crate.

Living room has the TV. Would that mean not watching TV whilst puppy is young? I read these guys need a lot of sleep 😅

In which case, dining room might be better…

Am I overthinking this??

I'm on my second puppy, and I was really dreading crate training because it was a major stressor while raising my first one. I tried a completely different approach with my second pup than my first and I'm happy to report it worked amazingly.

(Important to note, I work from home so I basically never have to leave her alone.)

I got my 10 month old puppy roughly 2 months ago.

Tried leaving her twice near the end of the first week and she was really upset – pacing, howling and peeing on the floor. In or out of crate, did not matter. Her response was a lot more severe than my first puppy, so I just accepted giving up on dog-free outings for the time being. Didn't leave her alone even once for two months – always had someone watching over her if I couldn't.

Week 1:

I fed her meals in the crate, but didn't close the door on it for more than a minute.

Weeks 2~4:

She was alright with the crate door closed as long as I was immediately next to her. I took naps and did work directly next to it and let her out anytime I had to leave, even for short breaks like the bathroom.

In the following weeks I experimented with having the crate further away from me but still in the same room. Then bit by bit I incorporated leaving for the bathroom with her still crated. Around the same time I started experimenting with leaving her unattended while I was showering.

Weeks 5~7:

I started crating her even outside naptimes. She'd just be chilling in there while I went about my home life.

Week 8:

I started working on actual separation and she went from 2 minutes to 2 hours in a single week. Two whole hours of no howling, no destruction, no accidents. She still has a hard time staying asleep while I'm out so there's more work to be done, but it's unreal how easy this is.

I figured I'd share this since there is a lot of fear among puppy owners that being with your dog all the time will ruin their ability to spend time alone. Building trust with their owner and getting fully accustomed to home seem to be very big factors in their ability to tolerate being alone. Not insisting on separation too early will also keep their stress levels low and make them easier to get along with.

The less you rush, the sooner you'll get your freedom back.

We got a 6 week old male (pit/lab mix) from the shelter who was abandoned there (very young, we know). He was an absolute menace to my 3 year old girl (also pit/lab mix) for the first month.

He’s 3 1/2 months now and has chilled out a LOT. They play together without issue 90% of the time but there’s still times where they’re playing and out of nowhere he bites her face or neck area. And we always immediately intervene or separate.

My question is: is this still normal puppy behavior or is he being too aggressive considering they’ve known each other for 2 months now? He’s still very young so if this is a real issue we want to look into a training specialist for him. We do A LOT of training with him already (and they are never alone together, he’s crate trained)

We have a 12 week old golden retriever puppy and we want to take him to the pub for a quick visit for the first time.

I have read that if you take sticks, chews and toys you might accidentally create resource guarding, so I thought I would practice our "down and stay" and feed him his lunch a few kibble at a time.

Is this the best approach?

Thanks

We have a 5 month old mini schnauzer who is generally a great dog. She is pretty good with her crate, she sleeps in there overnight and we usually put her in for at least one crate nap during the day (of 1-1.5 hours) and sometimes we can get her to go in a second time. If we need to go out we can put her in the crate but we try to wait til she is asleep in there and “sneak out” LOL.

However, we are trying to set up a pen kind of situation where we can leave her for longer stretches. We have a room which opens on to our balcony where she has a patch of grass for potty and we have a baby gate that blocks the room off, giving her balcony access and access to a single room.

We were hoping by we could work up to being able to leave her in here for longer stretches but right now if we leave her in there – even if we just leave to go to the kitchen – she freaks out.

I should say that we work from home so she is used to always having someone around and generally being able to follow us everywhere. The room she has access to is the study, so she is used to use being in there with her.

Any advice as to how we can make this situation work so we can build up to leaving her for say 3-4 hours at a time?

I have a rescue dog who is a Wolfhound x Bull Arab, and he’s honestly the love of my life. He gets a 1-hour walk every morning, has plenty of toys at home, and is a super happy, silly boy who’s never really shown signs of stress.

He used to be an outside dog, but we successfully trained him to live indoors without any issues.

However, about two years ago, after transitioning inside, I started noticing a behaviour: every single morning after breakfast and his walk, he humps the couch cushions.

Without fail if the house goes quiet, I know exactly what he’s up to 😭 And when I leave for work, I’ll often see him on the camera doing it too (he is desexed).

I’m just not sure if this is a habitual thing at this point, or if he’s just a bit of a weirdo?

So my guy has been going to daycare for a little bit now, typically once a week. Every time he’s picked up he smells so so bad, like urine and wet dog. He also has a disgusting texture to him, like powdery and greasy at the same time. I work in vet med, so I’m well aware of how dogs play and the slobber and all of that, but I feel like this is excessive. I get animal facilities are smelly, but typically there is cleaning protocols in place and I know at my job if a dog soils itself or gets dirty we clean them.

We asked the facility what the smell and texture is, they said they put a waterless shampoo on him (but why is he still powdery? I have not encountered a powder waterless shampoo), so we requested for that not to be used and for him just to be rinsed but he’s still so disgusting. It’s to the point where I had to roll my windows down on the way home cause my entire car smelt, and I’m sitting down next to him now (AFTER using a million wipes on him) and my eyes are burning. Is this typical of all doggy daycares? I’m going to try another to compare but I know a vet hospitals and daycare facilities are different so I just don’t know what the “normal” is. I expect some stink but this is crazy.

I also want to mention, he has white spots on him which are visibly brown/yellow, and the wipes have that same brown/yellow residue on them after they’re used on him.

Hey everyone, looking for some advice.

My poodle is about a year and a half old and recently started acting weird when it’s time to go outside to potty. Before, he was totally fine and would go out without any issues.

Now when I open the door to let him out to the back of the house, he just stands about 10 feet away and stares at me. If I walk over to him, he runs and hides under the table so I can’t grab him to put the leash on and take him out.

It honestly feels like he’s testing boundaries or just choosing not to listen all of a sudden. Nothing major has changed in our routine, and I always go outside with him to supervise, so I’m pretty confused. He had already been doing something similar at night for a while, but now it’s happening during the day too.

Has anyone dealt with something like this?

Is this just a phase or something I need to correct?

And what’s the best way to fix this behavior?

Any help would be appreciated!

Hello!

I am working on a project for my MBA and I have a few questions around dog training. I was hoping this might be a good spot to get some feedback…

• For independent dog trainers only:
  1. What’s your biggest headache running your business right now—finding clients, admin/paperwork, scheduling, payments, something else?
  2. How many hours per week do you currently spend on non-training work (messages, scheduling, invoicing, chasing payments)? And would reducing that by half be a “nice to have” or a “game changer” for you? Why?