Category: Top Dog

Our 6-year-old dog (10kg cavalier + poodle mix) has significant territorial and resource guarding behaviours specifically in our home when guests visit. Barking excessively for 10+ mins on entry, unsettled and barking again when visitor makes sudden movements.

We've consulted a trainer who has recommended starting with 7–10 sessions at their training facility without us in the room at first, with the possibility of up to 20 sessions total. Her reasoning is that his behaviours are so ingrained that she needs to first "undo" them in a neutral environment before teaching new ones. She has said that she may suggest home visits external after the booked sessions are up, if she believes she cannot progress further.

We're committed to doing this properly. Money is set aside and we know it won't fix itself. We just want to make sure we're spending it wisely, so a few questions for anyone with experience.

1. Does facility-based training make sense for territorial/home-specific behaviour? Our concern is that he won't exhibit the problem behaviours at a neutral location, so how does the trainer actually work on them? We do understand there will be homework and we will be doing training at home with him.

2. Would in-home training not be more effective here? It feels like training him in the environment where the problem occurs would be more targeted — are we wrong about this?

3. Is 20 sessions a reasonable estimate for ingrained anxiety-based behaviours in a 6-year-old dog? We want to be realistic, but we also want to make sure we're not over-committing before seeing any results.

Hey all,

TLDR: will a dog whistle be heard by my dogs over multiple dogs barking? Any experience with those ultrasonic bark deterrent devices?

I have 2 dogs. One likes to bark at everything. He barks at the neighbors, but I honestly think its for attention. He barks at people walking by, he barks at the neighbor dogs, he barks when he plays. He really doesnt mean to be aggressive, he genuinely seems to think it is a fun thing to do and his body language is happy and super waggy tail nearly all the time.

Second component here is that one of my neighbor's dogs is reactive, territorial, and somewhat aggressive (they even put a muzzle on him when they take him out). If ever all the dogs are all out at the same time, my dog's barking sets off the neighbors dog who thinks my dog wants to fight. We have a woven wire fence, so it is very see through and we often end up with a cycle of barking and the neighbors dog trying to get to my loud idiot. My 2 dogs and 2 of their dogs (they have 3) are 50+pound dogs, so not easy to get them to knock it off.

My dogs have good recall except for when distractions are present. I am also a pretty quiet person and am not very capable of getting loud enough for them to hear over all the barking. So if I get a dog whistle, and of course work on training them to know the whistle is for recall, would they hear that over all the barking? What kind of whistle? Would the silent dog whistle be acceptable or would it not be loud enough? I am also considering one of those ultrasonic bark deterrent devices just for this situation as I saw a video of a guy who turned one on and the neighbor dogs ran away.

The neighbor did say they plan to rebuild the fence later this year, but they didnt say what kind of fence they were building (hopefully solid or wood). If that is not the case, or even if it is, I plan to plant some privacy hedges to keep the dogs from seeing each other.

i want to work on perfecting my dog’s recall, but my family are constantly using her name, “here”, “come”, etc and it seems unlikely to me that she’ll respond to these as strongly because she hears them so often. for a similar reason, i opted for “flat” instead of “down” lol!

so i’m just curious as to what words other people have chosen, hoping i can take some inspiration!

Hey there.

Long time lurker, first time poster!

Anyways, I have a frenchie who just turned 6, she has moved 3 times with me in the past (I’ve moved for work 2x) but I’ve noticed this time she’s had a harder time adjusting. She’s not a dog that makes a lotta sound or barks a lot unless someone knocks/ rings doorbell. I don’t have any other pets it’s just me and her.

Shes been barking A lot.. I moved Tuesday and it’s Saturday now. I am thinking of writing my name & info down for new neighbors to introduce myself anyway but I think now I’m going to include a “thanks for your patience with the barking”. One concern I have is- I work nights so I don’t know if she’s doing this at night either.. the other main concern (nobody has actually complained) I’m not exactly sure how soundproof this apartment is.

Does anyone have any advice? I’ve kept her on her same routine, same time we usually go for walks, where her food and water sit in my room (she’s a free feeder), her same blankets on my bed, her bed in the living room etc. I don’t think she’s been this bad in the past adjusting so I feel bad but I’m now sure what to do. She barks when the AC kicks on😅 I almost feel like she’s jumpy?

If you’ve made it this far thank you! And any advice/ suggestions is helpful.

My current puppy only works for high value treats when out of the home. In home I use a different flavor kibble. Out of the home use freeze dried liver, real meats, cheese. My current adult dog is extremely food motivated so I never need to use the typical high value ones and can use whatever . If I am using chicken thigh, for example, outside lf the home, will my super high value treats eventually become low value to the puppy?

My concern is with training, I will eventually run out of treat options that are high value enough for him. Toys are hit or miss depending on the day. He really has to be motivated to want to work which is completely unlike my current adult, despite being closely related. Tips or thoughts?

We got training for my dog back when we got her two years ago and she's pretty decent with all of the basic commands, including "leave it." But, following "leave it" as a permenant command to "never touch that thing again" is a different story. I'm just not sure how to work up to that though? Especially since she automatically assumes that anything on the ground is fair game to interact with and start to chew on if she finds interest in it (To be clear, she never resource guards, so I highly doubt that'll be an issue).

So far, this hasn't been much of an issue since we don't leave stuff on the ground. However, we're about to have a kid in the summer. I both want to enforce a pretty strict bubble around the baby when they arrive + account for the fact that as the kid grows, they might be more prone to leaving stuff around the house. But I'm unsure of how to enforce "leave it" in my dog's mind for longer periods of time, especially with heavily desirable items (i.e. a stuffed animal). Any tips?

Hi everyone, not sure this is the right kind of page to post this question but seeing if anyone has any insight or possible ideas to what it could be. Training or something else? My 2 year old dog (cavalier mix) pees extremely frequently. I take her out to pee every three hours and even that’s not enough. I feel like my whole life revolves around her peeing! It’s ridiculous. And the biggest problem is she STILL has accidents in between me letting her out. Today I let her out at 11am, took a nap until 2:30 (set my alarm to 2 bc I knew I had to take her out to pee) and I snoozed from 2-2:30 because I could see her laying down. Went downstairs and took her out and she peed right away. Then came back inside and as I was going to take off her harness I stepped in a puddle of pee. It’s so frustrating! And this is such a common occurrence. She has ruined our carpets over the last year and a half (got her at 6 months) and idk what to do. I’ve spent thousands at the vet and specialist trying to figure it out and besides one uti as a puppy everything has come back normal. This has always been a problem and I’m at a loss now. She’s been on oxybutin since April of last year which has helped her go from going every hour to every 2-3 hours. Anyone have any ideas?