Category: Top Dog

— what actually helps?

So I can't say 100% sure that they are nightmares. But she will whine, cry and even howl in her sleep. It used to be just whining, and twitching. So I thought maybe she was playing and running in her sleep. But last night I woke up to her full blown crying in her sleep loudly. I don't understand. I never hit her and I don't let anyone else either. And my whole life is dedicated to her. She's my reason for being alive and is my Soul dog :/. I've had her since she was a little puppy. It is possible the people who had her before me may have been abusive or atleast harder on her than I am. But I don't know what else the nightmares could be from and I can't say whether they were abusive or not. I truly do not know. There aren't any signs that they were besides her having nightmares every single night. And they are becoming more frequent.

I bring her with me everywhere, I even take her with me to work often, I have some family that will occasionally dog sit for me but she's been doing it since well before that :/. I can't figure it out. I don't know what the nightmares are since I can't ask her. All I can think to do currently is comfort her when she starts to whine in her sleep. I'll sit beside her and pet her lightly to try to not wake her and maybe change the direction of the dream.

Does anyone have any ideas what I can do? Or can anyone tell me maybe I'm wrong and they aren't nightmares? I'm at a loss 💔 .

I used to run her 5 to 6km and had no problems, then after the operation she wouldn't even leave house. Would just completely lie down when we tried to walk. We have a couple loud roads so she seemed to be scared of the noises.

I was able to walk her fine off leash at beach, and was driving her down daily to do that. Not really ideal to have to drive for walks though.

Took her to vet who prescribed hee some medication to give her 1 to 2 hours before walks. That's helped to the extent that we can leave house without car. Problem is on the roads she walks super slow or just randomly stops. We've gone from super brisk walks or runs to going way slower than even grandma pace. Weirdly she is happy to pick up pace when I take her off the leash.

Any ideas what's going on? Any advice how to build her back up to confidently running again. She's super social with people and dogs still so it's a shame to see her so tentative outside. I personally really like the exercise and would love to be able to do longer faster walks/runs again with her.

I have 2 dogs and 2 cats. I just recently got my second cat and one of my dogs gets a little over excited with her, so to prevent him from playing too rough with her over night since we can’t supervise every interaction my partner and I are crating my dog over night. He also wakes up in the middle of the night and sneakily pees in the house, so that’s another reason we thought it would be a good idea to start crating him over night. The thing is we all have always just slept in the bed all together, and I feel so awful to start crating him over night. He doesn’t cry in the crate like he used to when he was a puppy and we give him treats before and after crate time, but I still feel so bad. Am I doing the right thing by crating him?

If there is anyone that'd be willing to talk about what a typical contract looks like? The contract I was sent feels like it may be favoring the seller.

The warranty is for 1 year only, the puppy can be "exchanged" for up to half a year and I as the buyer can not claim attachment, or taken away for examination if a claim is made, even if there was rghteous claim the buyer will not reimbure veterinary care that they did not approve of, and treatment would even in that case only be paid up to 1,5x cost of the puppy, to give some examples. As far as I understand, there are no reimbursement options.

When I 1st contacted the breeder I made it clear health and temperament are my priorities, and it appeared as though we were on the same page. So this reluctance to be at least partially accountable for either feels like a rd flag. The contract explicitly states I chose the pup based based only on external characteristics like color, which is untrue, I picked based on temperament. Granted last I bought a puppy was 15 years ago, but I don't quite like it.

Any insight would be appreciated, as well as international differences (Europe vs USA esp.). Cheers.

Welcome to the fortnightly loose leash walking virtual workshop!

Join us as we compete with the squirrels, cats, other dogs, fresh urine scents and things that go zoooooooom!

Resources

Articles (All have videos embedded)

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• Train Your Dog For Perfect Loose Leash Walking by Casey Lomonaco. (With links and descriptions of several great videos, which we'll link to below.)
• Loose Leash Walking Tips by Casey Lomonaco
• Silky Leash by Grisha Stewart (blog post + videos.)

Youtube (Many of these are videos which are embedded in the above articles)

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• Silky Leash intro video with an excitable puppy
• Clicker Training Loose Leash Walking by Casey Lomonaco
• Loose Leash Walking II by Casey Lomonaco
• How to Train Your Dog Not to Pull – Loose Leash Walking by Emily "kikopup" Larlham
• Dog Training Tip- Leash Walking: Go Sniff and Marking by Emily "kikopup" Larlham
• Choose to Heel by Loridressage
• Loose Leash Walking by Stacy Hiebert Greer
• Clicker Training a Heel by Amy Norcal
• Shaping Loose Leash Walking With a High Rate of Reinforcement Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 by Helix Fairweather and Lynn Martin. (Read the text below the videos too!)
• Loose Leash Walking by Turid Rugaas

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See our page on leash reactivity for help managing and training dogs that bark and lunge while on leash.

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APDT webinar

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• Loose Leash Walking presented by Gail Fisher