Category: Top Dog

My pup is 4 months (standard poodle) and I raise her alone in a “beige quiet home”. Im very calm with her, very structured, very type A person. I pretty much follow a schedule of 1 hour awake 2 hours asleep. She sleeps through the night. She has been very good with me, understands commands and structure quickly. She sometimes jumps up on walks (biting the leash and my jacket) but I took it as puppy behaviour. I enrolled in individual training (wanting to be a responsible owner but also thinking idk if she even needs this). First session went horrible – ive never seen her this. Nippy, jumpy, overstimulated. The session was outside in a place we go for walks. People nearby. Today was our second training and i made sure she slept enough etc and same thing. She couldnt even walk on leash for 5 meters. She would start nipping and jumping at the trainer constantly. Not possible to lure her in with treats, or get get to sit etc. Trainer also seemed a bit baffled? Did anyone experience this with ther poodle pup? What to do in this situation? May this be caused by “new people – trainer” excitement? Am i causing this by my beige quiet home approach?:/ Im not exposing her to “the world” that much i guess. Lot of training is done at home and we do about 2 walks a day. She didnt meet that many people yet, is that causing the overstimulation? What to do please 🙁

We have a 4.5 month older shelter puppy, who we have had since she was two months old. Lots of stuff has gotten better (she sleeps through the night in her crate well; potty training has been great – until this week, see below; good on walks and with other people and dogs).

But I am so ready for the nipping, demand barking, jumping to start to get better. The biting seemed for a week or two like it was getting better but now she’s back at it. And this week has brought the delights of a potty training regression, which has not been as issue for like 2 months. And the demand/attention barking and jumping is so annoying.

I feel like we have been consistent with training, socialization, we both work from home so she gets taken outside a ton. We don’t repeat directions, she only gets treats with “four on the floor”, we reward calm behavior, lots of lick mats, kongs, chew toys, sniff mats, etc. Although she does great in the crate overnight, she never really took to it during the day so she doesn’t have enforced naps. But otherwise, I feel like we have been so consistent with recommended training and tips.

I guess we just have to keep tolerating the annoying puppy behavior?? And keep at the training?? And it will get better when she’s, what, 6 or 7 months old??? Just need some encouragement because it’s really wearing on all of us.

Ive set up a playpen for my golden retriever (10 weeks) and put a bed in it. She has now peed on it 3 times despite washing with enzyme wash. Should I just remove the bed completely? The only accidents she’s had in the house over the past few days have been when i make the bed available to her.

I just wanted to share something I do with my 6 month old puppy that has been really helpful for me in teaching her not to be under my feet when I’m trying to cook. There are probably dog trainers who have come up with this idea but it’s something that I thought of and tried with my pup when I brought her home and have just done ever since because it worked.

For this to work you need to have a physical boundary in mind of where you want your dog to be when you’re cooking. For me, there is a doorway between my kitchen and dining room so it’s pretty easy. The the game goes as follows:

1. Have a handful of kibble/treats out on the counter (away from your food of course)
2. Cook as normal. Pretend the dog isn’t even there.
3. If you turn around and the dog is in the kitchen, turn back around and ignore (don’t punish or give any commands)
4. If you turn around and the dog is outside of the kitchen

, turn back around, grab a piece of kibble and throw it.

1. Ensure that the kibble is thrown so it falls outside of the boundary, so as to not encourage the dog to come towards you

. Again don’t speak or give any commands.

5.

1. Rinse and repeat

, increasing the interval between throws slowly so your pup catches on that outside the boundary while humans cooking = food.

Eventually the dog learns that being in the kitchen while you’re cooking isn’t rewarding, which is super helpful if you accidentally drop food on the floor or are dealing with hot trays etc. It’s a fun game for them to chase the kibble, tires them out a bit, teaches impulse control and also is easy to do because it’s not super interactive and you don’t need to go back and forth to your dog as you can throw from a distance.

The reason I don’t give a command to stay out of the kitchen is because I want her to be able to come in, grab a drink if she needs to or ask to go outside. So she knows she can come in the kitchen but her best bet for fun and treats is to stay outside. Now when I’m cooking she automatically just stands outside the boundary line and waits.

Hope this is helpful to someone else who has a very food oriented pup that always likes to be in the way!

9 month old puppy, she’s usually pretty good on her lead but as soon as she decides she needs the toilet she pulls trying to find the right spot. She will pull and seem almost panicked trying to find the right spot before she eventually just drops and goes to the toilet. This can happen at any point in her walk we could be out for 5 minutes or 10 but as soon as she needs the toilet she doesn’t listen to anything, won’t take treats, and pulls.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Kind of baffled by that decision on her part. I then made a mistake I wasn't expecting would have bad results. I took the heartbeat out of the snugglepuppy and put it under her bed in her crate, she freaked out 10 minutes later, pressed herself to the side of her cage. I thought it would be soothing, and was very wrong.

We removed the bed and the heartbeat and I am now washing last night's fiasco. She's been doing otherwise well! Very sweet temperment, slowly learning tricks and potty. She can sleep in the crate for up to 6 hours, but normally has a freakout at 3am

Wasn't expecting such a miss on the snugglepuppy. Anyone have any bad experiences with them? Think I should keep trying it out?

I'm planning to get a dog in the next few months. It will be my first dog, and it will be a Basenji. I've read a lot about the breed, its character, and the principles of training a Basenji specifically. But I'd love to hear from real dog owners about your puppy training tips. There may be some mistakes to avoid that no one talks about. I'd appreciate any feedback 🙌

Hi. I’m hoping this is the right subreddit to ask about this. I have a Yorkie that is currently 10 years old and turning 11 next month. Recently we’ve observed some small changes in his behavior, the most notable of which I have read online is an early sign of dementia. We took him to the vet last year and he did say that our Yorkie could be getting a bit senile but there was no official dementia diagnosis.

The behavior we’ve noticed is that recently, and it’s actually pretty rare but it’s never happened until about 6 months ago, is he will randomly start peeing as he walks in the house. Most of the time he tells us when he needs to go but sometimes we will just see a trail of pee.

I know you can probably consider an almost 11 year old Yorkie to be a senior dog (correct me if I’m wrong) but is this a sign of worse to come? Thank you for any help or advice.

So, to explain as quickly as possible. I’m dealing with some fictional lads that remind me of dogs for some reason. They are villains but since it’s from their POV or outside looking in; their dog-ness shines through in the oddest of ways.

I want to give a prominent character just the personality of a Borzoi. I like Borzois. They are eerie, cool, cute, funny, and massive.

It was random the thought of doing so. I felt like coming to the masters.

Perhaps this is a Regretti spaghetti. I’m quite tired and about to post this before slumbering. Eh, doesn’t hurt to ask. Right?

For reference – the dog is not mine, it is my roommate's, and is a five year old heeler. (~45lbs)

I will try to do a simple task, like walking through a doorway, or going into the kitchen. This dog will decide that it wants attention, and will walk over and stand right in front of my legs – fully blocking me from walking. He knows many commands, including lay down, back up, etc., yet absolutely nothing besides taking it to a near aggression level will make this dog back off. He's not aggressive in any way, just effectively making himself into a wall and not going away.

I've literally tried anything/everything I can think of – calmly yet firmly telling him to back up, go lay down, etc., trying to nudge him in the direction he needs to go to get out of the way, yelling, treats, literally everything. He has dog beds in every room and can easily lay down/get out of the way if he decided to – so how does a person convince a 5 year old dog to cut this crap out?? And once again, it's not my dog – and I can't change or control anything its actual owners do, I'm just trying to learn a method to get him out of the way when I need to, without having to resort to angrily yelling at this dog to get him to move out of the way!

Edited to add; walking into the dog over and over again isn't an option, as I have arthritis and bad knees & hips, so it causes me actual physical problems, and I've done this dozens of times already throughout the years, and it has no effect on the dog, he doesn't care.