Category: Top Dog

i have a 12 week old golden retriever and i seriously need help with potty training. everyone told me goldens are smart and easy to train but this puppy did not get the memo. she goes outside, sniffs everything, plays with leaves, chases her tail, does literally everything except pee. then the second we walk back inside she squats on the kitchen floor like it's her personal bathroom. i'm taking her out every 30 to 45 minutes, i'm using the same door every time, i say the same command, i give her treats when she actually goes outside but it's so inconsistent. some days she gets it right and i think we're making progress then the next day it's like we're back to square one. i read that golden retrievers are supposed to be fully potty trained by 4 to 6 months but at this rate i don't see how that's possible. is that timeline realistic or does it depend on the individual dog? also she sleeps in a crate at night and barely has accidents there so she clearly can hold it — she just chooses not to when she's inside during the day. is this normal for a golden retriever puppy at 12 weeks or am i doing something wrong? anyone who potty trained a golden retriever or any retriever breed please tell me what finally made it click because i'm running out of carpet cleaner and patience.

13.5 weeks old lab here. i wanna say she is potty trained but dont wanna jinx it. 2 weeks accident free so far. but since it is getting warmer up her in canada, we finally see our deck again, but she keeps peeing and pooping on the deck when we are outside in the backyard, how do i tell her not to potty on the deck? her usual potty spot is at the front near the porch.

Hello everyone! I have a 4 month old puppy and I’m a newbie dog owner. I realize that I’ve been saying to him “come here” a million times now and he doesn’t listen. After reading a bit on the recall training I realized I never properly taught him what I expect from him when I say “come here” and now he completely ignores it.

Should I try to teach him “come here” again from the beginning or should I pivot? Any tips on how to teach a puppy recall?

Hi all, my 9 month old Springer has always slept well through the night. She's crate trained and always takes herself to bed in the evening.

Obviously as a tiny pup she would wake up once or twice for a quick wee, but she always walked back to her crate and go straight back to sleep. This because less and less until she was sleeping 10pm to 8am every night with no disruption.

But the past couple weeks she's been waking up more, just whining and moving about a lot in the crate. At first I put it down to her first season starting, more frequent urination and hormonal change. But now that's ended and she's still waking me up at 2, 3, 4am, usually multiple times in the night. I take her outside for a quick wee as usual, but she doesn't even need to go. She stands still outside for minute then just goes back inside to sleep like normal.

I can't deal with getting up in the night and going outside frequently for no reason, it's exhausting and making everything harder. I'm not lacking the energy to do all our usual gundog work, hikes and training because I'm never getting a full nights sleep 😔

Shall I just try and ignore the whining in the night? I never even has to crate train her she's always settled in there of her own accord as its her cosy safe space. I just don't know why she's waking me up 😭

My 10 week Havanese puppy just won't cuddle (its fine, i am fine). He is always trying to bite us, the only time he doesnt is when he wakes up for like 30 seconds and then he starts to bite again. I understand he is teething and its all good. It will hopefully go away with time (we are redirecting). When it's time to sleep he wont go in his crate and wants to keep playing. We give him treats to go into the bed and he starts crying, we let him out maybe sleep next to us (we are sleeping on the floor next to him so he can see us) but he comes out and starts getting hyper and nipping again. I am concerned he will not like his crate overtime because he doesnt like being there. Any advice? This is our first pet ever and we love him.

My 3 month old puppy sleeps through the night now for the most part, but once she hears my alarm go off, or hears me roll over in the morning, she begins screaming bloody murder to be let out of her crate. I make her sit before I open the door, and I wait until there’s a pause in her screaming so hopefully she associates quietness with being let out. How long will this go on? Any tips on how to knock this behavior?

Thank you!

We have a 10 week old Boston terrier who we brought home 10 days ago and a 3 year old neutered male cat. Cat came to us a year ago from a rescue which had dogs in the foster home with no problem.

I was told our pup was most confident of his litter and he is sleeping great and potty training is making progress. This is my first puppy, I’ve owned two other dogs that I adopted as adults and another cat before and they mostly ignored each other 24/7 and did their own thing.

My question is, our pup like to jump and bite our cat and I can’t tell if they’re playing or fighting. Cat is extremely easy going and will wrestle puppy to ground and nibble back but never has hair raised or claws extended. I only let them be together for short periods otherwise it seems Cat gets annoyed and the play gets more and more aggressive. Cat doesn’t run away either. Puppy will never stop pursuing cat. I’m worried as pup gets bigger he will hurt cat.

We ensure Cat gets plenty of attention and play and lots of time to be out about the house while pup is in his playpen.

How can I best train puppy to leave cat alone so they can both exist in the same room without it turning into Wrestlemania? I will sit with them on the floor and encourage pup to play with other toys and I’ve tried tiring him out before Cat comes out but he is obsessed with trying to wrestle Cat.

So I have a 14 week old GSD puppy who is super food motivated and we do almost all of his training via clicker and kibble. So far it’s been going great, but I’m running into 2 issues and I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts. Thanks!

The first is that while we work on looking at me, I often catch him looking at the treat bag. If I put it behind me, he’ll start staring at the side of my body that the last treat came from and waiting for my arm to go around for the food.

The second issue is while I’m trying to teach loose leash walking. We have a command “let’s walk” and that means I want him by my side. He gets to the correct position, I click, and then he immediately tries to run around the front of me to get his reward. Am I ruining the clicker method by not giving him the reward after? I don’t want to reward for getting out of position.

Hello I have a 6 year old corgi male and I feel like maybe he’s just getting old or grumpy I’m not sure. But recently he’ll do this thing where he wants to play, give kisses, or just be pet and then the next second he’s growling and giving a mean face so we stop whatever. It’s just very confusing because he acts like he wants to do all those things and then gets it and doesn’t like it. We’re scared because he does lunge and try to bite. We give him all the space he wants and asks for and never push him to do anything when he is uncomfortable. But it’s the fact that he likes to do something and then the next second he switches up and it’s like a totally different dog. I don’t know what to do because I obviously want to give him those things but also don’t want to get hurt or aggravate him. Has anyone had anything happen to them like this?

Has anyone found one of these? There’s so many fetch robots but can’t seem to find one that actually introduces some randomness for my pup.

Ideally one not so heavy duty that I could reasonably use indoors