Category: Top Dog

Hello! My 4-month old puppy is absolutely bonkers (as many are). It’s like overnight he gained a new confidence, defiance, and zest for life (lol).

We heavily rely on enforced naps, structured play, enrichment, training, and practicing settling throughout the day. My main question is, it seems like sometimes he gets overstimulated extremely quickly. He’ll take about a 2-hour nap and then we’ll do a little outside training/potty break, play (together or independent), enrichment or meal time, etc. However, sometimes it seems like he’s not even up for 30 minutes before he’s going bananas biting everything, having the zoomies, chasing his tail, barking, etc.

I usually put him down for a nap because i’m reading this as overstimulation, but he will go bonkers in his crate too lol (i. e. biting and barking at his blanket, biting the crate, chasing his tail, etc.). Could this indicate a lack of fulfillment & I just need to push through his crazies to redirect to more activities before putting him to bed?

Idk, he’s still a baby but I’m having trouble deciphering what the issue is and how to help him push through!

I’ve seen people talk about letting puppy explore in an ex pen outside but never see anyone talk about a staked in ground leash. Is there a reason for this? If I want to allow puppy to explore outside in a smaller area before the whole fenced in area can I use a staked in leash?

Hi all I have a 10 month old male pug puppy and while he is the cutest thing to ever exist, he makes no attempt to hold his bladder or go potty on the potty pad. He knows what the potty pad is. He’s been trained to go on the potty pad. I have gotten him to go pee on it before but now he refuses to absolutely go on it and proceeds to mark everywhere in the entire house. He is scheduled to get neutered sometime at the end of April and I don’t know if I can hold on much longer until then. Just this morning alone, he went outside, peed a little bit, came back inside and while he was in the bathroom with me as I was getting ready, he proceeds to lift his leg and pee all over my shower curtain. This isn’t the first nor the last time he will probably end up doing this. I can’t tell you how many times he has peed inside the house and how much bleach we have gone through cleaning it up he’s been reprimanded. We’ve tried taking him out every 20 minutes, we’ve tried getting him to hold his bladder by sitting in the kennel for an hour or two and absolutely nothing. I have even tried implementing treats if he goes potty outside and it still didn’t work! I am at my wits end and I have no idea what else to do. I love this little pug so much but I do not know what else to do with potty training. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Lab puppy loves to go under our IKEA couch and chew the wood and pull out stuffing. We try to keep her in her exercise pen or play with her outside as much as possible, but sometimes we want to play with her in the living room because the exercise pen is too small to fit all of us. I know that soon she’ll be too big to fit underneath, but as of right now it’s a huge problem. She doesn’t always come out for high value treats either. The only thing I can think of is to put a cone on her which I don’t want to do because I’m sure she’ll hate it.

Hi everyone! I have a 6-month-old female golden retriever puppy and I feel like she’s way more tired than other golden puppies I see online.

Her weekly routine looks like this:

• 3 walks a day, about 15 minutes each • Thursday: full day of daycare (no walk) • Sunday: 1 hour of puppy play group • Monday: 1 hour training class 

On regular days, when we’re not on walks, we’ll usually do an enrichment toy or something mentally stimulating.

But overall she seems tired a lot of the time. Her schedule is usually:

• Up for ~2 hours • Sleeps for 3–4 hours (in crate) • Repeat that twice during the day • Then she sleeps about 11 hours overnight (in crate) 

When she’s awake she seems normal and happy, but she’s pretty much done after a walk and a little enrichment and then wants to nap.

I always see people talking about how energetic golden puppies are, so it makes me wonder if this is normal.

• Is this a typical amount of sleep for a ~6-month-old puppy? • Do some goldens just naturally have a more laid-back temperament? Or should I expect her energy level to increase as she gets older? 

I have a puppy that is almost 7 months, he is a mixed breed (lab/McNab/Border Collie and Malinois) He is generally a very well behaved puppy, he is calm at home, crate trained, has an off switch and a great temperament…but he gets super overstimulated on walks and it is making it impossible to teach him leash manners. I can practice all day inside and in my back yard, and even in parking lots, and he does amazing..but as soon as we head outside the house to walk around the block he goes crazy. God forbid there be someone walking their dog by us, the whole walk is ruined before it starts. I hired a trainer when he was about 5 months and she came for a couple of sessions and taught me that if he pulls I stop until he checks in with me, treat and then keep going. She also taught me to distract him from other dogs with a high voice and treats in my hands to make it seem like taking treats from me is more interesting than the other dog…these tricks worked okay when he was 5 months. But now they do not work at all. He lives at the end of the leash, I cannot get him to walk next to me outside. I can have the smelliest teat and he doesn't care. It is so frustrating….also we use a front clip harness but his body is weirdly proportioned so I have a hard time finding one that fits him right, and I don't want to spend a bunch of money on something he is going to grow out of. I am at a loss. Do I spend money for another trainer to come and tell me the same thing, to stop when he pulls? That just seems to overstimulate him more. Is it just this adolescent phase? Or the border collie part of him spazzing out?? I need help I am so frustrated and saddened. I have tried doing training before the walk so he is more tired, but that seems to make him even more overstimulated. I don't know what to do..any tips or tricks, or encouragement would be much appreciated.

My mini bernedoodle has always been shy, and while it's improved a bit over time, he's still really shy/insecure at 7 months. I'm worried it's going to escalate into anxious or reactive behavior, he's already starting to bark a bit at the front door of our apartment when people walk by in the hall for example.

Are there any basic activities or training I can try on my own to improve his confidence before I look to spend money on a trainer?

My pup is very nervous by nature and has really struggled getting confidence for walks

Even with very positive socialisation, she’s just improved very slightly.

This last few weeks she’s come on strides, started taking rewards outside (occasionally) and generally walking infront quite comfortably but today we went for a walk around our block and it went pear shaped

She got 3/4 of the way around confidently and happily but then there just seemed to be loads of people, two on bikes Speeding up the pavement we had to avoid, a loose dog running freely into the road that started screaming when it was picked up, too many cars to cross the road safely and create space in time and then a baby screaming it’s little lungs out

We had about 2ft to walk before we had a safe crossing space to head back home and by that time she’d completely shut down and frozen, her tail was just tucked under her and she was petrified, couldn’t move and wouldn’t even look at me

I sat on the side of the road for about 10 minutes with her until she was willing to take a few steps and cross over the road but she was still really reluctant to move even after that long and all the hustle and bustle subsiding

She doesn’t recover quick, she’s flighty and it doesn’t take much to knock her confidence

Once we got back into our street she was fine, happy to walk down to the bottom, cross and walk back up to our house but now she just seems really disengaged and upset

She is six Months old in a week and I really wanted her to go into it with confidence so that fear stages didn’t knock her more than necessary

I just hope that by tomorrow she’s feeling a bit better and is happy to try again