Category: Top Dog

I have a 10 week old Labrador puppy who I have been keeping in an x-pen while I am at work. She has a sitter who comes during the day, so she is never in there for more than a few hours, but she still does occasionally get restless and has recently figured out that she can jump against the sides of the pen and it will lose its shape and travel across the floor a little bit. It’s connected to her crate so it doesn’t travel super far, but the x- pen isn’t the most sturdy and she can get closer to whatever she is interested in. I have it set up in our kitchen on hardwood floors, so I can’t secure it with stakes it came with. I had the idea to buy a bunch of dumbbells and zip- tie them to the bottom of my current x- pen, but I don’t know how well that will work and thought if there are actually quality pens out there, then that would be a better option.

All that being said, I’m wondering if anyone knows of any good x- pen brands that are actually sturdy and will stand up against a growing Labrador puppy jumping against the sides!

My 7month Pit/Lab mix that I’ve had since he was about 3 months old is great most of the time but can often be a terror. At 3 months when I got him he was an intense chomped right out of the box. It was never aggressive biting but very intense and it was hard to spend time with him. Time outs would work sometimes but not really solve the issue. The biggest thing that has helped honestly has been getting him enrichment. He’s pretty great off leash and we go on hikes and he enjoys playing with other dogs at the dog park who are of similar energy level. After he was about 4 or 5 months old his biting got much better. Being consistent with getting him enrichment, training and commands with positive reinforcement, and providing chews toys that are strong enough for his pit jaws has helped a lot and he’s much better around the house. But he can still have some pretty intense fits from time to time and I’m getting a little worried cause we’re pushing the teething phase and he’s getting bigger. He’s only about 45lbs rn but he still hasn’t grown into his paws and I’m thinking he’ll probably keep developing until he’s about and be somewhere between 60 and 70 lbs. his fits will generally happen when he’s overtired but lately when we’re we’re leaving the dog park and I leash him he’ll bite me the whole way out the gate. He calms down pretty much as soon as we get in the car and I’ve sort of started to work around this by instead of leashing him and walking him out, using a treat to call him over to the gate and and leashing him there to 1. Create a positive association with leaving 2. Just make it a little easier for myself He won’t bite me after that on the walk to the car but there are times when I may need to just leash him and go. I tried to yesterday and it was the same story with the biting. I think I’m attributing some of this to leash frustration. We try to keep our walks shorter when on leash and that has help and when off leash I try to find areas with low foot traffic. Like there’s a trail by the river that we’ve walked for probably up to an hour in both directions. he stays near me and we don’t see other people. No biting either. But if we go on long walks on leash he gets frustrated and the fits start. I’ve also been noticing some separation anxiety behaviors. He’s been tearing up more things when I leave even though in the past he’s been good so we’ve had to start crating again when I’m not home. I left him in the car to go into the grocery store for a few minutes recently and he tore up my drivers seat. And this is something that I’ve done many times before without a problem. I live in an apartment with one other roommate and they’ve adjusted to each other, but recently I had to go home for the Christmas break and I noticed we were taking some behavioral steps back. Some key factors are 1. There were a lot more people in the house and he was constantly stimulated so it was harder to get him to be calm cause he was constantly excited by other people 2. There was another dog there. My parents have a much smaller dog, a 2 year old Yorkie terrier mix who’s mostly grown out of her all her puppy energy and was not really comfortable with a much bigger dog coming at her. He only wanted to play but he plays rough and scared her so he was spending a lot more time in the crate and becoming a lot more pushy with boundaries because he wasn’t getting the same level attention. 3. At my parents house he slept in the living room in his crate because my mom wouldn’t allow him in my bedroom. He will typically sleep on my bed at home so this was an adjustment for him 4. My family wasn’t use to having bigger dogs around and was a little warry of him giving him another reason to spend much more time crated

Since being back home things have settled a little more. I’m trying to be a little more active about his training because after I figured out that getting him excersize makes him calmer around the house we eased up a little bit because things were a little easier but in retrospect I think we weren’t doing as good of a job correcting behaviors as I should’ve been. What are some things I can do better? I can’t afford a behaviorist rn but I have one that I keep in contact with who my dog stayed with when I went on trip to Atlanta. I did a puppy training class at the rspca and he did well, but the class sizes were too large and it was hard to keep my dog focused and the trainer mostly focused on positive reinforcement and I felt like I wasn’t really learning to correct the behaviors that I was most concerned about. He’s getting better but I’m worried about these issues persisting past a year. Any advice?

We picked up our tiny 8 week old Cavapoo yesterday and we are really struggling with the pottying outside. I know it take patience and consistency and it's only day two but we have had very few successes. Any advice would be much much much appreciated. We have taken him out every hour, everytime he wakes from a nap, after he eats or drinks, after he plays. And then he will with no warning while playing squat and pee immediately. He's got a little bladder so it takes him about 3 seconds to get it all out. I think if we could get a few successful outside pottys with lots of praise, he will start to know there are rules. Some of my obstacles are that it is 25° and wet rainy snow. He is a tiny tiny little guy with soft little feeties. He gives up and is shaking outside within a couple minutes. We also live in a dog friendly apartment complex so and he is not fully vaccinated so I am trying to limit his potty locations to safer less trafficked areas. That being said there is always a lot going on outside, people, cars, dogs, planes. He seems to get distracted and nervous and won't potty. He also is constantly just trying to eat grass, rocks, wood chips, anything he can get to. It's also a longer hall way to get outside to where we are trying to make a potty spot. As a last resort to have a couple wins, we tried to take him out to a puppy pad on our patio with less distractions but he is just hyper focused on any spec of dirt or debris he can eat that we seemed to have even less success out there because he won't even begin to sniff around. He had two good potties outside early early this morning. But then several accidents inside yesterday and today while we were working or even while playing with him. I'm sorry I am very new to having such a new puppy. Really any advice would be so so so helpful.

ok so we’ve been very blessed with our baby. she does amazing in the crate and basically has since day 1.

but when she takes naps she can/will be in there for multiple hours at a time and is silent and we’re afraid of waking her up but she hardly makes a noise in the crate to let us know she’s awake.

has anyone dealt with the same or similar thing? did you put a camera in the crate to watch her? i cover it with a cover and a blanket so it’s difficult to peak in there without waking her up for sure.

Hi all,

We have a brand new miniature schnauzer puppy who we love and adore. She’s just 9 weeks old and has been with us for a week. The first week she also got a bit of an upset tummy so we have been putting off too much training and just trying to let her settle in and form a bond with us. We live in an apartment and have a grass patch on the balcony for toilet and she is already AMAZING at taking herself out to use that and we have her crated at night, but door open and in a pen, and she holds it until we take her out in the night to go potty – no accidents there. In a nutshell – she’s been great!

However, I think we should start introducing more of a schedule. We feed her at the same time each day (currently 4 small meals a day) but we have no schedule formal and play time. Just the last two days I think she has been getting over tired with too much play and not enough sleep. Then she is bitey, hyperactive and hard to settle.

Hoping for some advice on what a schedule might look like and some practical tips on how to do it.

Thanks so much!!

Hi, friends!!

My husband and I just adopted an 8 week old standard poodle this past Sunday. I was wondering if anyone had any advice for when to start separation training? Like having him in the crate or playpen and leaving (just outside the door) for 5-10 minutes? He’s doing really well with crate training, and he seems to like his playpen a lot. He even let me take a 20 minute shower without crying at all today. 🙂

Thank you in advance!

Hi! As the title says, we’ll (my partner and I) be adopting our first puppy on the 15th and we are so excited. We’ve both grown up with dogs, but this will be our first time having one on our own and with our responsibility to raise.

I’ve been feverishly creating a list of items to get for him— double coat brushes, puppy shampoo, toys, a bed (even though I’m sure he’ll be sleeping in bed with us), pet stain cleaner, toys, etc etc. I’ll even be keeping him on the same food at least until he’s 1 year old before switching products to hopefully help his digestion.

I’m hoping for any and all advice any other golden retriever owners have or for puppies in general. I know this sweet boy is going to be the love of our lives and I want to make sure he stays happy and healthy. Please advise especially if you have ideas on training basic commands.

As an adult, I hope he’ll be able to interact with other dogs well and return upon command, as I’d like to take him to a family farm and let him run around with other dogs (it’s a lot of open space and some woods, so I hope he’ll want to stay closer to us at all times and avoid running far away).

Any advice or recommendations would be fantastic!! Thank you all!!

PS— side question, he is 6 months old and has been potty trained/crate trained by his foster home. How often would you recommend taking him out to the bathroom? Could he go an entire night?

hey all, recently i’ve been taking my girl to the dog park and she loves it there but we have one small issue we ran into today- she is OBSESSED with chuck it ball launchers. it’s not even the ball, it’s the launcher (i think she thinks they’re big sticks or something lol). today she ran away from me once she spotted a lady throwing the ball for her dog and she started jumping on the lady and biting her ball launcher. she does this with us at home and we’ve been trying to get her to stop with no luck, but i genuinely didn’t expect her to do it to strangers with balls too😭 any insight or advice about how to get her to cut this embarrassing habit would be great! she’s very well behaved in public otherwise lol

Where I live, the winters are not typically cold enough to freeze lakes and canals, but this winter it's been a bit colder than usual so some large bodies of water have completely frozen over. However, the air hasn't stayed cold long enough for the ice to become sufficiently thick to allow people to safely walk or skate on it. Under these circumstances, it's not advised for people or dogs to walk on the ice, due to serious risk of drowning if the ice breaks.

I was on a walk recently and my dog walked on a frozen canal for a few seconds (I quickly put a stop to it). Luckily the ice didn't crack at all, so no harm done. But it got me thinking. What if the ice did break and my dog got trapped in a deep canal or lake? Should I attempt to rescue her, risking my own life, or helplessly watch as they potentially drown right in front of me?

My heart says attempt a rescue, but my brain says don't risk it.

I've talked to a couple people about this and opinion is mixed. Of course dogs shouldn't be allowed to get themselves into such dangerous situations in the first place, but suppose it happened and your dog fell through the ice, and there was no life ring or any other rescue equipment. What would you do?

My dog is weird sometimes, but this behavior was out of place as he had never done it before. Normally he, while he has a ton of personality, stays to his set of behaviors and does what he likes to do, doesn’t go out of his own norm. But, this time he farted, sniffed where he farted, and then went to lay on top of the couch. (he never does that). It sounds like im trying to humorous (while it is very funny, im genuinely curious ) but he also NEVER (not once in his entire life) goes to lay on top of the couch. I picked him up and moved him because it’s not safe there, but, why did he even do that?