Category: Top Dog

first time pet parent here! i got a 7 week old pup about a week ago and things have been going okay, he pees and poops on his pee pads inside the play pen, loves to nap in his crate (always open) and is overall a fun little guy. the only issue is he screams and cries randomly in the middle of the night! his play pen is set up in my bedroom at the foot of my bed and he is there for most of the day except for when we play with him in other parts of the house. when it's time to sleep, he sleeps well and doesnt cry or jump at the pen walls when i shut the lights, and ive made it a routine to not talk to him or play w him after lights are shut so that he knows its sleep time, but at 2am everyday he has woken up and cried for about 30 minutes, where 10 minutes in i get up from my bed and tell him its okay and he stops but when i lie down he starts again. he eventually starts playin with chew toys and goes back to sleep but i just wanna know what you guys have done in these situations and when does it end? it's not about going potty since he always goes potty on the pee pads in the pen at night and its always available to him because his crate is open.

just got a 15-week-old puppy… shes great. she's basically potty trained and almost crate trained?.. she has zero issues sleeping through the night in the crate. sleeps all night without having to potty or cry. My wife and I work full time. My wife goes to work a lot earlier than i so the puppy is only in the crate for MAXIMUM 6.5 hours. (hasn't even happened yet.. got her two days ago.) the issue is we went grocery shopping for an hour and our baby was crying the whole time. I FEEL SO BAD.

everyday we walk her for about 20 minutes, 2x a day and allow lots of play time.

We did that exact same process before we went grocery shopping.

My sister ( who is an ex vet tech ) said she would come over every work day for the next two weeks in the middle of the day.. to play, walk and exhaust some energy.

My question is how do we prevent our puppy from crying in the crate during the day? / how can I make her more comfortable?

We have never used the crate as a punishment and she has sometimes uses it to sleep. So it must be some sort of safe haven? But when she was locked in for that hour it literally traumatized me 😭

I literally took off work because I was nervous about her being locked up for more than an hour.. and I go back tomorrow!!! pls help!

On day 5 with my 9 week old puppy and need some of your thoughts.

I am such a dog person, i love spending time with them more than anything and could not contain my excitement to get my own puppy. However, since the day I got him I realized I cannot do one thing on my own without him crying. It’s giving me extreme regret and I’m wondering if I just made the worst decision of my life.

i work from home so I thought it would be manageable but I realized I can’t even work for more than 5 minutes but he cries when I’m not holding him and then bites me when I do hold him. I can’t win at all.

I know it’s only day 5, but do you think within the next few days it will get just a tiny bit easier as we get a routine? Or is this what my life is going to be like for 4 months until he’s 6 months old. I simply cannot live like this for 4 months. I haven’t eaten in days, haven’t showered, can’t sleep.

would appreciate anyone’s help or advice.

we just lost our 12 year old dog and miss her so terribly much. we also just had a failed adoption because the shelter adopted a breed out to us that was not what we were hoping for. we wanted to get a lab and one who was easily trainable. but they ended up adopting us with a Rhodesian ridgeback which proved very difficult to train. would getting a Labrador be easier or am I setting myself up to fail again? are labs easier to train not to bite? has anyone done this with young kids? thanks in advance!

Hey guys my little pal is in his teenage phase so we’ve started doing things abit differently trying to up his tolerance for being home alone etc.Main change is my schedule has changed so I can no longer take him to work with me.How many walks would yall say is good for a Yorkie puppy during the week?Weekends we have a lot more time and do more activities.

Thanks💕

9 week old lab x boxer mix puppy, we picked her up 4 days ago. She is just so lovely, friendly, outgoing on first visit. We fell in love.

Upon bringing her home Saturday morning, she seemed to settle in quickly, and was very happy being with myself and my partner. Putting her to bed wasn’t easy, she needed to be stroked to sleep and then quietly transferred to crate. Her first night was perfect, no potty accidents (we took her out every 1-2 hours to the garden). She was very happy to go back in her crate freely at night when coming back in from potty break.

Come the second day. We know she is supposed to be sleeping 20 hours a day, yet she just wouldn’t go down to nap. Instead she goes hyper, biting and attacking carpet. We expected destructive tendencies because she’s a puppy, but the concern is that she is clearly overtired yet won’t go to sleep during the day. We do this routine – food, water, potty, crate. We take her to the crate and she climbs on our laps (we can’t put her or lock her in crate when she’s awake because she panics) and we have to stroke her for 10-20-30 mins for her to dose off enough to sleep and transfer for crate. On this day my partner and I did not sleep at all! Due to her constantly needing to be watched since she won’t go in crate, and since we need to “put her to sleep”. We didn’t eat at all that day, just not a moment to do it.

Day 3 came around, this was the lowest so far (yesterday). Even though we had a perfect night of her sleeping and being taken out 3 times in the night to potty, the moment she wakes in the morning she is biting so hard at only me (I’m a woman) and not my male partner. Whenever I try to redirect her to chew toys or any distraction, she just bites harder. I try the tree method. She attacks my legs. I try to walk away. She follow me and bites hard. I don’t make any vocal expression during because this makes her bite even harder. Putting on her leash is almost impossible for me because she bites. At this point we haven’t slept for 36 hours. We just don’t know what to do because we need her to be contained in a safe place while we look after our own basic needs, at least 1 meal a day and a shower and fresh clothes. Yet she just will not tolerate being left alone, in a room or in her crate. She goes into complete panic and thrashes around.

What we’ve done to get her used to the crate – 4 meals a day in crate. Treats in crate for doing tricks. Walking away from crate and giving her treat upon return. She does it perfectly yet when it’s time to nap, she just will not tolerate being alone.

My partner has had to take a few days off work to help me because we are even struggling the two of us , to constantly be in the room with her and we take turns when the other needs to go to the toilet or try have something to eat (we feel sick from the sleep deprivation).

We’ve spoken to the breeder after last night, and she’s agreed to take her back. We just cannot go another night without sleep we are going insane. We don’t know what we’re doing wrong, we’ve watched all the videos on what to do and it just doesn’t seem to work with her. I know she’s a baby and needs reassurance, but is it really normal that all new puppy owners stay constantly in the room with puppy and never eat, never sleep never go to the toilet? We’ve been told this could last weeks. Week of never being able to cook a meal? Of never closing that door? My partner goes back to work tomorrow and I’ll have to do it all alone, I have no idea how I will manage, we couldn’t even handle it the two of us on 24/7 duty.

We have been able to train her to leave it, sit, waiting before eating from bowl, and she is happy to walk in and out of crate. She is happy on a leash now. She’s never had a toilet accident in the house. This is because we are very diligent taking her out so often. She is a very smart girl.

Please help us because it just doesn’t feel right taking her back to the breeder. I want to make this work but I need 2 basic needs met each day to function and be able to give her my best effort. And what I need is : 1 quick shower a day and at least 1 meal. I have no appetite and just feel sick with this situation. Please please help us we are desperate.

9 month old corgi. She’s normally really good and doesn’t care when we take her harness off after a walk but every so often she’ll get defensive about it and gnaw at anyone that goes for it. It doesn’t really hurt, but it’s still not something I want to encourage.

No issues putting it on, no reasons (afaik) for her to do this, she just randomly decides to be mean to me. Any ideas? This is basically her only big issue so I’d love to figure it out.

I’ve seen a lot of comments lately saying beagles are “not suitable” pets because they’re loud, stubborn, and impossible to train. I’m curious how true that actually is.

For people who own (or have owned) beagles—what’s your real experience? Are they genuinely a poor choice for most households, or is it more about understanding the breed and meeting their needs?

Would love to hear honest pros/cons.

My dog is 4, had her 2.5 of those. She wasn’t toilet trained when we got her and initially would have some accidents if not let out during the night. She is much better now but has a habit of asking to go out at around this time every night (2.30am!) that’s after walk / lots of wee’s before bed around 9pm? I know she could hold it, but is it fair to ignore her (which is what I would need to do to get her out of this habit!!?) or should I just be grateful she’s stopped going inside? She sleeps downstairs and is quite needy so I suspect part of the habit is that she wants to see us (I don’t interact with her at this time just let her in / out).

Has this happened to anyone else? I dropped my dog off at a Dog Boarding/Daycare place while I'm at work, and the lady who runs it claims my dog was barking too much and distracting the other dogs so I had to come pick him up. It seemed very odd to me because I was under the impression barking dogs were common at daycare.

Anyways, I found a new place that has watched him for the past 3 days and they said he's been great and is barely barking. Just wondering if anyone has had this kind of issue before.