Category: Top Dog

I have been really stressed thinking my puppy had separation anxiety but now I'm not so sure. We have only had him a week and I know he is still adjusting

However today after breakfast, a walk, and playing we put him in his pen with toys, bed and a chew so we could do some work. We were 6 feet away assembling a bed and he whined and whined and whined just sitting there not stressed at all but upset because we wouldn't let him sit next to us. This lasted less then 10 minutes and then he went to sleep.

Another example is if he can hear someone in another room even if we are with him he starts to whine and I think it's because he can't go see what's going on

I think he is like a kid and gets upset when he doesn't understand or can't get what he wants

Has anyone else seen similar behaviors and it wasn't anxiety? Did they out grow it with time and understanding?

My pups are currently 6 weeks old and I've never had to potty train before.

I work 7am-3pm (out of house) My fiance works 1pm-1am (in house)

Current feeding schedule is 1am, 7am, 1pm, and 7pm.

I know we should take them out after every feeding and play. But should we be doing more?

(Obviously we haven't started this yet since they are getting their first puppy shots tomorrow and they won't be going outside until fully vaccinated. But I wanted to get some help before I really need it lol)

Currently we have puppy pads in the bathroom (the room they live in currently) by the door. For the most part they both use it which is awesome (there are still the occasional accidents on the floor – hence why we keep them in the bathroom for easy cleanup).

Any help would be appreciated!

I’m honestly at a loss and could really use help. Our Chihuahua puppy is 3.5 months old, and it’s currently extremely cold where we live (around -20), so for safety reasons we can’t take her outside. She has a playpen with a designated potty area where we use pee pads on a plastic tray, but she still prefers to pee and poop on the carpet. Our entire second floor is carpeted, and even when I let her out of the pen just a few times a day, she’s so fast that she has an accident almost immediately.

Our first floor is hard flooring, and I’ve put pee pads there as well, but she goes directly on the hard floor instead of the pads. I do try to be very intentional with timing. After naps and meals, I wait with her in the playpen until she goes, but she can sit there for an hour without doing anything. The moment I let her out, she goes on the floor. What’s especially confusing is that at night she does pee and poop on the pads inside the playpen without any issues.

I’ve gone through countless enzymatic cleaners already. I tried a fake grass potty, but she chews and eats it, and real grass options are very expensive. At this point, I genuinely don’t know what to do.

So I have a female yorkie who‘s very smart. I’m having an issue wherein she knows where the potty is and she knows to pee/poo there when I’m looking at her but the moment I do not supervise her (ie i just leave the door open to the potty area), she pees/poos on the floor. The potty itself is clean, I just washed it and all. I really don’t understand this behavior of hers. Does anyone have any idea why?

I even tried to heavily praise and reward her when she goes to the potty in the right place but still I get this peeing on the floor thing.

Hey everyone,

I have a 6 month old cavoodle/cavapoo who my partner and I have been crate training to sleep inside crate overnight for the last 2 months (before that we didn't have the pup so we don't know how he was sleeping). He was doing well with the crate at night however we did need to lie infront of the crate and wait for him to fall asleep before leaving him or he would start to cry/bark (this never got better). Most nights we would have to do this multiple times as we would leave and he would wake up shortly after or hear us getting into bed and wake up & start crying/barking. Once finally settled he would sleep through the whole night rarely waking up during which was great. We keep the crate in our living room which is next to our bedroom so we can hear him.

This week all of a sudden our attempts to settle him in his crate have become very challenging. It all started when one night I did the usual routine of laying down infront of the crate and wait for him to fall asleep however everytime I left he would cry and bark and wouldn't settle so it took about 3 hours or repetition to settle him. He eventually went to sleep until he woke up at 4am barking. I thought he must need to pee/poo so took him outside to our fake grass patch however he didn't go so I lured him back into his crate. He then continued to cry/bark even when I was laying infront of his crate so I let him out a second time and he threw up before being let outside again. We then took him for a walk thinking he also needed to poo (as he refuses to poo on his fake grass patch and anywhere in our courtyard – will basically only poo somewhere random around the neighbourhood) which he did on our walk at 5am (we are not morning people and would never normally be awake that early). We were exhausted from minimal sleep and worried as he had been sick so we let him sleep at the foot of our bed from 5am for the rest of the morning. (I'm worried this is where he worked out he could get into our bed by crying/barking).

The following night we could not get him to settle in his crate. I decided maybe we try to put him in his gated off pen area to sleep which we have done once before and it went ok. He wouldn't settle in there and would cry and bark as soon as we walked away. I then tried pretending to sleep in the pen with him which eventually worked after a couple hours and he slept the whole night.

Last night I decided to try bring his crate into our bedroom so he could be close to us in the hopes he would settle easier. This didn't work as he would cry and bark the whole time seemingly even more distressed then being left in the crate in tjw livingroom (ad he could see us and not get to us?). I then tried placing him in the pen area as it had kind of worked the previous night however he would cry and bark as soon as I left the pen. We caved in and let him sleep in our bed as we were both exhausted and have jobs and things we need to function for and were feeling very triggered and defeated from the last few nights wondering how all our trainung work had just gone out the windows.

I never wanted him sleeping in our bed. My partner and I are both light sleepers and find a dog in bed to be uncomfortable and a distraction. Now we feel its our only option for peace 🥲. We just want him to be able to sleep on his own in a safe space which is either the crate or the pen.

Has anyone had a similar experience and figured out how to make it work?

Other info: – We don't have a problem leaving him at home alone. We leave him in the living room for up to 5hrs and he doesn't bark or fret just naps on the floor or couch whilst we are gone. We don't believe he has separation anxiety. – He usually gets 2 walks a day. One at the dog park where hes gets to be off leash and one in the evening on leash around the neighbourhood (so he can do his final poo for the evening). – Our daily shechules change depending on what's happening and what we need to do so sometimes hes left alone at different parts of the day or taken out at different parts of the day so no strict routine. -His crate is big and has a cover over the top. We keep the front cover open so he can see out. Inside he has a nice soft lining for the bed and a blanket along with a toy of 2. – Hes not a super attached puppy and is fine if we leave him in a separate room most of the time. Only occasionally will he get upset if we go to the bathroom or bedroom and leave him behind.

I took in a newborn pit/pyrenees puppy due to bad housing situation but im clueless on what to get him and even where to start to take care of him properly

Help!

Hoping others have experienced this.

We hit 10 weeks today and the past few days we have encountered a whole new beast. Our pup has always been a heavy biter. It's testing but we were managing it with regular enforced naps. Things have shifted into what seems like aggression? Is that possible at his age? The biting seems to be intentionally to hurt us and is accompanied by this awful sort of growling (?) / barking sound? He's sounds outright NASTY tbh. If he were an adult do i'd be frightened of him.

What's going on here? He's recently had a vet check and we mentioned it to check for pain but he didnt show any signs of pain at the vet and tbh it isnt triggered by touch. He doesnt it when we go to clip his lead on and he goes crazy doing it at our feet 😭 This is my first time experiencing the puppy blues with him and its because a) im scared im getting an aggressive dog and b) he's truly unlikeable when he does this.

Is this all part of the puppy phase? Does anyone else have a nasty little ferret on their hands?

ETA im really not sure i described the sound well. It's the sound they make when your playing tug with them? Not a growl really? It's an awful sound.

We have a 14-week-old Swiss Shepherd that we’ve had for 3 weeks. He has a major fear of being confined. Crating at night is fine, but during the day, the second he’s in the crate and I leave the room, he screams like crazy. It feels like every time we try it, it’s getting worse. Last week, he could settle in under 5 minutes, but now it’s over 10, which seems way too long.

We do daily crate games, and he happily goes in on his own, but once he’s actually locked in, it’s a whole different story. The playpen is even worse, so we basically gave up on that.

In about a month, he’ll need to be left alone for around 2 hours in the mornings, and right now that feels impossible. Has anyone dealt with something similar and seen improvement? Any unconventional tips?

The tricky part is that he will only nap in the crate and won’t settle outside of it, so crating is absolutely necessary. He just needs to learn to be okay alone in there too.

Hello, I have adopted an 8 week old maltipoo yesterday from someone that was selling her and I've noticed that she doesn't react to any noise not even the vacuum !! I've checked around and there's so many different answers, could she possibly be deaf? Or just overstimulated and confused?? The previous owner didn't mention this and I know I should've asked beforehand, but my husband made a vet appointment for this week, I don't care if she's deaf or not she will be loved the same as before. I just want to know if this is normal or has happened to anyone else with maltipoos!! Thank you.

Our rescue was fostered with other dogs before we got her, and she loved being chased by them. She's 2 years old, about 35lbs, mostly staffie, but with long legs, and she loves to run FAST. She loves saying hi to other dogs and people, but in the past six months or so, she's been really overreacting when other dogs play rough with her. I don't think these dogs are trying to hurt her, but when their teeth come out at all, she goes after them like she's defending her life. That happened today, and no one got hurt, but she really scared the other dog.

Does anyone here have experience getting their dog (and themselves) socialized to recognize play versus real aggression?