Category: Top Dog

My husband and I rescued a mixed breed puppy about 2 months ago, and she’s driving us crazy. Some info about her: She’s now about 6 months old and weighs about 30 pounds. We did a doggy DNA test, and she’s a mix of 19 different dogs – all of them with some sort of working background. Biggest percentages are catahoula leopard dog (18%) and GSD (17%). We don’t know much about her life before us, except that she seemed very undernourished/malnourished, had fleas when the rescue got her, and had a scar on her face about the size of a penny where the fur is probably never going to regrow.

About our family: we’re repeat dogs owners and have been exceptionally lucky. Our first two were mixed breed littermates who we managed to avoid any littermate syndrome with. They were honestly not that bright but were very kind and good tempered, and we loved them lots. Our third (and current) is a 2.5 year old 100 pound black lab/mastiff mix who is pretty much my heart outside of my body. She is the sweetest most lovely dog I’ve ever met. For all of our past dogs, we really haven’t had to focus much on obedience. It’s been more about making sure they were calm and kind, and we’ve had a lot of success.

So what’s going on with our puppy? She is SUPER reactive to food. She barks constantly when we’re getting her meals together (she’s always fed with a snuffle mat) and she practically launched herself into her kennel where she eats. When she even sees the treat bag come out for training, she loses her mind and barks and jumps and tries to grab it. I’ve had a fair amount of success teaching her leave it, but that impulse control isn’t translating to anything else. She gets CRAZY zoomies where she ping pongs herself around the room for up to 15 minutes at a time. She barks at us whenever she gets frustrated, like when our other dog is chewing a toy she wants or pretty much whenever we tell her no. She still bites a lot when she gets excited/overstimulated. Today, we had some friends over to play a board game, and it was like the presence of other people in the house was just too much. She kept jumping on our friends over and over, barking incessantly, etc. We even gave her a bully stick that she would chew for 30 seconds, then drop it and bark at us. We’d give it back to her, rinse and repeat. I was so frustrated that I was almost in tears.

She just seems to have no emotional regulation or impulse control, and I don’t know how to train her to develop that. I haven’t had to with any of our other dogs, and I feel like I’m failing her. She had a winter coat that she seems to love wearing and appears to often have some sort of a calming effect. When she gets super amped, if I hold her and try to coregulate somatically, she just kind of melts into me with relief but then runs off crazy again 50% of the time.

The thing is I know there’s a good dog in there. Sometimes, she can be so cute and sweet and smart and playful. And I know part of the problem is that she’s teething. But that’s not the whole problem, and I don’t know what to do. I know it’s on us as her people to help her learn, but I don’t know how to handle this. I’m happy to answer any follow up questions to help direct me towards techniques or resources. Thanks in advance for your help!

I adopted a husky/cattle dog/staffy mix 3 months ago, she’s now 9 months old. When I first got her she was extremely fearful of people but bonded strongly to me. I’ve been working on training and all has been going great she’s made great progress. She’s becoming more comfortable & confident. Will approach people as long as they don’t try to pet her. She let me use the dremel on her nails, brush her from the beginning. Her only fears seemed to be people, dogs barking at her & baths but again slowly working on this.

However this last week it’s like a switch flipped and she is fearful of all grooming. So I thought to start at the beginning & just try re-introducing the dremel or just sit on the floor slowly stroke her with a brush. I didnt do it for long periods or hold her down but I did have her on a leash & wouldn’t let run out of the room. That has backfired, after even a short couple seconds of trying to desensitize something (dremel, brush, blow dryer) she becomes scared of me. She has started cowering away from me, won’t come when called, tonight she even went & hid from me. I don’t want to push too hard and damage her trust in me but grooming is a must. She’s not very food motivated, praise from me seemed to work best up until this. How do you desensitize a puppy when the puppy starts to associate you with the scary things. Any advice would be appreciated!

hi all. basically what the title says. my puppy has been extremely bite-y and nippy today. she is not interested in training today and play time became “bite mom in the ankles over and and over without cease” time. i made sure her needs were met. i even thought she needed to chill in her crate. she would fall asleep but still wake up crazy. she’s usually not like this. any advice ?

Hi everyone,

​I am looking for some advice regarding my 14 week old Goldendoodle. She is doing amazing in many ways since she is already potty trained and sleeps through the night for 10 hours without issue. However, we are hitting a major wall with daytime settling. ​In the seven weeks we have had her, she has never once fallen asleep on her own. We have been training "settling" as a skill, both inside and outside the crate, but during the day it feels like a constant fight. She enters her crate willingly for food and enrichment, but when it is time for an enforced nap, it is like a panic button goes off because she realizes the party is over. ​We found that she falls asleep much faster when the crate is fully covered. Unfortunately, this created a new problem. She wakes up after 30 minutes and panics because she cannot see us. We have tried using a white noise machine which did seem to help but not every time. Because she wakes up so frequently, she does not get quality rest and becomes overtired by the end of the day. ​We are struggling to understand why this happens only during the day when she is so peaceful at night. Any advice on helping her learn to settle would be greatly appreciated.

Hey everyone, I need some advice. I brought my puppy home on December 10th and she was totally fine at first used to snuggle in my lap and wanted to be pet and held in my arms Now she's showing what looks like aggression when I try to pick her up. She bites, growls, and barks at me like she's threatening to really bite.She was completely okay with being picked up before but now all of a sudden she's acting like this. I'll be honest, I took it personally at first and kept picking her up anyway because I felt like she was challenging me

Hello,

I have a 3mo puppy whom is very active and very jumpy. I am looking for a fence/cage because we live in a small apartment and need to keep her in a spot until she's old enough to roam and whatnot.

We currently have a makeshift fence made up of yoga mats, but she's slowly realizing she can climb or jump over.

Here's the dimensions we need for the fence or whatever it's called:

Height: 30"+

Length: 62"+

Ideally a door/gate so folks can open and walkthrough as opposed to climbing over.

Thank you

My sweet, tiny terror puppy has changed overnight. His name is Braxton and he is almost 7 months old. Seemingly overnight, his behavior has changed dramatically. He was fully potty trained but in the last 24 hours has peed on my son’s bed, my bed, the carpet at the foot of my bed and pooped in the living room. He covertly follows me in the bathroom, with me noticing when I sit down on the potty, and tries to steal my pants off my body. He was neutered a month ago but is now taking great pleasure in humping my poor older dog’s head. Is there anything I can do besides just wait it out?

Hey there! I have a 5.5 year old, female German shepherd. Before we moved, she was very active. We would walk at least a mile, and play fetch multiple times daily, along with constant toys/ball hiding games indoors. Ever since our move, she literally has no desire to play with any toys and barely even wants to go outside. She perks up when I ask her if she wants to go on a walk but then we get out there and she walks incredibly slow and trails behind me. She’s a completely different dog and I’ve read a lot online about dog depression and I am thinking she’s been affected by just that.

Has anyone ever dealt with this before? I’ve read mental stimulation is the best way to help pull her out so I give her puzzles and sniff mats more than I ever did before. She’s verrry slowly becoming a dog again, but what else can I do to help her? We’ve been here 4 weeks already, when things are bad she will hide in her safe place (her bed) and just shake uncontrollably. Does there ever reach a point where dog depression causes permanent personality change?

Any and all advice is so incredibly appreciated, and any stories! I just want to get my fun, fetch loving, happy girl back.

My dog is surely super clingy and I don’t know why. She was normally pretty clingy but suddenly it’s a lot worse and I don’t know why or what happened. She suddenly just followed me every step I take a started wining a lot. I just want to make sure that she is ok and see if this is normal behavior. I don’t know if this would have anything to do with it but she is a roughly 4 or 5 year old German Shepard Husky mix.

My golden is a year old and just started running around the yard staring obsessively at the night sky the whole time. She won't listen to anything or come in. Any idea what is going on? Is this normal?