Category: Top Dog

I just got my boy yesterday. He loves

To eat everything so I have to watch him closely. Whenever I take him outside he doesn’t go unless he’s been holding it all night. Like he won’t go before bed or anything either. Pee or poop. So I tried taking him in the backyard instead and he just started shaking like he was scared. He’s been eating like he should and I’m not sure what’s going on. Any help please 🙏

So I have been struggling immensely with my baby, I am a first time pet owner, and I feel so exhausted and overwhelmed.

I will keep the focus on my baby for now, as I want the best for him.

He bites. Fairly 70% of the time. I think, the biting isn’t a problem in itself, I have read ALOT, watched ALOT, and I am trying my best here, but something happens to him at moments. He has fits. He also humps two of the soft toys that I initially thought he loved playing with. He growls and attacks. To bite. He becomes aggressive and runs frantically.

He digs in the bed and scratches it to the furthest extent with his paws. His general biting is fine but when he has these episodes, he just isn’t under any control.

Things I have tried:

1. Giving him rest. He sleeps but then wakes up and starts crying. He sometimes gets up nice, other times, the same frantic. I have a playpen in the living room, and he sleeps there. I do not have a bedroom big enough for the play pen to be. I sleep in the living room infront of him. Initially I thought I would desensitise him with the TV, but for the sake of his fits related to not napping enough, I use earphones now.

2. Re-direct with toys. He gets bored with one toy v easily. He then plays with bottles, wallets, random stuff. But again, he is so moody, he sometimes plays with them, other times, he just growls and pounces on me, to attack quite literally.

3. I tell him no. I say that to him loudly. It can be a hit or a miss, but he def comes back in sometime. I walk away, and it works, but how do I stop this behaviour, I can solve things temporarily, like 50% times, but he isn’t showing any improvement on a daily basis.

4. I am scared of his behaviour, not for my safety, but for his upbringing. Am I doing something wrong here? I try to play with him as much as possible, he has learnt fetch to an extent, idk what else to do, he is just disinterested.

5. I am considering professional training for him, is it too soon? What treats can I introduce to train him?

PLEASE HELP ME OUT HERE!

every now and then my 11 week old puppy will poop or pee in the middle of eating or drinking. i know this can be expected as their bladders and stomachs are small, but does this mean i should make her meals smaller and fill less water in the bowl?

sometimes she’ll cry to go out and we can catch it in time, but other times she’ll just go when she needs to. we live in an apartment building, so it’s not realistic to have her hold her pee or poop until we’re outside if it’s super urgent.

not sure if this is more of a scheduling problem or a serving size problem.

Hello there! I have an 18 week old German shepherd and a lot of anxiety that comes with overthinking and questioning if I’m doing things right. I’ve gotten so much conflicting advice as to whether I should let strangers pet her or not. She does really well in public and will ignore people/walk past with me (although she does notice everyone she’ll look up to me and keep walking only rarely sitting down to watch them and needing a redirect) but at home she does a more stern bark at people walking by (if she’s late for a nap, she gets really upset and walks me to my coat like she wants me to take her outside to investigate/bark her head off at the passerby) We currently are enrolled in puppy classes and plan to move to protection/bite work eventually. I just wanted to ask, do I need to worry about socializing her as far as letting her say hello to strangers? Or should I focus on keeping her engaged with me and praising for sitting by me as they go past? Last question if you’ve made it this far in my ramble, she will only potty/poo in the backyard. She will hold it if we go to the nature center or a trail/walk until she gets back to the backyard. Thank you for letting me ask these questions, I’m determined to give this pup the best life possible, she’s so smart and wants to please me so bad. I don’t want to let her down.

I have two labs and I don’t have enough space for two crates in the backseat (I kind of also don’t like it). We have a long-hour car ride weekly (sometimes two times a week) and they are more comfortable wearing the dog seatbelts and their harnesses. However, one of them chewed almost all the dog seatbelt and I needed to change it. I bought one EZ Dog harness (which is expensive) to try it out, because it uses the car seatbelt and it’s basically impossible for them to bit it since the car seatbelt goes through two handles in their back but my dog really doesn’t like that the seatbelt locks up and he cannot sleep. So he either needs to be lying down all the car ride or sitting. So it’s uncomfortable and he starts to whine which is horrible while I’m driving and trying to focus. Does anyone have any suggestions for which one would be a good option that is more chew proof or any kind advice for what to do? Thank you!

1 1/2 old Pomeranian, anxiety issues. Not going to go into too much detail but, recently started leaving him home alone with no crate. Max 30 minutes. He sits on the couch, if the window is open, stares out the window, if closed, stares at the front door the whole entire time. If he hears a noise he barks. Routinely after about 5-10 min, he gets down, sniffs the front door, walks to basement door (open floor/leave door open for cats) looks down steps, then proceeds back to sit on couch. Then repeats. Other than that, he’s fine? I guess I’m wondering if he is in fact fine. Any thoughts or opinions? Suggestions?

Hi all!

I will be adopting a 12-week old female German Shepherd puppy at the end of the month. I also have an 12 y/o male husky/collie (What a combo, I know.) mix at home. My job has offered me the extreme luxury of taking the puppy into work with me, as half my day is in the field and half is in office. While I'm in the field, we would be traveling a decent bit, but would have the opportunity to take a potty break every 20-30minutes, and in office maybe closer to once an hour. Her and her siblings are currently pee pad trained, but this is less than ideal especially when in office. I will have her for one week before returning to work, and do have the ability to temporarily afford a basic puppy bootcamp at a canine facility near my work. Ultimately, I'm looking for suggestions on how to navigate potty training both at work and home to hopefully lessen any accidents, especially at work. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated, bonus points if you have also potty trained a puppy in a office setting before.

Thank you for reading <3

Hi! My partner and I are dogsitting our friend’s maltipoo for a week while they’re on holiday. She is a delightful dog (about 2 years old, I think, so not actually a puppy?) and she loves me and likes my partner. We’ve dogsat for her at our flat before, so she knows the place, but this is her first time sleeping over. Our friends said that she normally sleeps in the bed with them at home, but my partner can sleep badly easily and, as cute as she is, she’s not our dog, and she’s so little, so I’m not sure whether to let her in with us or not. This is happening live – I’ve shut the door but she’s been having little cries for the last 15 mins or so… should I just let her in? Or will she settle and be ok? Any help gratefully welcomed!!! Thanks 🙏

I’m after some tips/suggestions to help my dog sleep through the night.

He is a 2-year-old Spoodle, quite an anxious boy. We have a really solid nighttime routine which includes going potty, putting on relaxing dog music, giving him his ‘night time’ treat. He knows it’s bedtime and so we have no issue getting him to bed (in his crate, he automatically goes into the crate himself for bed) where he promptly falls asleep.

However, for the last few months he has been waking up sometime anywhere between 3am-530am and starts barking/crying. It isn’t because he is ‘awake’ and ready to play or that he needs to go toilet. It’s because he wants company. Even if we let him out of his crate, he will just immediately fall back asleep on the floor/couch.

We’ve tried ignoring him, but he will just continue to bark/cry (>30min).

The only way to get him to quieten down is for so someone to go downstairs and sleep on the couch next to his crate. The second he hears someone getting up from bed and move, he’ll stop barking/crying and promptly fall back asleep as soon as someone is sleeping on the couch next to him.

We’ve even tried ‘pretending’ to get up. That is, getting up from bed, walking towards the stairs. This results in him going quiet. But then if we sneak back into bed, he soon realises no one is on the couch next to his crate, and he’ll start barking/crying again.

Note- we haven’t been able to identify a trigger that caused this behaviour to start. Nothing really changed over this course of time- just one early morning he started waking up early and has continued since.

It’s certainly not the worst, but it does result in broken sleep for the household and we really just want to be able to get a full nights sleep!

Does anyone have any tips on how to help the dog sleep through the whole night?

My 6 month old pup is off to the groomers tomorrow for the first time, she’s a golden retriever and since she came home I’ve been able to bathe and trim her up at home on my own apparatus but just can’t lift her onto the table now 😭

I know that she’s brave and pretty patient with everything that needs to be done but I just feel so worried about leaving her, she’s going to my cousins salon literally at the top of my road and I know she will be treated so kindly, I’ve just never left her anywhere with someone else before

She was originally booked in for a bath, nail trim, ear clean and de shed but I’ve made sure that all her bits and bobs are done other than a bath so it isn’t too overwhelming, I just hope she isn’t too anxious as she’s struggled with separation anxiety a bit this week which is new and she’s scared of hair dryers

I know it’s better if I’m not there as it will be less confusing but I just don’t want her to feel abandoned even though I do have a feeling she will be far too busy making friends to care