Category: Top Dog

Have a now 8 month old boxer mix pup that was found on the side of the road about a month and a half ago. Foster home didn’t potty train him and we’ve had him for about a month now. It HAS improved, I will say; but it is still insanely frustrating. He knows potty is outside – but has absolutely 0 patience if we take a second too long. He will go to the door to signal outside, but if we don’t immediately get to him he will just go. Absolutely will refuse to hold it. Only time he will try to hold it is at night while we sleep or in the crate, but he still has accidents in the crate. He goes outside SO often, like we take him out constantly. I just need someone to tell me that it will get better.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for perspective because there is SO much information online about reactivity/fear periods/guarding that I’m starting to overanalyze everything.

We have a 4.5 month old rescue poodle mix (left at a shelter with two littermates). She arrived a week ago. We live in a busy townhouse neighborhood bike lane, train, lots of foot traffic and dogs. Household is me, my husband, our 10-year-old, and a 2-year-old cat. We “share” the backyard with the neighbors homes, fences in between but pretty much connected. Almost every neighbors has dogs.

The good:

She’s incredibly cuddly and very people-oriented with people she knows. She learns extremely fast (sit, down, working on leave it/stay/recall). Great in her crate, sleeps through the night, mostly potty trained.

She LOVES playing puppy zoomies in the backyard and is also a highly skilled sock finder. If there is a missing sock anywhere in this house, she will locate it immediately and proudly present it. 😂

At the vet and with a trainer she barked initially but warmed up quickly with treats and did great. Visitors are fine as long as she doesn’t see them arriving. Dog store visit was mostly fine too.

What we’re working on:

Still building tolerance with our cat (seems more curious than aggressive, baby gates in place).

Backyard barking, this is the big one. She has a deep bark and will bark at neighbors walking by, gates opening, etc. If we’re actively playing she ignores everything. If she’s just out there and hears something, she goes into bark mode.

Near our house / front door: if people are walking toward our direction, even just passing in front of our house and coming toward us on the sidewalk she barks a lot and sounds intense. If someone walks directly toward us on a walk, same thing. If I jog or create distance, she disengages.

Dogs are mostly a trigger, though today she saw one across the street and just kept walking normally. 

Inside she’s wonderful. Outside (especially near the house or when people approach our “bubble”) she sounds very serious.

Does this sound like a normal fear period at this age? Early guarding/alert behavior? Environmental sensitivity?reactivity?

I’m trying to manage exposure thoughtfully without either avoiding everything or overwhelming her. Would love to hear from anyone who had a similar puppy and what helped most at this stage.

Hi,

My husband and me adopted a 4 month rescue about a month back. I am a 9-5 WFH researcher while my husband works as a doctor at the hospital nearby. We live in an apartment in the first floor.

We had trained our dog to pee/poop in the balcony with pee pad since for first few days he refused to move from one spot under the sofa and also because we both work and couldn't carry him downstairs everytime. Now, he walks freely towards the main entrance.

We would like to transition him to do his toilet outside. We keep taking him out every two hours or whenever he starts to sniff. He started to pee in the car park for a week and now he refuses it. He doesn't do potty outside at all and does it inside the house/balcony as once as he enters home even after 2-3 hours of being outside.

For eg., Today I took him out from crate at 7.30 am and waited 20 minutes. No activity and brought him inside work room. Then he started to sniff within two minutes inside my work room and I rushed out. No activity again at 8.10. I crated him for 15 minutes. (We cant close the crate – another fear factor). Within a moment of stepping out of the crate, he peed and pooped. Barely gave me second to carry him down.

I can't zip the crate or close any doors due to his anxiety where he will bark and cry forever. I can't go and stand in the cold without a minute to wear a coat and shoes and during that time gap- he pees or poops inside the room. I have work to do and I am not able to step out every half hour. Please tell me how working people managed this situation.

The trainer asked to take him every 2 hours or so to pee/poop. I have been taking him every half hour and since morning and he only does it at home. I can realistically do this all day. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks a lot!!

i got a puppy (almost 3 months old) a couple of days ago (5 days exactly), and i need help with cage training. the crate is downstairs, and my bedroom is upstairs. i read about getting the puppy on the crate, staying with her a couple of minutes then leaving for a set amount of time, then increasing said time when she gets used to being alone, but i put her in the crate to sleep also, and she cries a lot, it breaks my heart, but i cant have her roaming the house at night yet. usually when she is put in the crate she cries for a couple of minutes (10/15 at max) then stops, also destroys the sheets of paper i put on the cage in case she pees. is it possible to still do crate training? i dont want the crate to feel like a punishment for her

Dark room, she was curled up on the carpet right where I swung my feet down to stand up. She didn’t squeal or make any noise really, but I definitely squished her a bit. She got up and ran away and when I tried to make amends with her she got scared and ran away from me. 😞

I don’t think I put too much pressure on her but I checked to make sure she was okay and monitored her. No signs of being in pain, or anything else wrong. I coaxed her back to me with a treat and she has seemingly forgotten about it by now but that doesn’t make me feel any less like a piece of shit.

I have a GSD/Husky mix (50/50) and 9 weeks old, but she only weighs about 4lbs. She has a hard time eating her kibble just because she’s so small. She has all of her baby teeth of course, but I didn’t know she was going to be as small as she is. I started feeding her 1/4 cup of wet food and 1/4 of dry food mixed together twice a day, but I don’t know if this is enough or too much or what just because I’ve never had such a small puppy and everything goes off of projected adult weight which I just don’t know. Her dry food is purina one instinct puppy and her wet food is purina one lamb and rice. I was gonna post a pic in the comments but it won’t let me 😂

Our puppy is 19 weeks old. We tried our first puppy playdate today. The other puppy is 17 weeks and similar in size. The other puppy was very boisterous, pushy, and excited. Ours was timid and nervous.

We tried twice to let them interact, but both times the other quickly over took ours and we removed ours from the situation after a few seconds each time. He was clearly VERY nervous and uncomfortable, but he was a very good boy and never reactive. He cowered and shook.

My concern is that he'll continue to be fearful in the future. What should I do to move forward? And does this interaction sound traumatic? The other puppy wasn't mean, she is just a wild/ill-mannered thing.

We won't be doing another playdate with her, by the way. At least not until ours is more experienced.

We have a couple of friendly, and very well socialized, adult neighbor dogs that he's "met" (calmly observed) and we plan to get together. Should I be worried about today's interaction making him fearful when he meets them?

gentle advice is appreciated!

Hi all! I have a 4-month-old maltipoo who is (mostly) doing great. She's housebroken, knows sit, stay, place, etc. we've gotten nipping under control, she is extremely social and confident in public, and sleeps through the night in her crate. However, we're definitely struggling with separation anxiety and could also use some help walking on a lead (she tries to get pets from every single person we pass lol) Does anyone have recommendations for trainers in SW London who would work for this stage of training? Open to working with a private trainer or joining a puppy class. Thanks!!

We just got a new puppy 4 weeks ago. She’s lovely – ofc bitey, peeing everywhere but a lovely sweet dog when she’s chilled out, 14 weeks old now. I also sit a 4y/o for my parents, who has been only dog her whole life. Older dog isn’t massively well socialised. My parents don’t do a lot of training with her at home, if any – I trained her when they brought her home (with no warning, me being the only person in the house working from home) and was with her most of the week because of this for nearly 3 years, until I moved put and felt I had to keep dogsitting. She’s been a great little dog but she doesn’t always listen to me as she gets away with so much at home, has guarding behaviours over socks especially, and is not quickly warming up to the puppy. Puppy gets so excited to see people, especially older dog, and hasn’t quite learned how to keep calm yet.

I know it can take months for an older dog to accept a puppy, but this is puppy’s home and I’m unsure if older dog’s behaviour is appropriate, or if I’m even doing right by them. Here’s what I’m doing:

– Crate training puppy

– Keeping both separated with puppy in her playpen and older dog allowed to roam

– Doing simple training and treats with puppy in pen and older dog on the floor or couch

– Allowing them short sessions to sniff each other or be outside together (puppy on lead)

– Playing with puppy in pen, having cuddles with older dog on couch when puppy sleeps (older dog not always interested in play when at mine, she often sleeps – parents don’t have control of how often she’s getting up in the night and just let her wake them to go outside 2-4 times)

– Letting older dog roam and puppy stay in pen while I’m at work for ~4 hours a few times a week (this I think might need reigning back if older dog’s behaviour is not so concerning that she needs to stop coming)

– Training puppy to settle when at home with just me, and when older dog is around.

– Stepping between and telling puppy no / leave when she gets too bouncy for older dog.

Older dog will growl at puppy a lot. She’ll have spells where she doesn’t growl and tolerates but she will paw at puppy to tell her to stop jumping up / bouncing / pawing, then escalate to growling, snarling and pinning. She seems to be pinning more often, and this morning after older dog seemed very interested in puppy – jumping up on me to sniff her, wagging her tail, while I carried her – older dog immediately started snarling and pinning puppy down when I gently put her on the floor. I know correcting is normal, useful and necessary, but when is correcting turning into bullying, when is it too much consistently? Puppy will try to play by bum-in-the-air stretching, pawing and barking.

Older dog is in no way my responsibility financially and I can’t spend tons of time or money on a trainer.

Is it concerning that older dog escalates quickly, growls a lot, would growl and pin that quickly?

I want to be asking parents to consult a trainer, or otherwise older dog can’t come to our house and puppy can’t visit theirs if she’s being bullied or is unsafe. Am I right in doing so? Any similar situations that turned out fine, or needed professional intervention?

I love my dog more than anything, but honestly… this is breaking me.

The panic, the screaming when I leave, the destruction, the fear he’ll hurt himself. I can’t even run to the store without stressing the whole time.

Everyone says “just train more” or “get a sitter” like it’s that simple. It’s not.

Some days I feel like my whole life is on pause because I can’t leave my house normally.

Just wondering… am I the only one feeling this way?