Category: Top Dog

We have a (what we believe) GSD cross. I say believe as when we rehomed him he was sold to us as a Groenendael BSD which he does have a similar fur pattern (black with the white strip on his chest) but as he got older we noticed tan was coming though on his paws and he seems to have more of a GSD face and build.

The boy is 2 in Feb, and since we got him around a year ago we have had a constant issue with his night routine where he refuses to wind down. Now this is only an issue if there is more than one person in the room. If it is just me, or just my partner he will happily lie on the couch or spots on the floor. But, if there is more than one person he just does not settle. He will pace. He will be up and down and he just won't relax. We've taken him out later at night to try and tire him out prior but he is persistent.

Someone mentioned to us to try tethering him, so for the past couple of nights when it gets later and we need him to wind down and relax we take his lead and we tether him to the couch. He has enough lead so he can plod around a bit to get comfy (in truth, he has enough to jump up onto the couch if he wanted). I don't know if its a teething thing but he hates it. He's quite vocal anyway, especially if he's grumpy (and probably the GSD genes) but eventually he will lie himself down and I will give him a fuss to let him know he's done good and he's a good boy.

Now the question is, am I doing this right? Is it too late to have started this? Are there other methods that we can use?

We have a senior dog (15 yo shepherd mix) who always pees in the same spot outside. I wouldn’t mind, but it is right by the foot of our stairs. It smells awful and the urine puddles constantly on the sidewalk. We have two other dogs that go outside throughout the day and they are constantly stepping in it (and bringing it in the house).

I am honestly just happy she’s still making it outside. So I don’t feel the need to make her move locations.

Is there anything I can put down in the grass to absorb the urine (and in a dream world soak up the scent of concentrated urine)?

this is kinda a silly question but i really just don’t know the answer. we’re getting a 10 week old dog soon and might want to change her name. i’m sure she’ll learn her new one just fine but im still curious

Hey everyone! I’m hoping to get some advice about my 2-year-old Pomsky, Simba. He’s full of energy and very loved, but he has a habit that I don’t fully understand.

Simba paces constantly, running room to room throughout the day—even though he gets 3 walks a day, at least an hour each, and has plenty of toys. He eats, drinks, and goes to the bathroom normally. He’s been doing this since we got him at 6 weeks old, and it’s never been related to bathroom needs—he’ll whine if he actually needs to go.

Even when everyone is home, he’ll pace non-stop. Sometimes, if I’m home alone, he will rest and calm down a bit. But most of the time, he seems anxious and can’t settle, and we’ve never left him home alone because of it.

I’ve tried ignoring it, but it doesn’t stop. Has anyone experienced this with their dogs? Any tips or advice on how to help him feel calmer would be amazing! ❤️

Our SUV has two captains chairs in the 2nd row, which are usually occupied by our kids. Are there any 3rd row seat extenders, or would any seat extender work if the dimensions fit. It would be great if there was one with an opening between the captains seats for our dog to get into the 3rd row area.

I recently bought the Canada pooch suspenders and I believe the boots are very like the right size for my dog, but they do seem short on his legs (they aren’t the short version). Despite fully adjusted to longest length, this also creates what I think is added pressure across the back.

But maybe even moreso, the connection between front and back also seems very short and the back suspenders really seem to want to pull forward. It feels like it would overall impact his ability to extend and his gait.

Anyone using these or another form of dog gaiters?

Here are some photos of them on my dog, adjusted to what I believe is the “longest” fit

https://imgur.com/a/9h7oTIr

We got a puppy earlier this year; he is roughly 9 months. We are the third owners so I don't know his exact age.

Anyway, he never barks but we would like him to. We live on a farm just outside of town, and it would be great if he alerted us when someone was in the driveway. Additionally, crime is up in our area, and it would be fantastic if he barked at intruders. We don't want him to be vicious, just enough to let us know someone is there and to let potential intruders know we are aware they are there.

We've had him for 4 months. The only time he barks is at our gator tires. And once at a snake.

Sorry if this has been asked before, but most posts are trying to get dogs to STOP barking, but I'd like to teach my dog to START barking.

Hi! We have a 5 year old smaller mixed dog. He is a rescue, but the entire time we’ve had him he has been EXCELLENT about his potty training. Never once have we had an issue

Fast forward to about 2 weeks ago, the poor guy got really sick. We took him to the vet, the ER, and basically they just said he had a bad stomach bug. He did poop in the house, puke in the house, but all while we were sleeping. He doesn’t really have cues for needing to go to the bathroom. We cleaned the absolute shit out of those areas.

Now, present day, the dude is healthy, totally back with energy and feeling great. Except this morning we stepped in a giant pile of poop. Healthy poop. Wtf poop.

What do we do? I don’t want this to become a habit – him pooping in the middle of the night. He goes on frequent long walks, so this is all surprising behavior.

Help!

I have a rescue dog (four yr old F (suspected) Finnish laphund I've had her for about a week now) she resource guards (both bed and food) she has recently (just today) started sleeping in my bed, she slept next to me for a few minutes she has a startle reflex when she sleeps (which I wasn't told about) and bit me ( it scared me more than it hurt me but it did leave a mark) I sent her out of the room ( she's very obedient) and waited for a few minutes before I interacted with her, I made the decision not to let her sleep in the bed with me yet for safety reason. Just a little bit ago I was heading to bed and was telling her 'off' ( from just outside the room, calling her name gently, ) we then proceeded to have a long session of bared teeth growling and snarling that I stood my ground through and she eventually stopped dropping her head and moving off the bed and into another room where I was pointing (she has a xl crate in there and that was where I wanted her to go, but I'm working on that) she came over later doing the " oh hi you're here" butt wiggles with a lowered head I gave her some pats and she tried to come back up again and I sent her away towards her crate.

What I want to know is: if it was a good decision to let her sleep on my bed while I'm not in it ( I feel like I shouldn't, but that it also a good opportunity to show her that I won't back down when she growls at me even though she does generally listen when I tell her to ' stop' and 'leave it' as well as I good opportunity to show her she needs to listen to me)

Is it a good idea to show her that her growling, snarling and lunging don't scare me?

Or should I just make my room a "restricted area" and keep the door closed when I'm not there ( I can't sleep with it closed as I have some PTSD)?

I want to also add she has other beds

She use to be beaten and kicked a lot by her previous owner and made to sleep outside tied to a clothes line, so she use to being alone and not near people all the time ( she won't wear collars or leads now because of it) even segregated herself off from her foster carers as well

She is a good dogs and it's early days yet, most things I've figured out on my own but I want opinions on what I should do.

I'm trying to tackle one hurdle at a time… And there's a lot of them.

Hello all, me and my girlfriend have a 20 month old working line female intact German Shepherd. We have had her for five months and in that time she has settled well in the house and we have undergone lots of training with her. She is very well behaved not reactive and fairly well socialised her only issues are slight separation anxiety which we have been working on and occasionally she can be overprotective for instance she may Bark when a member of our extended family hugs us, I will now refer to her as S.

We have wanted to get her a doggy friend for awhile as we thought she would enjoy having someone to socialise and play with, we settled on a five month old Akita/GSD cross we will refer to him as B.

Outside the house, S gets along with B and they have both shown an indication of wanting to play, i.e. Play bows, loose open body language. We have kept them both on lead for now while they build up their relationship.

However inside the house, inside the car, and around people which S considers to be high value S is showing aggressive or distressed behaviour towards B such as barking, growling and thrashing around. This behaviour is most notable when S is in her crate and B is free. We have tried to avoid this as much as possible to create a level playing field however sometimes taking B to the toilet means that we have to cross past the crates which S is in.

We have kept them on lead in the house when they’re not in their crates and generally they ignore each other and relax, this is also the case at bedtime each one sleeps on a different side of our bed.

We have contacted a trainer however due to the time of year we most likely won’t have a face-to-face appointment for a couple of weeks, the advice so far has been to keep them in their crates however as we are finding S to be more reactive in her crate we are not sure whether in this case that’s the best way to move forward.

What should we do? Any advice would be much appreciated – thanks in advance.