Category: Top Dog

Hi everyone,

Our mini schnauzer (male) has suddenly become disinterested in his lunch right after he turned 5 months old. He still eats his breakfast and dinner.

We had initially planned to stop feeding him lunch at around 6 months old but this may be a natural point to stop (especially if he’s disinterested and not eating it). We don’t want to keep wasting food either!

When did you all stop feeding your dogs lunch/the third meal?

TYIA!

Hey everyone! 👋

So we’re finally getting our Havanese puppy on December 29th — he’ll be 12 weeks old by then! We actually arranged this date with the breeder because we were going on holidays before that, and it just would’ve been too complicated to bring him home earlier.

The upside is that when we do bring him home, we’ll have three full weeks off to focus 100% on him — training, bonding, and just getting him settled in.

But lately I’ve been getting a bit nervous… he’s been growing up in a really rural, countryside environment, and we live right in the city center of Paris. I’m worried that the sudden change at 12 weeks — new people, new noises, new smells, traffic, etc. — might be overwhelming or affect his socialization window.

Has anyone else brought a puppy home around that age from the countryside to a busy city Did your pup adapt okay? Any tips on helping him adjust smoothly without too much stress? Should I be doing anything special to make sure he gets enough socialization in that first week or two?

I just want to make sure we’re setting him up for success — we’re so excited to welcome him, I just don’t want the big change to be too much for the little guy.

My goldendoodle dog is 12 months old, and the last few weeks have been absolute chaos with him. He is jumping and biting/nipping and is not listening to commands. It’s really scary for most everybody around him and especially for my older age parents. He’s in training once a week and to be honest, I’m not sure that anything is going to work with him. This is the third round of training that he’s been in and I do my absolute best to reinforce everything at home. It’s definitely not a perfect system, but I really don’t know what else to do. I take him for walks several times a day. I play with him. This includes puzzles, fetch (although he doesn’t ever really bring the thing back), tug, and I use his treats for different types of fun activities where he learns different things. He’s well fed and gets pretty good rest throughout the day. It never seems like it’s enough of anything. Is this adolescence? How did you handle it?

My dog just turned 1 year old yesterday. The entire time I’ve had him, going to work and school makes me so sad. He has toys, food, water, and my family members when I’m gone. But I think our bond is too strong, if that’s even possible lol. I’ve literally been considering online school so i have more time with him during the day. Only because when I’m gone, he doesn’t eat, I don’t notice any of his toys out of his toy bin, and I’ve been told he doesn’t always go poop/pee when I’m not home. When he was super young he had bad separation anxiety (as most puppies do) and it 100% has gotten so much better. But the not eating really bothers me. I thought he’d eventually get over that too. Is this normal? Does anyone else’s dog do absolutely nothing until you get home?

Can I teach my big dog to not play with the small dogs toys?? He rips them up in .5 seconds. Or do my small dogs just have to have big dog type, indestructible rubber and rope toys now?

We have a 14 week old corgi and we’ve had him since 8 weeks. He’s is in the final stages of potty training, where he knows going inside is a no no and will sometimes alert us! But sometimes I just take him out because I know his digestive schedule. He’s only peed in the house twice, and both were times where we thought he alerted but also couldn’t really tell. So my first question is: How do you teach them to not only go outside, but also alert they need to go? I was hoping I would eventually be able to ween him off me forcing him to go outside, and he just goes when he has to. Is this something that will just come in time? I’m aware we are still in the early stages.

Secondly, crate training. So he is crate trained, although he now sleeps through the night with us because for some blessed reason he can sleep through the night pretty easily, and the times he hasn’t he woke us up from sleeping to potty. So currently he’s only in the crate Sun-Tues when my husband and I’d work overlaps. I was hoping one day he’d be able to just roam in a confined area like our living room. Is this an eventually possibility? Or do most people never graduate from the crate because they prefer it? More looking advice/input from people who do/don’t leave their dogs to roam and why? Obviously he’s not in any position to do this anytime soon, but eventually?

My boyfriend and I adopted a 10 month old puppy about 3 weeks ago. He is the sweetest little guy and has done really well with training so far. My only persisting issue with him is the fear of loud/somewhat loud noises. For example, the other day (i live in an apartment) i took him out the back to the little grassy field that we go to for potty. across the field is the other buildings lot/dumpster. A garbage truck was picking up the trash when we walked out, and he LOST his mind. peed on my foot, tail tucked, practically dragged me back to the building door. It’s not just garbage trucks specifically, it could be a loud car or motorcycle, construction, etc. I feel so SO bad for him but also lost on how we can overcome this (if at all). Any advice appreciated, thank you!

Or maybe the question is more, does your dog also become a landshark demon until you take them outside and what do you know, they had to poop? (and no, I don't mean the obvious smelling the ground intensely while walking in circles).

For context, my 15 week old Golden Retriever has been great for the past 1-2 weeks of going to the door when she needs to pee. But when it comes to poop, it's like a switch has turned and she goes from cuddling/playing/sleeping sweetly to a possessed landshark immediately biting my arms, hands, ankles, feet, clothes, anything she can get her mouth on, really. She's not hurting me most of the time, it's just like a 0 to 100 energy shift.

I try to make sure she gets 16-20 hours of sleep a day and is not over/under-stimulated as much as possible. This specific type of biting is different than when shes overtired since that's more playful/accidental.

I mainly ask out of curiosity as this is my first Golden Retriever and puppy that is 100% mine and mine alone. My childhood dog (terrier/chihuahua mix) has always been a "freeze and look guilty" type where she moves slowly until she poops and has immediate zoomies/burst of energy. My sister has a lab/great pyr mix and a super mutt (German shepherd/border collie/golden retriever/doberman/american Staffordshire terrier/etc. lol, the list goes on) I've spent endless time with and they never seemed to do this, even as a puppy.

Hopefully she'll outgrow this and will continue to sit at the door to indicate she has to go potty lol.