Category: Top Dog

TLDR: The main issue is she is still very wary of any approach of our hands, despite being generally comfy now in the house. Any suggestions on how we can slowly get her to accept enough to put on a collar and leash for walks after 2nd vaccinations + 2 weeks.

She is 10 weeks and 3 days right now. She has spent 4 days in our home. Her breed is Husky. We are meeting all her nutrition needs, and are available all day.

Having previously had an adult rescue husky, my partner and I decided to get a puppy this time. We strongly believe in a no punish, positive reinforcement strategy to training. So I placed the puppy carrier her new area, and gave her time to come out and find her bed and amenities. I was surprised it took her so long to come out and explore, as previous non-husky puppies I've had were a lot more interested in fun and humans, but we were patient and gave her space.

Anyway, with lots of patience and some light name training with treats she is now comfortable to get near to us when we are not moving too much. She even sometimes brings her food bowl out in a bid to get more food outside of her scheduled meal times. She appears to have become comfy, and relatively happy, and has mental toys to play with. Though physical play is a little bit of a difficulty outside of just making her own fun with her toys.

The main issue is she is still very wary of any approach of our hands. As I said earlier, we are not forcing anything. So I've been trying sitting with her and putting a hand in view while she eats or gets a treat. If it is too close, she will either move away, or challenge with a growl or even a bark. Any suggestions or help from people in the know would be super helpful! I really want to be ready for walks when she can do them, as exercise is so necessary for this breed, however I can't imagine getting there without being able to get hands near her. Potty training is temporarily on hold so we can focus on this.

Thanks in advance 😀

sorry for the flare if it’s not the right one I just didn’t know which one to choose but I have a male, long hair Chihuahua that is currently 11 weeks and he’s been in my possession for about two weeks now and I have had nothing but a deep love for this dog. I will be so sad if I do get puppy blues because even the little things that others would find annoying, I actually find endearing and I have so much patience with him. There's nothing he can do that bothers me. I've been doing everything to socialize, train, introduce grooming, etc. And it's all been fun for me. I've three other dogs but I got them when they were older. I can't ever be upset with them either. I try my best to give them a cushy and enriching life. Does everyone experience puppy blues? Is it something that eventually happens or watch out for?

Posting this in case anyone else ends up in a similar situation, because I had no idea about my rights until recently.

I moved into my apartment six months ago with my two dogs and everything was fine until I suddenly got a notice saying I owed a $500 pet deposit plus $50 per month for each dog. That’s $1,100 just to keep my dogs, who are a huge part of how I manage my PTSD.

I started researching and came across the Fair Housing Act, which protects people with emotional support animals. If you have proper documentation from a licensed mental health professional, landlords can’t charge pet fees or deposits, and they can’t refuse to rent to you because of your ESA.

I connected with a legitimate therapist through telehealth, explained my situation, and got the required documentation within 48 hours. I showed it to my property manager along with the relevant federal housing information.

They completely changed their stance no deposit, no monthly pet rent, and they even apologized for the misunderstanding. My dogs are now officially recognized as emotional support animals.

If you’re facing housing discrimination, it’s worth knowing your rights and going through legitimate channels to get documentation. Just make sure to work with licensed professionals, not those sketchy certificate sites that promise quick ESA letters without real evaluations.

Hello! I’m considering adopting my one year old puppy’s litter mate brother. My only main concern is, he’s been here for a few days and he’s already shown resource guarding behaviors toward her around his food.

I feel bad for my dog because she hasn’t shown aggression once in her life, and now she is growling back and get into snipping matches when he starts to growl and show his teeth over food.

Is there any way to change his behavior so that he can share without growling and showing his teeth and lunging at her when he sees her with a treat or food that he wants?

I’m worried about leaving them alone in my apartment, that they might really hurt each other if I’m not there. Aside from this issue they clearly love each other and have a great time playing and being affectionate with one another. Any advice would be greatly appreciate!

I have a 6 month old puppy that was adopted at 2 months old. We live in an apartment building in NYC, so we immediately began training him on puppy pads as we don’t have a yard for him to go in. He picked that up super quick. After about a week of pretty consistent praise and direction, he was good. Would go to the pads to pee and poop without even alerting us.

After he got all his vaccinations, we started walking him, but he wouldn’t pee or poop outside. Obviously it wasn’t ideal, but we had the pads, so we weren’t too concerned about it (mistake, I know.). He would walk for 30 minutes or so after a meal, have no bathroom movements, then after coming back to our apartment, he’ll go straight to the pad and pee and poop.

Starting last week, we’re now trying to make a more concerted effort to get him to go to the bathroom outside, and he’s gotten to be okay peeing outside. Pooping, however, is a different story. He’ll walk around outside like he needs to poop (he’s sniffing like crazy, his tail is all curled up, and he’s doing the waddle), but he simply won’t go. After 45 minutes of this, I take him back inside and he immediately goes to the pad and poops. The few times he has pooped outside, we’ve done big praises and pets, and we’ve tried giving him his treats, but he just ignores them, which also makes reinforcing going outside difficult.

My partner wants to leave the pads down because I go in to work 5 days per week and he works from home, but is unable to let him out consistently throughout the day due to the nature of his work. I didn’t like this idea, but we compromised by placing a pen around the pads and only opening the door and giving access when I’m not at home and he’s at work. Otherwise (mornings, evenings, weekends), the door is closed and we’re diligent about taking him out when he paws at the pen to get to the pad.

Since we don’t have a yard, most advice I’ve seen (saving the poop and putting it in the same place, walking in circles in the same spot, setting up a pen) probably wouldn’t work, but I’m open to being proven wrong about that without my neighbors hating me!

What should we do?

Any advice would be welcome!

As I write this my poor little pup is crying in his crate and I am dying of the sad sounds. He stopped screaming, now he’s just crying. I love him so much it breaks my heart idk what to do.

He’s 6mos old chi mix and was doing sooo good in the crate at night. He didn’t love it but settled quickly, finally at the point of barely even a complaint and sleeping till 7am. It took a lot of incremental work to get him there but I did it bc I didn’t want him to feel scared or sad before bed

Then, he got neutered. I couldn’t leave him in his crate overnight bc I couldn’t monitor if he was licking or not. (He couldn’t wear the plastic cone because he’s tiny and would fight it so bad he would get his paws stuck under it. So I switched him to the inflatable donut. He could easily get around the donut to his stitches but he never seemed to discover that. But I didn’t want to risk that he would discover that in the middle of the night or something. So I let him sleep on my bed with my had on him so I could monitor him.)

And now it’s the first night I tried to put him back in the crate. More accurately, HE went into his crate at 930 (tbh he does this often just for treats) and I thought oh he’s tired bc we had a really long hike today. So I gave him treats and closed the door. Holy hell broke out. I couldn’t open the door bc then I would reinforce his behavior but I feel physically sick to listen to him so upset. I’ve been talking to him and singing to him. I have really bad ptsd and the sounds and stress is making my face numb. He stops for a sec and I think he’s gone to sleep and then starts crying again. If I give in he’s sleeping in the bed forever which I do not want. Ugh idk what to do. I feel sick and I know this is going to be a long night and I’m traumatizing him. Anyway, thanks for listening. :0(