Category: Top Dog

Hi all, I am posting for the first time as I am getting desperate.

Background

My maltipoo puppy just turned 15 weeks old, and I just brought him back home for 2 weeks. He is not completely vaccinated yet, so we can’t bring him out for walks or potty train him outside. We live in an apartment and his current set up is a 120cmx60cm playpen, with his 60x50cm pee tray within.

I work from home on most days, generally keep him inside his playpen most of the time so that he can nap and learn to be on his own and not have separation anxiety. I usually let him out during only 15-20 mins exercise time, socialisation time, daily wipe down+hair brushing.

Challenges:

1) He is quite good with not waking us at night, and generally accurate with his potty (8 out of 10 times will pee in tray, and poop is so far accurate). However, I noticed that he LOVES to lie/sleep on his pee tray, even after finishing his “business” on it. This makes me anxious especially on days I need to go into office or during bedtime over night. He steps around and even sleep on his poop! I can’t even shower him often as it is not good for his skin. Should I downsize his pee tray so that it’s not as comfortable for him to lie on it? How should I transition him outdoors when he is vaccinated?

2) He is super excited everytime he sees me, which I should be happy that he bonded so quickly. But he is constantly barking murder, zooming around or jumping on his hind legs within the playpen. This makes training him to do anything very hard – like training his name, training him the command to sit etc as he cannot seem to calm down. Everytime he is out of playpen, he will zooming around too

Bringing him home was my decision and my husband wasn’t super keen of it then. Therefore I feel like the burden of caring for him falls solely on me. I am tired of constantly cleaning him up and wiping him, washing his stuff to keep it hygienic.

Training him is also exhausting as he cannot calm down when I go close to him.

I broke down and cried a few times trying to provide care for him the past two weeks, and as horrible as it sounds, I caught myself regretting the decision of bringing him home a few times.

Can someone please give me some advice?

hi, ive got a maltipoo who in january will be a year old. me and my family are struggling on how to handle his biting behaviour.

the biting isnt aggressive in nature, it usually seems more on either the playful or overexcited or overwhelmed side. with him growing up they have gotten more painful and more destructive to our clothes.

he gets 2/3 walks a day, ranging from 30 minutes to an hour each walk usually. he gets frozen kongs and has puzzle toys. he has a good amount of toys, used to have more but he has become very destructive with them so its hard to find toys that he wont destroy.

we have tried the whole ignore method, time outs, yelps, redirecting to a toy but nothing has really worked.

We adopted a 6 month old husky/GSD mix (73% husky/27% GSD) from the shelter back in September. We’re not new to husky mixes so we were fully prepared for the physical and mental needs. He has been an absolute angel. He steals the occasional sock or shoe but learned drop it and leave it in a few days and listens so it’s not a huge deal. He is crate trained and loves his little “den” where he hides his toys and will bury treats for later in his crate blankets.

We go on 2+ hours of total walks a day alternating casual sniff-only time, exercise walks, training walks, and potty only walks. He gets food puzzles, lick mats, stuffed kongs, and plenty of toys and chews. He’s extremely chill in cars and new places. The ONLY issue we’ve had with him is he thinks every single dog outside wants to play with him and so he play bows at every single dog we cross paths with on walks. If he’s not allowed to play with the dog, he will start play attacking me instead. He’s gotten much better at it over the last three months since we started bringing a toy with on walks for him to release the energy that way and has become less play reactive to dogs as he gets older. He also will only be play reactive outdoors. If we are at the pet supply store inside he won’t do it.

He’s now almost 10 months and we stopped by the shelter he grew up in to drop off holiday donations and his twin brother was there. He was returned after getting c. diff and his family was scared he would infect their other dog so they asked to quarantine him there. He quarantined in the shelter for 6 weeks and when he was all better, his family decided they weren’t coming back for him so he went up for adoption.

The shelter asked if we wanted them to re-unite and play for a few minutes before we left and so we did. They played wonderful together so of course we couldn’t leave him there. The plan was always to get a second dog eventually anyway.

I know we lucked out with the first one being so chill so wasn’t expecting his brother to be the same. His brother is the same. Eager to learn and picks up on new commands in 2-3 tries. Settles himself down. Neither one howls. They are wonderful by themselves though, and have only been in play mode together.

So far, we’ve kept them completely separate. Separate crates in separate rooms. They both walk 2+ hours a day separately, separate training, separate feeding, they take turns free roaming while the other is crated.

I’ve never had two puppies at once, yet alone litter mates. They were abandoned by a breeder at 12 weeks old at the shelter and were kept separate at the shelter as well besides a few play sessions with all 5 siblings before they got adopted. Both our original guy and his brother were adopted out and returned before they ended up with us.

My question is, how long do I keep them separate to prevent littermate syndrome? I was planning for at least 2 more months until they are one year but some things I am reading suggest 18 months or even 2 years. Our first guy has been sleeping in our bed for a few months now so it’s part of his nightly routine. His brother sleeps in his crate in another room but we’d like eventually to have them both in our room. I’ve been reading some horror stories about having two same age puppies and I don’t want to go backwards in the progress we’ve made with both of them. Some things are saying not to let them both sleep in our bed because it can create territory issues.

How have other people handled having two same age puppies with integrating their lives back together once they are ready?

This is probably a very silly question but – I’ve started giving my puppy the no hide sticks to chew and she LOVES them. Is it safe for her to fully eat the stick? Or should I be taking it away when it gets to a certain size?

I thought it would be helpful to start a thread of tips and ideas that help fight puppy blues. I’ll start:

-lean on your support system

-celebrate small victories

-remember self care and do things that help you feel like yourself

-invite a friend over (seeing people has been so helpful for me)

Would love to hear others ideas!

We have a Pom/shih tzu she is a little over three months. She is so smart, but this potty training has us so confused. We are retired and have lots of time to give her. She’s has a pen and she loves it. She sleeps all night in her pen with no accidents. We take her out to potty about 5 and she will go back to sleep and then get up about 6:30 or 7. We take her out constantly on a leash out the same door to the same place on the front lawn. She pees almost as soon as we get on the grass and is always given a treat and lots of love and praise. She had like three accidents in the house today. So this afternoon I set an alarm and took her out every 15 minutes she pees every time we take her out. She always poops outside. She doesn’t tell us yet if she needs to go out. I took her out every 15 minutes for like two hours. The last time I took her out she peed right away. We came in and I was playing with her with her ball. She has a small puppy bed that is not in her pen just at the end of the couch. Two minutes after we came in I threw the ball and it landed in her bed she ran to get the ball and jumped in her bed and squatted and peed in her bed. Then two minutes later she squatted and peed on the floor each time was a good size puddle. We had her tested to make sure she doesn’t have a uti and it was negative. How can she have that much pee in her that she can pee three times in just a couple minutes. We will never be able to potty train her. She will have to be in her pen all the time 😢 because if she’s allowed to walk around the living area she constantly pees. We are to old for this lol help please

My husband and I are bringing home a lab puppy in a few months, and we are starting to make preparations! One thing I’m fairly concerned about is balancing parvo risk and socialization.

I saw my vet today for our cat and asked him about parvo. He said for labs, he recommends no high risk areas until 20 weeks, and best practice would be complete quarantine until 20 weeks as well. He said this is likely unrealistic, and we have to decide what risk level we’re comfortable with because not going anywhere until 20 weeks runs the risk of behavioral concerns later down the line.

He also told us that parvo is most fatal before 12 weeks, so we will definitely be “four off the floor” anywhere but home until then. He also said a puppy class that requires two rounds of vaccinations is safe to go to in our area. Having a properly socialized puppy is very important to us, but how do we decide when to start doing activities that may be risky, like walking in our suburban neighborhood or going to Home Depot? Are there ways that we can reduce the risk while waiting for her fourth round of vaccines?

I have a 14 week old mixed breed (we think he’s a pit mixed with probably a million other things, he’s a rescue).

He is amazing and super super smart. He’s caught onto things super quick and is picking up commands great. Potty training has also been great.

However, he has HORRIBLE bite inhibition. I know this is normal but the typical things to curb it are just not working well. The only thing that somewhat makes a difference is removing myself from the room entirely but his latch is STRONG.

Tonight he bit me so hard on the arm to the point where I had to yell for my husband to come unlatch him from me. He was on there so tight that even going into his mouth to get my arm off was not working, we had to take him off of me pretty hard. Typically if it’s just my clothes I can unhook him, but the force was scary and he was snarling.

I’m huge on positive reinforcement for him, but in these moments my fight or flight is kicking in from the pain of his needle teeth.

I had just come home and I know he was excited to greet me but we inadvertently ended up yelling at him because it was scary. I also flinch and tense up when he bites like that because it genuinely hurts. I have two deep bite marks/gashes on my arm that bled pretty good and sting like hell now. He looked upset, so we gave him a “time out” and then once that was over he was immediately back to biting my arm.

I’m concerned about this behavior but even more worried that we’re messing up our bond with him by our knee jerk reactions. He bites me WAY more than my husband.

Hello everyone… today, December 29th, I had to say goodbye to my pug, Birba. He was almost 14 years old and had been very ill lately: he was demented, barked constantly, couldn't walk, couldn't chew well, and had an infected tooth that was causing infections. He was covered in mucus, had difficulty breathing, and peed and pooped on himself. Together with the vet, we decided to euthanize him because he was still suffering and there was nothing we could do. It was devastating; he was my world, and my family was his. I miss him so much and can't stop thinking about him. I don't want any dogs for a while because the pain is too great, but I feel the need to share my grief with people who understand what it means to love a pug. If you have similar stories or advice on how to cope with the loss of a senior dog, I would love to read your experiences.

Thank you so much ❤️