Category: Top Dog

Our pup is amazing. He is a happy boy who loves all people and other animals. He does great with our two cats and we are so, so proud of how he behaved around all the young kids (2-9) at Christmas.

We have taught him all basic commands and some tricks. We also use an emergency recall. He is quite food motivated, and gets a very special treat when we shout bingo! Until 1,5 months this worked 99% of the time. He is now on a long line 😉. We occasionally let him roam without holding it, for example on the beach. However, when he spots another dog in the distance, his recall goes out the window.

Even though tips here are welcomed, my real question is about his behaviour to other dogs inside the home. We will be spending new years with friends who have dogs (1-2 years) and one of them is quite small compared to ours. Last week we visited family with a dachshund and he was obsessed with her and would not leave her alone even though she corrected him. Usually he backs off then, but I think his hormones are taking over and he just can't contain himself.

I will bring frozen Kongs and the like to keep him busy, as well as a tethering line but I'm hoping there might be some other things we can try…

This is more of a funny then needing advice. I have a bunch of security cameras around my property. Everytime motion is detected my phone give me a ding. However, the same notification sounds is played for all of my notices. E-mail, text, social media notifications, weather alerts, everything. Whenever the ding plays, the dog runs to the front door. Obviously, the behavior of ding, then someone comes to the door has been learned, but being it's the same sound for everything, she is always running to the door. I obviously need to have a different sound for the door, or silence the cameras. Anyone else have a learned behavior that is surprising or funny? What do you all think?

I’ve been taking him for two 20 minute walks a day per my vet advice. It’s 25 degrees right now with high winds and I’m debating taking him on our second walk.

Is that too cold? It’s too cold for me but I’m feeling guilty if I don’t take him for a walk 😂 is one walk a day enough?!! Mom guilt kicking in!!

We have put down a deposit for a puppy in Manchester, but we live in London.

It felt like the ideal litter and timing (late Feb/March) and we live literally around the corner from a vet (less than 2 min walk) and less than 5 from an emergency vet. So not worried about no car once we get here.

Neither myself or my partner drive (I’m currently learning but my test is in April)! So hiring a car isn’t an option.

Has anyone successfully taken a puppy home via train? It would be approx 3 hours. Once we get to Euston, we’d get a cab home so no underground.

Pet taxi quotes are around £600, and I know puppies are expensive but obviously that is a big cost.

(We also know we can’t set him on the ground bc he won’t have parvo vaccine yet)!

Fully prepared for people to tell us to swallow the taxi / pet service cost, but keen to hear any thoughts! Thanks!

Hi everyone! We got our puppy 10 days ago. We fully planned to do a very slow intro. We didn’t let them have eye contact for a few days. Only letting them sniff through doors and hear sounds until the cats started to feel calmer and loose interest. Then only let them see each other for brief moments when they were distracted with something else. Now we are letting them hang out and play within sight of each other separated by baby gates.

Doing our best to keep them both busy and give them treats so that they just get used to their presence. Our concern is that puppy getting excited and the cats freaking out causing a chain reaction.. we’ll keep taking it slow but would love to hear other’s experienced!

So for some context over the past week I’ve been traveling with my puppy some. We spent the past two nights at my husbands parents house and today we were driving home (2 hours and 45 minute drive)

When we got home I tethered her to the dining room table while I brought everything in. Then when I was bringing her over to get water my sister in laws dog was eating. My puppy attempted to try and steal her dogs food and my puppy started growling at the other dog which she’s never done before. I thought this was really weird and that maybe she was just hungry.

So usually I make her morning meals in her slow feeder and her evening meals in a snuffle mat. So I put her snuffle mat in her crate and when she started eating I’ll usually put my hand on the snuffle mat or pet her to help with food aggression. But today she growled at me and then proceeded to bite me (it wasn’t a normal puppy bite it was an aggressive bite)

My husband suggested that maybe she was overwhelmed but she’s never acted like this before and I decided to put her in her crate to help calm her down if she was overwhelmed and she proceeded to bark and whine for 15 minutes…. Which she also doesn’t do. She’s been doing amazing at crate training and at most she’ll whine for 5 minutes but never that long.

I don’t know what’s going on and how to prevent this behavior from continuing or if I did something wrong.

Is it normal for my puppy to be chewing his tail so much? He runs around in circles chasing his tail. Is he itchy or is this an obsession? This is after a play and training session so I don’t think he’s bored. He does this pretty frequently and sometimes when he starts it’s hard to get him to stop if he’s not distracted with something else.

I've got an approx 12 week old rescue puppy (thats why the age is an approximate) who is doing quite well in adjusting to life in my home. He's healthy, sweet, playful, we've started training, he understands to use his pee pad (usually) and he's going potty in my backyard (supervised).

The biggest issue is crate training. He likes his crate & sees it as "his space". He hides his toys in there, he chills in there, as I write this he's in there now chillaxing. But if he's not thoroughly exhausted or if its not his idea to go in there, he'll have a fit and at some point pee in his crate. Doesn't matter if we just came in from going potty. I've enzymatically cleaned/washed his crate and bed countless times. His crate is appropriately sized.

Today's tantrum came after having a meal, playing, being carried on a walk, going potty 3 or 4 times and playing one more time.

Is this just essentially a baby having a tantrum? We're only talking about him being in there for 30mins to 2 hours a day, and this was working up to it. The crate is in the kitchen and we started off with the crate door open & me in the kitchen with him, then the crate door closed and me in the room, then me walking in and out of the kitchen. This was a very slow ramp up. He's not expected to sleep in the crate overnight.

My dogs sleep with me, so he won't be in the crate overnight. But they don't have free range of the house when I leave the house, so he does need to get used to his crate just so I can run errands, go to appointments etc. I really need him to stop peeing. I think he's doing it in the midst of his tantrums vs purposely peeing.

So – we have Nature's Miracle Advanced Stain & Odor Eliminator. Luckily I haven't had to use it TOO much – but I HATE the scent of it. It gives me the WORST headaches.

Does anyone have any recommendations of more natural products cleaning products that will help prevent marking again after an accident. Or if not natural, at least ones that don't smell as strong as this stuff? (I'm in the US for reference)

We recently got a 8 week old mini dachshund

And I just won’t stop whining the second it’s left alone. The moment someone is with it he is an angel. How long does it last and what are the best methods to help this?