Category: Top Dog

10 month old golden started audibly choking in the garden. She'd been chewing on a stick and I hadn't noticed.

I ran over, first thing I did was open her mouth and look. I couldn't see anything. She was retching and clawing at her face. I couldn't feel she was taking in any air.

I shoved my hand in, near enough down her throat and tried to feel for anything. Nothing. I think she must have still been breathing but in my panic I couldn't feel her take any air in.

I lifted her back legs and she continued coughing, I then smacked her really hard multiple times behind her shoulder blades (I regret this now because she cried out).

I couldn't think of anything else to do and it had been a long time and she felt weak. So I held her mouth shut and blew very hard down her nose (again no idea why I did this).

This caused her to gag and she brought up a piece of stick which flew and hit me. She then rolled over and wanted pets.

I almost cried, but I've now noticed she's really sheepish and wary around me. I think this is because I hurt her during my panic.

She's still weakly wagging her tail when she sees me but nothing like usual.

Please could I also have advice what to do if this ever happens again (hopefully it won't because Im watching her like a hawk). I feel terrible that I hurt her. Im still shaking as I write this.

My elderly mini poodle (15yrs) is deaf. He cant hear a single thing. We just got a standard poodle puppy (8weeks) and he tried today to get my elderly's attention by barking in his ear. Obviously it didnt work. (We've had the puppy now for 3 days as i am writing this)

How can we tell or show our puppy that our elderly cant hear him? He desperately wants to play with our elderly but hes not understanding social cues or hearing our puppy.

Help is needed ASAP. Thanks

Does anyone use their lick mats for daily meals? How do you figure out how much of everything to give your dog?

My baby has always slept with me for 1 and a half weeks but sometimes he prefers to sleep outside on the cold tiles. Last night he started whimpering on the side of my bed wanting to go down and I thought he wanted to use the toilet but he just went and slept on the tiles under the couch and I can’t reach him

Will this be a permanent thing where he doesn’t want to sleep in my bed anymore? Should I be concerned? He doesn’t even like sleeping in his crate he really likes the floor under the couch

Would love to hear some advice to help our pup, who I believe to be completely overstimulated this Christmas.

We adopted our boy 5 months ago, and we believe him to be 2 years old (but potentially could be younger too). He struggles with overstimulation and frustration.

We have been working with trainers to do a lot of work around this. We do lots of impulse control training, walk him on a long line, we scatter feed him and to the best of our ability give him a structured routine.

But this Christmas has been hard. I brought him to my parents house for the holidays and although he was fine for the first 5 days, he has since begun to struggle. His behaviours are totally unusual for him and include:

• difficulty in relaxing / settling
• stealing objects regularly
• stealing food
• barking more (even when his needs are met )
• when playing with the other family dogs, suddenly going too far – showing teeth etc
• nipping
• nipping when putting on his harness or lead
• resistance to go into his crate

We have decided – it is best to remove him from this environment which is clearly over stimulating him – but it would be great to learn of ways to help him cope better for future visits.

At home he is crate trained – but was getting more worked up whenever we removed him from the main goings on around the house during this holiday. Would a good chew toy in the crate be a good idea? Should we practise teaching him to settle specifically?

Willing to hear all ideas to help our boy feel calm, comfortable and confident. Am aware this is something we need to start training at home before moving out to new environments

I have a 1 yr 3 month old doberman pit mix, and he is well behaved for the most part but we hit a wall with training him very early on, as he seemed to be completely uninterested in any kind of treat. Not the squeezy tube of flavored stuff, not soft or hard training treats, not any kind of freeze dried organ meat or anything, no milkbones or anything, not even any human food like chicken really, or if he does accept a treat, he examines it and plays a but with it before /maybe/ eating it. This makes it very very very difficult to train him any further and it is beginning to become a problem as he gets stronger and bigger. He is housebroken and knows sit and give paw and come here but that is all. Any advice?

Hi there, I have a nine week old golden retriever that I've had for a week and he's having meltdowns whenever I'm eating. Is this normal? I have started putting him in his cage when I eat because otherwise he is constantly barking/growling and jumping on me. While in the cage he whines loudly and does a tempertantrum, pawing at the cage, falling over (he's not very well coordinated yet), panting, etc. Is this a huge issue, or will he learn over time that I will not be sharing my meals with him?

I’ve been trying to bell train a mini daschund for a while now. At first I would push his nose into the bells but I read online you have to train the touch command first and then associate with going outside using a word like “potty”.

So that’s exactly what I did and he learned the association super quickly. Touch bells, get treat!

Eventually I started making him touch the bells every time we went outside saying “let’s go potty” as he does it. He’s great at it. But I don’t think the association ever fully clicked.

He did stop having accidents inside the apartment but sometimes has them in the hallway going to the elevator.

But it’s weird. It doesn’t seem to be like he’s doing it because he thinks it’s an appropriate place to pee/poop. It’s more like he can’t hold it. He’ll do a gentle sprint and then usually pee/poop A LOT. This is where it gets weird. He will give no cues whatsoever. He used to but now he doesn’t bark or circle around. He will lay next to me up until I decide to go outside and then he has an accident in the hallway. It’s not every time but around 1-2 times per week. He’s also not using the bells to indicate going outside. He’s 1.5 years old.

Some questions/thoughts I have:

Is the bell being about 3 feet from the door too far away to make the connection?

Is living in an apartment killing the association with potty since there’s a decent time gap before he goes? Between ring bell, put on harness, go down hallway, down elevator, and finally outside it takes a good 1-2 minutes.

Is the time to put on the harness killing the association after he rings the bell? He will do it on his own but only if I’m near the bells. It seems more like a boredom thing than a going outside thing?

Is fear of harness potentially hindering training? Because he is 100% afraid of the harness right now or doesn’t seem to want to put it on. He will approach and even play with it when it’s on the floor but he will run to the corner when it comes time to put it on and go outside?

I feel as if, my dog (2 and a half) will never be able to go off leash. He’s such an angle, often checking in, usually close ish to me, loves his recall cues, yet whenever I feel super confident to let him off leash, something always goes wrong.

On occasion, well actually many occasions he decides to chase a scent, probably one from a dog. Usually if he’s only 10-15 ish meters away he’ll come right back the second he hears his recall, but other times he’s just goes and goes and goes and then stops listening, I don’t believe it’s a my voice it’s strong enough problem, it’s more of a, he’s just choosing to ignore me at big distances problem. Now he’s always come back, but Iv been fairly lucky that nothing else (like a dog) has popped up at the park while our dilemma unfolds. So if I just run the other way eventually he comes back. But one day we won’t be as lucky.

I have a 20m long line, which he’s actually on pretty much most days, so it’s not as if he’s lacking freedom. I fulfill him in lots of different ways as well. Like finding a ball in long grass, those sorts of things. And I think that does help lower the chances that he will run after a scent, but it still does happen when he’s already been heavily fulfilled.

When he’s on the long line, and off chasing a scent, he pretty quickly hits the end, so he jolts and rushes back. Or if Iv recalled him and he ignored it, I have the leash to pull him back in, But when he’s off leash, there is not a leash to reinforce anything. So if he ignores me, there’s nothing I can essentially do. If I run the other direction ofc I have to reward him when he gets back as to him, he’s forgotten he ran off, so if I put him back on leash or something for coming back, he will not understand, if you get what I mean!

I just feel lost. How can I train him to come back when chasing scents that far away, when he has to be off leash in order to get that far away. I could yk drag 50m of long line to the park. But 1 it’s impractical, and 2 Iv never known anyone else to need such an observed amount of leash to teach recall.

Is my only option to recall him as soon as I notice him started to get a scent and then keep him close to me for 10 mins and then release him again in hopes we have passed the scent or he’s forgotten about it? What happens when he shoots of faster than anything, or I recall to late?

For some more background information, he’s become amazing at ignoring birds, on the odd occasion he will chase them, but that’s always happened in a safe area or he’s never hit the end of the line and has come strait back. But training him to ignore birds, which I can see, is a lot easier than somehow training him to ignore a scent that’s right under his nose that I can’t see.

Any help or guidance would be appreciated! I’m happy to keep him on a long line, apart from the scent chasing 20m is plenty for him, it’s more just a practicality thing for me, if that makes sense! 🙂

I'm trying to train my puppy (4 months old) to ring a bell to go downstairs to potty. I use a small patch of grass, but he'll go even on a pee pad if its in the same spot. Ideally, I want him to think ring bell -> alert human -> go downstairs -> go potty.

The reason that I want him to learn bell = potty is so that I can clean his paws and poop after he goes downstairs and eventually, I'd like to bring him outside anytime he needs to potty and I want him to be able to let me know that he has to go.

I've pretty much gotten him to go to potty downstairs 100% of the time now (finally). He will always make his way downstairs to go potty. However, the problem is that he isn't spot on with the bell ring. I think he just associates the bell with "downstairs." Sometimes he will ring it to go potty but sometimes he rings just to explore downstairs. He occasionally likes to go downstairs to explore. It's not a big area but it is where my front door and shoes are so I imagine there is lots of smells that he wants to sniff. Sometimes he doesn't ring at all and just goes downstairs. Sometimes he stands at the top of the stairs staring at me until I go ring the bell for him and he will go downstairs when I do. Lots of variance lol

What is the best way to train him to 100% of the time ring bell -> downstairs -> potty? I thought maybe training him by making him ring bell, going downstairs & treating a bunch of times but then I fear he'll just learn bell is downstairs.

Any advice appreciated, thank you!

TDLR: I want my puppy to ring a bell to go downstairs to go potty. I want him to only ring the bell when he needs to go potty and never to just play or explore downstairs / outside.