Category: Top Dog

I have tried reporting this to RSPCA but was told they couldn't help me.

A person who I know, but no longer have anything to do with, for numerous reasons, is supposed to be "caring" for 2 dogs, they don't own the dogs but have had them in their care since April 2025, as their owner, his daughter, is unable to have them in her rental.

The dogs, both are working dogs breeds, one a 12 year old cattle dog, and one a 5 year old kelpie. The dogs are currently kept on a 50 acre property in NSW, Australia.

The dogs were left alone so the property owner could go camping during his Christmas break. He left on the 19th of December, was supposed to return to the property on the 25th of December to "chuck more food at the dogs" and then returned to his campsite for the remainder of his holiday, he usually is away until the 2nd of January, but I haven't been able to confirm when he is supposed to return to the property.

I have confirmed these details with someone close to the situation, who won't report it, I have tried to get them to, but they don't want to get involved in it.

This also isn't the first time they have been left alone, I know of 2 occasions that this person has gone away for a long weekend and left the dogs unattended the whole time. This is the longest they've been left alone though.

The dogs have also been known to fight over food, so have been separated while the property owner is away.

They are being kept outside in yards, did have biscuits put down, and water buckets filled up, however without being checked every day I am very concerned about them not having access to water for the whole time as well as running out of food (not timed feeders, just a big bowl of biscuits)

The house is a few hundred meters off the road, and no close neighbours, so no way to chuck food or water at them, and for obvious reasons we can't access the property to check on them and chuck them food and check water.

Being Australia, we have had some very warm weather but also cooler days, it is summer here. The dogs do have kennels but that is about it in regards to shelter

I'm just looking for advice if there is something I can do, or someone else who I may be able to report it to.

The gate to the property is also locked if that makes any difference.

I can't imagine anyone leaving their dogs alone for this long, and it kills me I can't do anything to remove them from this situation

Please if anyone knows of something I can do or if I should just keep trying the RSPCA? I just want to help these poor dogs

My dog is 6 years old and recently learned how to make me pay her attention. She puts her paw on my shoulder when I'm sitting on my bed and looks at me moving her tail, then I try doing something else and starts barking. It's not like a bark bark bark its just like a growl and then a bark, like "pay attention to meeee". And when I list her the things she could want, she starts moving her tail in the correct answer. She learned how to manipulate me, definitely. It's so weird because she didn't do that before. She became smarter haha But is that a problem? maybe I spoil her too much. But when I don't do what she wants and I'm on my bed she starts jumping over me and she is rough, I'm all bruised because she pushes me.

So I’m pet sitting two dogs and one of the dogs keeps peeing on the floor in front of the owner‘s bedroom door. I’m walking them on their regular schedule and I even took her to go to the bathroom right before bed, but she still goes upstairs and pees in front of the door. In the same place. It feels very intentional and I’ve tried taking her out to go to the bathroom before bed and waking up early to take her, but she’s already gone to that spot to pee and she’s even done it twice in one night sometimes.

I can’t keep waking up to piss puddles. The bedroom door is locked and part of the puddles are on the other side I can’t get to.

I’m not sure if she’s pissing out of malice or if her anxiety is manifesting in a weird way. Has anyone had similar experiences? What could it be? Would love to know your guys thoughts.

Hi I know this might be a tiny bit dramatic but I think my dog is mad at me. He’s a three year old Maltese and I’ve had him for about five months and absolutely adore him. I take him on walks almost daily, brush, bathe, and play with him. And he sleeps with me every night. Tonight I couldn’t get him to sleep with me until I pet him for a while and gave him a treat and he’s only sleeping at my feet and not cuddling me like normal. I think he’s mad because I gave him a bath earlier and brushed him (he absolutely hates to be brushed on his tummy so I had to basically hold him down so I could brush him(I wasn’t like forceful/hurting him or anything)

And the thing is like this dog is literally my entire life I love him so much and I can’t sleep without him. I might be being a teeny tiny bit dramatic about this, but I want him to like sleeping with me:(

Hi! We recently adopted a 4 y/o chihuahua mix that we found as a stray, fostered, and then decided to adopt. He’s overall very sweet, but we’ve noticed that when we go to wake him up in the morning or at night to go outside to potty, if he’s curled up in his bed, he will sometimes snarl and bite. We’ve tried doing slow, gentle wake-ups to get him up, and sometimes that seems to help, but other times, he still gets cranky and tries to bite even after lots of gentle encouragement to get out of bed. It’s gotten to the point where we keep my wildlife bite gloves nearby for when it’s time to get him up to go out, in case he’s being bitey. Does anyone have any tips on how to work on this with him constructively so he can learn not to bite when getting out of bed?

My dog Hazel is a 4 1/2 mini schnauzer mix, she is the sweetest thing but she’s protective of course, she very much thinks this house is “hers, not any other dogs but they can live here if they need to” so she’s not aggressive to my older sisters dogs 99% of the time, but when it comes to her little toys (about the size of a large rat) she gets really fussy over but it’s only sometimes. Most of the time my older sisters dogs and grab hazels toys and play with them, but if she has them and they try and take them she doesn’t growl much, sometimes she will (resource guarding it) and sometimes she yells at them (I’ll explain in a moment) and other times if my older sisters dogs just look at Hazel weird she escalates a lot and does the same. She’s also a big advocate for her space and will correct them, only she doesn’t stop pretty much

I’ll explain what exactly she’s doing, she makes almost a snarling-bark sound and stands on her back legs with her front on whichever dog she’s yelling at, pushing them. She doesn’t bite or snap at them she just pushes them around and yells at them. She hasn’t hurt anybody but I don’t want it to get to that point.

She also does this when she’s playing with one of them and she decides she’s done but the other isn’t. For example, my older sisters dog Parker whom is a big pitbull mix (he does have apbt) puppy loves playing with Hazel, they’ll run around my legs and under beds and play tug of war, but he’s a big puppy who never wants to stop so of course she yells at him (gets him to stop) but I’ve gotta break it up cause he’s big and clumsy, she’s small but forward, somebody would get hurt

I hope this explains properly ;-; I went through the wiki for both dog aggression and resource guarding but Hazel seems to be very specific with it cause she’s fine over half the time and then randomly she just snaps at them, big dog, little dog, doesn’t matter to her. In her head she is the big dog of this house

(I don’t know the correct wording to use for the title)

I have a 8month old Boerbol x we have no idea

He is a very sweet dog who isn’t violent in any capacity. He doesn’t growl at any dog (even when he’s been charged at twice), he has a very soft mouth when playing, he doesn’t try (to my knowledge) forcefully to display any dominance.

The problem is when I take him for a walk and he sees another dog he sprints full speed up to them and basically shoulder charges them and he also starts jumping up and down (sometimes landing on other dogs) He is 50kg so obviously this is not ideal He thinks he’s playing and shows no violent intentions towards the other dog.

I keep him on the leash but I tested it out today as he has been doing a lot better on leash and immediately he tried the same actions on a smaller dog leaving the owner mad at me (understandably)

How can I begin to correct this Ive taken him to puppy training/ socialising since he was 10 weeks. And at the training he seems okay but at the park he is a menace.

Any advice or criticism would be super helpful

I have a Mantiqueira’s Shepard, right now he’s 55 days old, still a baby, I’m trying to make him stop biting since he’s 39 days old (when I got him), so far I tried to stop playing when he starts to bite, to stop moving, to put his lips under his teeth while he’s biting, I even tried using a bitter spray for dogs but he doesn’t even seem to care.

He ONLY bites when playing, when I call him or I’m just petting him he doesn’t bite but as soon as I start playing he starts biting, I even tried to put toys for him to bite when he tries to bite me but he always completely ignores the toys and goes to biting me

Worst part is that me and my wife can deal with it but most of the time he tries to play with my cat and since he’s a baby he doesn’t have a good perception of his strength so sometimes he hurts the cat and the cat hurts him back

Funny thing is that when he’s playing too strong with the cat, just of noticing my presence he stops cause he knows he shouldn’t but as soon as he realizes I’m not around he starts again.

I really don’t know what else to try and I’d love some tips about how to deal with it, about the biting me and my cat. I’m trying to teach him now while he’s small because soon enough he’ll be hella big and I wonder it wont be that easy anymore.

I have a dog that is AWFUL for nails. I'm looking into desensitizing, but I wanted to have a way to keep his nails down while I chip away at it.

He's learned how use a scratch board, but it's only useful for the front nails. I walk him on pavement everyday, but it's still not enough to keep the quicks back.

I had access to a private driveway a week or so ago, and I decided to see if I could use some recall training to get him to sprint on the pavement. It worked! But I don't have regular access to that, so I tried to replicate it by taking him onto the sidewalk with an extra long lead for recall training. He REFUSES to sprint like he did before.

Getting him to sprint on pavement would be a godsend. I've tried researching, but Google is proving to be useless and isn't giving me what I actually want.

Are there ways to teach him to sprint on command? He's fairly smart, very food motivated, and is mid energy level.

Hi, I have a JRT. or she was sold to me as a JRT but the more I think about it (we did meet the mum and saw a phoot of the dad) the more I worry the house was being used to hide dodgy activity. It's just a thought I have no proof.

Anyway… she is 3. she has sleep startle meaning whenever shes asleep if we move she luges at us, she wont bite us but she will put teeth on us until she relises whats shes doing/wakes up. She starts diong this the minute shes getting tired.

she barks the most high pitch bark whenever somebody knocks on our door and will lung at our other dog.

the other day my partner was leaving the room whens somebody knocked and shes bitten him. Not to the point of needing stitches but its still hurting him. i cant attach a pic

she's extremely anxious, she's basically happy if she's with me on my lap or next to me and just a nervous wreck the rest of the time ready to attack anything thats a possible threat. This isnt anything new shes always been like this but since the bite im just at a loss. her nails are stupid long because the vets wont cut them and the groomer really struggles and its just so difficult I just dont know what to do.