Category: Top Dog

Hi everyone!

Our Border Collie mix is currently 7 months old. She’s still very playful, but from month to month she’s becoming more reasonable and mature. She sleeps through the night since week one, which is great.

During the day, our routine usually looks like this: she’s awake for about an hour, then we put her in her crate to sleep. She usually sleeps around 2 hours and lets us know when she’s awake again. That rhythm works well overall.

The thing is: she only sleeps in her crate. Outside of it, she just can’t seem to properly relax or nap.

She’ll only settle on her bed if she has something to chew on. If she doesn’t have a chew, she destroys the bed. Biting people isn’t an issue anymore – but she just doesn’t know how to “do nothing” outside the crate.

She has accepted the crate in the sense that once one paw is inside, she walks all the way to the back and waits calmly for me to close the door. But she will not go in on her own, not even for treats. I always have to carry her to it.

She also only truly relaxes in there if she’s alone. We’re currently working on getting her used to sleeping in daylight, and that’s going okay. But if someone is in the room, she really wants to get up and join them.

Some days she’s the sweetest dog in the world. Other days she’s a tiny hyperactive monster. I assume that’s normal adolescence?

We’ve researched the breed and make sure she gets plenty of mental stimulation. But this doesn’t change whether we’ve done a lot of mental/physical exercise or barely any at all.

It’s not a huge disaster, but we would really love for her to be around us freely during the day without being “confined.”

Does it get better? Or is there something we should be doing differently?

Thank you really much in Advance and sorry for this Long Text!

Hi everyone. I need help choosing a urine stain removal product that actually works, because I’m getting overwhelmed by the endless options and mixed reviews.

My dog peed on my vinyl composition tile (VCT). I cleaned it with Fabuloso + hot water, but the discoloration didn’t go away, so I made the mistake of using bleach on the area. More than once. I am now fully aware that using bleach on pet urine is not the way to go. Before this knowledge of why not to use bleach. It looked like it worked at first, but now the discoloration keeps coming back each day.

The part that’s making me panic is how it looks when it returns: it comes back the following day as a very dark yellow stain, and it honestly looks like it just happened again even though the surface feels dry.

I also checked under the baseboard. I lifted it slightly and put paper towels along the edge to see if anything was seeping up, but the towels stayed dry and the baseboards are dry.

From what I’ve read, I may need to saturate the area with a urine treatment and cover it with plastic wrap for 12 to 24 hours so it stays wet long enough to work. The issue is: every product I look up has conflicting reviews and prices range from around $20 to $150.

What I’m asking for:

If you’ve personally dealt with a stubborn pet urine stain like this, what product did you use that really worked, and how exactly did you apply it?

Constraints: This is a rental in a very old building and I signed an asbestos acknowledgement when I moved in, so replacing tiles or pulling anything up is not an option.

Also, I’m a single mom, so I’m trying not to drop $100+ unless it’s truly worth it and people can vouch for it from experience. I’m not trying to be cheap, I just want to spend smart and fix it the right way.

Those who WFH, really – how much work are you getting done in the early days with your pup? At 6.5m mine doesn’t nap for long stretches and the ‘let them be bored’ just turns into him getting into mischief. He gets off lead walks, training, fun play etc.

Is this just something that will get easier as he moves into adulthood eventually – will I get longer stretches of time to concentrate?

Just after fellow experiences and not suggestions to enforce crate naps – he’s past napping in his crate during the day (sleeps perfectly in it 10pm-7am) though.

Could I expect him to eventually to lie around a bit more, unsupervised without entertainment for stretches of the day – I know this is in the future but just interested if this is people’s experiences with their adult dogs and at what age?

Hi so our 5 month old wired hair dachshund now sleeps in her open crate in a puppy pen. We live in a appartement but she handles the pen and the alone time pretty wel. Now she is alone 4h, i come in between my break to relief her and feed her for 30-40min and then leave her and then she is alone 2-3h max till my girlfriend arrives from her work. It's with shifts so if she works late it's not more then 4 hours she is alone till i come home.

Now if she is 6 months old we only should feed her twice a day from breeder instructions so then i don't need to come home in my break so she stays alone for longer period at once. I only hqve 30 min but i agreed with my boss till she is 6 months i could stay longer with my dog.

But yeah she grows and matures so we would like to give her more space with babysteps but don't know how to approach this. Also with puppy proof things what to look after. First we thought some kind of baby gate at the kitchen but the problem is the wall where te kitchen starts, it are 2 corners across each other, but they don't overlap so we can't place a babygate between the walls and just a gate with legs we think she would easily push furter.

Any advice on this operation and suggestions? Many thanks in advance!!! 😊

miss ellie (9 weeks, golden retriever ) finally slept through her first night in bed witsince getting her! no accidents, a straight 5 hours of sleep. yay!!! we are a extra happy house this morning.

I’m planning to adopt a Border Collie puppy in 3 months. I’m a beginner and I want to build strong foundations at home using positive reinforcement (force-free) methods.

Could you share a step-by-step roadmap (what to focus on week by week), plus your favorite books, YouTube channels, or courses?

Thank you!

So Ushka (4month old female, mixed boxador, and overly hyper) has been with me since she was born as her mother lives with us because she’s my moms dog, well I had her crate,potty, and command trained. As of like a month ago she’s completely ignored all of it and persistently still does, I’ve tried treats of several kinds and praise and everything. Like she just potties in the house now, without any shame, even though I say no and take her outside to her spot. She just wont let it stick anymore, she will occasionally listen to me and ONLY me when I say to sit and stay. But that’s all, literally.

I’m already super stressed with all of this and I’ve maxed out all options and just genuinely at this point worried there’s just something wrong with her.

Like I stated she is overly hyper, like no matter if we tire her out or she plays all day, she still refuses to calm at all, not even for bed- if we put her to sleep when it’s bedtime she tears everything in her crate to pieces and eats it.(blankets, toys, hard chews,etc.)

We’ve even had to resort to feeding her in her cage because she won’t eat otherwise where she’s so excited.

Any advice at all?? I’m at my wits end for sure 😔

Me and my partner have a 15 week old puppy, today marks 2 weeks since we’ve had her.

I’m really proud of the progress she’s made so far. She’s learnt “sit”, when you call her name she comes to you, she’s learnt “leave it”, and last night was the first night she didn’t cry when in her crate at bedtime.

My partner works full time and I study from home, I’m with her by myself from 8am – 5pm, so I know it’s kind of on me to get her trained.

The only thing that is taking her a bit longer is toilet training. She goes on her puppy pads in the house, but won’t go outside. Yesterday I removed the puppy pads from upstairs, and now she only has them by the back door. We also purchased a bell so she can let us know when she needs to go outside.

I’m very understanding and patient with her, I’m aware we’ve only had her for two weeks, but I feel like my partner is putting a lot of pressure on me to get her toilet trained for when we stay at his mum’s house for the weekend in two weeks.

I told him I doubt she’ll be fully toilet trained in just two weeks, and now he’s getting stressed out which is stressing me out. He doesn’t seem to be understanding that she’s already made a lot of progress.

He’s now getting advice from his mum who is saying to put puppy pads in her crate at night and don’t let her out for toilet breaks, which I’ve made it clear I strongly disagree with that.

1-2x a night I will let her out of her crate to go to the toilet and put her straight back in once she’s done, I don’t want her soiling in her own bed as I believe this will undo a lot of progress we’ve already made.

I’m just looking for advice on how to toilet train her better, I’m a first time dog owner and have never dealt with this before, and my partner isn’t helping.