Category: Top Dog

my puppy is 6 months old, has never had issues in the past and is now barking and whining bloody murder 🥲

It’s so loud, I’ve never heard her bark like this before. A friend of mine said it could be that she has bonded with me more and wants to be close in proximity?

It used to be if I sat next to her and ignore her at least she found comfort in me being near her.. but now it feels like that just escalates it more? I can’t tell.

We are doing crate games more, I’m trying to work on separation anxiety, i’m just worried this is going to make it difficult for her to settle long term in the crate.. any tips?

So, I have 2 English setters. A 3 year old male and a 3 month old female.

We trained the first setter ourselves and it went extremely well. He has excellent recall (hard to do for this breed) extremely obedient, and very loving. It feels like at this point you can speak to him like a human and he knows what you want somehow.

While training my new puppy, a thing that was important to me to hammer out was impulse control. A method I used to train that is by a “sit” “look at me” I would throw the treat, and make the puppy wait until her release word “okay” for her to get the treat. This was important to learn in my opinion so she waits for her food, waits for pets, and does not sprint out of doors when opened. “Wait” has been very helpful for my older pup.

Well, this has backfired. I am now trying to teach action commands. Commands like “place”, “bed”, “crate”, “inside”, and so on. She has developed the habit of when I walk her to her crate, and say the command, she sits and looks at me until I release her with “okay” to go to the place I told her to go.

I have tried throwing a treat opposite of the crate to get her out of her sit and stare mode, release her to the thrown treat, and then try to throw a treat in the crate or bed and simultaneously say the word “crate”. When I do that, she will get the first treat and then sit and stare at me until I release her to go get the treat in the desired place. I really do not want to repeat the word “crate” as I do not want to repeat commands however it just ends up in the worlds cutest staring contest.

How can I help her distinguish when it is a wait situation vs. an action commands?

Hi everyone! My partner and I recently adopted a puppy and unbeknownst to us she was given to us at 6&1/2 weeks old (at the time of this post). Yes I know that’s too young and we wish she had spent more time with mom and her litter mates. As you can imagine sleeping through the night is very difficult for her. Does anyone have any good tips or advice to help us out? I will list below what we have done so far to help her out!

-every time she falls asleep we pick her up and place her in her crate

-reinforce her crate time with plenty of treats love and toys

– I get up with her every two hours or so to use the bathroom

-we don’t let her out when she’s crying we wait until she is calm and reward then

I am aware that this is a process and may take her some time to adjust but any additional advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

We are thinking of getting a family dog. This is going to be our first dog as owners. We have a 12 and 14 year old who are willing to help out. Where would you recommend we go to get information on how to start the process? We are thinking of a rescue that may be 2-3 years old to skip the training process. Any pros/cons with this?

We go through blankets like crazy because our dog nests and shreds them over time. We hit a gold mine 10 years ago when a local hotel went out of business and sold all their old queen sized “mattress pads” for $5 each, but have used those up. We’ve also had some success using those fleece tie blankets.

Looking for suggestions on something durable, bedding safe, and reasonably affordable.

Me and my wife always jokingly argue how walks the dog more often.

I decided to settle the argument once and for all.

So I started tracking the walks by person.

Everyone sees total walk time/distance as well as by person – me, my wife, and the kids.

GUESS WHAT?

I lost.

I’m doing the dishes everyday this week 🤣

How do you guys track walks?

Hi everyone,

I have a 4 month old puppy and he’s been growling when we play tug of war or when he has his bones. I don’t think it’s serious bc when we play he’ll just chill after I win or after I let him win for tug of war and for the bones he’ll stop growling when I approach him when he has his bone. I think it could be from over excitement or maybe it’s his way of playing with them.

What do yall think?

My dog is like really into trash and tearing up/collecting trash. I bought her from a woman online and it could be from trauma but I'm trying to buy her actual toys for the problem. She loves cardboard and plastic bottles (Specifically ice mountain bottles) and also foam. She likes foam balls but only when they're really small and likes collecting stuffed animals but never likes smaller chewable ones. She's pretty smart and very uncomfortable when not surrounded by clutter. We just moved and I'm trying to avoid giving her any trash or letting her find any, and she's been noticeably less active.

I'd like any advice or suggestions on what to get her that she'd love and actually play with.

This is my first time posting here so I don't really know if I'm using the right tag, apologies in advance.

My new dog, Zorra, is a husky, and absolutely loves fetch. However, she also absolutely loves chewing on the balls with the full strength of her jaws. She’s broken open at least 10 tennis balls so far, including a chuckit rubber ball. I’d like to get her some balls that she won’t break open so quickly, and I’d love advice for it.

Only marked NSFW in case anyone didn’t want to read any sad content. I miss my dog. I lost him in early August. He was about fifteen years old, my first dog, my baby. I got him when I was still in high school and now I’m thirty. Many people grew older and had kids, but I had my lil baby boy, Coby. In our childhood home, Coby grew up with my niece and my nephew, they’re both 10+ now, and I feel at such a loss. He was like my child, I loved him so much. I knew he wouldn’t live forever but I tried not to think about life after his passing. He was an integral part of our family, the kids and my siblings loved him, he was special. Very gentle with children and elderly, but disliked the people he could tell were no good. Well it’s been over six months since he has been gone and it just feel like there’s a hole in my heart, I’m gutted. I have therapy every month and of course I talk about these feelings and everyday life. But coming home after a long day of work and not seeing that little face looking up at me has been extremely difficult. Some days even seeing a dog outside or on tv will make me cry. I just wanted to post my ode to Coby, to let everyone know what a good boy he was. It gets easier, but the feeling of loss is never ending unfortunately.