Category: Top Dog

I feed my 17 week old goldendoodle puppy twice daily. In the morning, he gets 1 cup of kibble (nutrisource) with tbsp of duck wet food then same in the evening. The bag says 2 cups is ok for his weight. He also has occasional bone marrow, his bully sticks, etc throughout the day + dried liver treats. Is this enough food? Sometimes he doesn’t finish his second meal.

Our vet sent us home with both pain meds and sedatives. While she does get her pain meds every day, we've tried to use the sedatives as little as possible, but sometimes we just have to keep her calm and mellow. Just have to tell myself that it's for her own safety and benefit but I hate it lol.

hi everyone 🙂 i have an 11 week old golden doodle, and she weighs about 11-12lbs. i have been feeding her about a 1.5 cups a day. i have switched over to a diff brand of food and the feeding recommendation is 1/2-2/3 cups per 2lbs of body weight. should my pup really be eating 5 cups a day ?? have i been underfeeding my baby this whole time ?? (first time pet owner, i am overthinking every move haha)

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some honest, experience-based advice about our puppy.

We have a 5-month-old Australian Shepherd who has been with us for about 3 months. From the start, things have been very challenging. She is extremely sensitive, gets overstimulated very quickly, and struggles a lot with self-regulation. Calm moments do happen, but they’re short and inconsistent.

She has had repeated Giardia infections and digestive issues, and is currently teething, which I know can affect behavior. We’ve tried to reduce stimulation as much as possible (lots of rest, quiet environment, very limited activities). Interestingly, she often settles best when she is in a low-stimulus space away from us. When she’s close to us, she frequently becomes over-aroused, vocal, restless, and unable to settle.

We’re trying management over “training” right now, but it’s hard to know what’s realistic to expect. We don’t need a perfect dog — just something that feels manageable and stable enough day to day.

I’d really appreciate thoughts on: • Have you had a very sensitive, easily overstimulated puppy that improved significantly with maturity? • Does this sound like a normal but difficult developmental phase, or something more concerning? • What would you focus on right now: rest, structure, professional help, or something else?

So I have a great JRT mix that adopted about 5 months ago and she only releives herself at my house or my girlfriend’s house in our yards. Im a retail manager at a non profit bike shop and she’s at work with me all day everyday. I have a crate for her, but I let her roam the shop too. I walk her 3 to 4 times in an 8 hr work day and she never goes while on a walk. She’ll hold it for 8+ hours until we either get home or to my girlfriends house unless it’s too much and then she’ll let it go in the shop and once in the front seat of my truck. She knows it wrong because she kind of slinks away with her tail between her legs. When this happens I’ll put her out front for 10 or so minutes where she should go, but it doesn’t help. It’s like she doesn’t like going while on leash, but she did when she was a young puppy, just not now. Does anybody have any experience with this or ideas on how I correct this? It’s frustrating. Thanks in advance.

So, I have a medium sized brindle puppy rescue (that I've had since 8 weeks), she's about 40lbs and her second birthday is coming up very soon. And we've had very few problems her entire life.

We used to go to the dog park every single day for maybe the first year of her life, where we almost had a good time and we always left at the first sign of conflict (which I think I'm very good at reading, I've done lots of research and got to put it into the practice at the dog park for a long time). She never started anything. We've been going less often lately, maybe 2 times a week. And we live in a very dog dense neighborhood, we maybe pass 15 dogs every day on our walks, which has never caused an issue.

She's started becoming slightly reactive on the leash in the last month. Initially just her haunches would go up, and then it became little growls or barks (this phase came off to me as her being a frustrated greeter), and now she fully loses her mind, lunging, growling and barking.

A bit after her haunches started going up, she got into a tiny tussle at the dog park (I thought it was the other dog starting drama, I intervened very quickly, no one got hurt), and then we had to leave the next two times we went (because things were escalating between her and another dog both times), and now I think she's the one being antagonistic to dogs who do not want to play with her, and so we don't go any more at all.

At the same time, she's gone from being incredibly easy to walk, very good leash skills, to incredibly difficult to walk. She started chewing things at home after being very good about only chewing her things. And she even jumped at an old lady we were just walking past once (not aggressive, just eager to say hello), and she's never jumped at a person while walking except once when she was still very young.

I immediately started training her reactivity as soon as it started escalating beyond her haunches going up. And initially it was working very well. I just gave her a reward every time she looked at me after looking at another dog. And she picked it up pretty much immediately. She would look at me without even a verbal reminder or her hearing my hand go into the treat bag. For the most part, her haunches weren't even going up.

But now, something else switched, and she won't look at me when she sees another dog. She won't respond to me grabbing treats or giving her a verbal command what-so-ever. She starts barking and lunging, and even if I get her attention before the dog gets close enough for her to notice, she'll still loose her mind if she notices the approaching dog.

I'm at a loss, I feel like I've done everything correctly. We live in a very dense neighborhood filled with tons of families and small children and dogs, so any level of reactivity (even playful barking) is honestly a huge issue because I do not want her to scare children. At the same time, avoiding other dogs is incredibly difficult, so I've just been walking her down the least dog-populated blocks back and forth while I try to figure out a solution.

Any ideas?

TL;DR: Well socialized dog became increasingly reactive in the last month. I immediately started reactivity training and even though it was going perfectly initially, something flipped and now the reactivity training doesn't work at all, and she's so bad I can barely walk her.

If you have/had a Corgi puppy – does/did yours get overtired way earlier than other puppy breeds? He's about 5 months old now and still seems to only be able to handle an hour of being awake before those overtired zoomies/biting starts and I have to put him in his crate to nap. He's, on average, only up 5-6 hours in a day. I know puppies sleep most of the day, duh, but he's getting to that half year mark and I'm curious if this is a Corgi thing or if he's just an extra sleepy boy lol

I'm fat, 63in chest and I'm looking for a sling or carrier for my new puppy (5.2lbs) ideally, I would love my bigger guys to use it too as I walk one of them up the stairs due to arthritis from an untreated accident prior to my adopting him (he’s about 24 lbs). Any recommendations? Price is not a factor. I just need something that works. Google and ChatGpt are failing me on this one. Thanks!

my 6-7 month puppy (rescue) last had an accident in the house early october, when she had zoomies and pooped on the couch in the family room. it's been a good 2 months since then. we haven't really let her in the living room ever, but have recently let her go in that room. it's also where the christmas tree is. when she's in a space in the house that we usually block off (like the living room or upstairs), she gets zoomies. last night, i was out and she got zoomies in the living room and destroyed christmas ornaments and pooped on the couch. (she wasn't home alone) is this a matter of her not being used to the space and not being calm in the space? i have been working with her and making her stay in a down position calmly and rewarding her. also, i've been letting her explore the space on the leash or supervised. i'm wondering if it's normal for a puppy to get poop zoomies in a new space like this. she doesn't have any separation anxiety (if i bring her to daycare, she forgets i exist and she doesn't whine when anyone's away).

when they put there ears back, do they know their doing it or are they doing it sub-consciously?