Category: Top Dog

Have a sweet small breed pup who will turn 6 months in a week. He is left from 5-7 hours 2 or 3 days a week in his pen (food, water, pee pad). He tolerates separation fine and sleeps when no one is home (less so when home and go upstairs, as he cannot go up or down stairs yet)

When i am gone more than 5 hours he gets a 20 min drop in to let him pee on balcony and run around a bit. He has not used his pee pad in about 3 weeks so the drop ins feel important to give him a potty break.

I am wondering when I should consider free roam while gone, and when I can fade drop ins, any advice would be greatly appreciated. Pup is fully free roam when I am home.

When I try to train my puppy and practice obedience he sees the treats and goes so bananas he can’t focus at all. Any advice? FYI, he is 6 months old.

We adopted a 9 week old puppy that was dumped on Saturday. She appears to be a Shepard mix. We immediately crate trained and got her in a routine. She is doing fantastic. She’s sleeping through the night, tolerating being in the crate while we’re at work, and almost completely potty trained. She is even picking up commands. Is this normal? It seems a little too good to be true

I’d love to hear some things you wish you knew when you first got your GSD.

anything from food, behavioral,grooming,potty training,enrichment ect !!

My boy turns 6 months next week and he's really found his voice. For context, I have an older dog who will sometimes bark at other dogs / people when they pass by the house. My puppy used to be scared when she did this, but now he joins in. Problem is he does this for EVERYTHING now. Any sound, any person, ANYTHING, he starts bugging out barking. When it was just my older dog it was easy to calm her down and get her to stop, but now that he joins in it's way harder to get them to stop. He barks and she starts barking too. He's also started demand barking at her ? When she's laying down not playing with him he'll lay down in front of her and bark / growl. Please any advice would be greatly appreciated. I have no peace in my house anymore lol.

My partner and I have a 10 week old puppy. We’ve had him for about two weeks now and still really struggling. He mostly sleeps through the night, waking us up about 4 times, but we have to sit next to him in his crate until he goes to sleep or he’ll whine and bark. He’s good at the command “go potty” outside and he’ll immediately pee when we say it, but he still has a lot of accidents inside. He will pee outside, come back in and have an accident on the floor. I’m not sure if he still just doesn’t know how to fully empty his bladder or what. We had him checked at the vet for a UTI which he didn’t have but they did say that his urine is too alkaline and could potentially have bladder stones (she also said it would be incredibly rare for a puppy at 10 weeks to have) We’re encouraging him to drink more water for now. I just really need advice and reassurance that potty training will get easier and he’ll have less accidents 🙁

I know there are so many posts about crate training on here, but I figured I would explain my pup’s situation here in depth just to see if anyone has advice or reassurance for my exact experience.

I adopted my Australian cattle dog (mix of some sort? He’s got floppy ears lol) about 3 weeks ago from a foster based rescue. It was a very thorough process, and I knew what I was in for. Compared to others of his breed, he’s overall very mellow, which is why the rescue thought he would do perfectly fine in our townhome. For reference, he is anywhere from 5-7 months, depending on which vet you ask. We were also told he was used to being crated, which was great given we share walls with people. I knew bringing him to a new home would be an adjustment for any dog. What I didn’t know, until after reaching out for the rescue for advice with crating him, was that he had only ever been crated in a room with 3 other dogs, so he’s never truly been alone, and is really struggling with it. Barking and crying until he’s panting, biting and pulling at the crate, humping the blankets inside, pacing…It’s also been too cold to take him for a walk and get his energy out outside, which I’m sure is also affecting the crating process.

The positives:

– he’s never had an accident in or outside of his crate

– He will try to chew things occasionally, but understands the “leave it command” pretty well when we are around.

– His barking in the crate has reduced from about 90 minutes straight to about 20-40 minutes straight and then will try to rest for about an hour.

– He will sleep through the night outside of his crate.

– I’ve never really had any issues with him destroying things when he’s left in the gated room and I’m grabbing water, going to the bathroom, eating dinner.

– Direct neighbors are aware of the situation and responded nicely.

I put on calming music or white noise, I use pheromone spray, I’ve tried the tshirt with my scent on it, I’ve tried to cover the crate (both fully and leaving one side uncovered) with a blanket but he immediately just grabs the blanket and pulls it through all the holes in the crate.

I’ve heard so much to “desensitize” him by leaving in very small increments and slowly increasing, but at the rate he is going it is impossible to work up to what he needs in order to be fine for 4 hours straight while I’m at work. We don’t have any family or close friends that can watch him, and my partner is weary about a random pet sitter in our home, which I think is valid.

My direct neighbors are aware of the situation and were kind about it, however, this obviously cannot go on forever. During the day when we’re at work, he can be loud for a bit and I feel less bad about it considering other people are also gone at work in our complex. At night, barking in his crate is not really an option here if it goes on longer than a few minutes. One time I fell asleep on the couch and he didn’t move a muscle or make a peep all night. I know this probably isn’t helping his separation or confinement anxiety at all by letting him sleep on the couch with me, but the end goal is for him to sleep wherever he wants at night. I’m worried it will cause some regression about going in the crate when we leave the house, but I feel like he will get used to the routine.

Long story short – how much longer should I try this, or should I just try the puppy proofed living room? If I wasn’t leaving for four hours at a time at work I would probably just do the puppy proofed room, but I have no idea how he would be. Im thinking of on the weekend leaving him in the gated room and just sitting in my car and watching the camera to see what/how he does, but I know it will take a while to work up to trusting him for four hours and I’m not sure what to do in the meantime. My main concern is really him hurting himself, as well as disrupting our neighbors and getting in trouble with our landlord for him barking.