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 🙁

She does well in her play pen and crate, usually whines for a minute or two before settling. The last week or so, she has been waking up around 5am to potty, but when we put her back in her crate (in our room) or in her play pen (living room), she won’t settle for a long time, and just whines and paces.

She goes to sleep around 9:30/10p each night, so I’m wondering if maybe she just doesn’t want to sleep anymore? Otherwise a very wonderful pup! So this is a minor issue, just wanted to see if we can help her better sleep through the night further.

I’m suspecting she just misses us and wants to cuddle/play, but we make the potty routine purposefully very boring apart from rewarding her for using the pee pad. We entertain her a lot in the late evening to tire her out, both physically and mentally.

Any tips for settling in the morning/sleeping longer at night are appreciated!