Category: Top Dog

Have a 14 week old lab puppy. She has one more round of shots (IIRC just her rabies shot). Is it ok to start taking her on short walks at the park/around our neighborhood? We live in a pretty dog-dense neighborhood/town/state.

So my guy just turned 1 on Christmas Day. He’s been an overall pretty good puppy since I got him. He’s a golden so he has an issue with mouthing/chewing and getting overexcited, but it’s been manageable puppy behavior. However, recently he’s been destroying things in the middle of the night. This past week he’s chewed up my rug and a cardboard decor box I had in my room. He has chewed a little bit on my rug, but has never touched the box I’ve had since I got him.

Helpful info:

– He gets plenty of exercise: 2-2.5 hour off-leash sniffy walks daily, a few minutes of training everyday, 3 days playing with other dogs, and sometimes I’ll feed him out of a puzzle feeder. I also run him on my dads golf cart for about 30-45 minutes 2 days a week in addition to a walk

– he’s not crate trained. He has been chewing things up during the day (a cheap rug that I don’t care about), so I’m already planning to crate him during the day. I’ve bought a crate and it’ll be here this weekend

– I really don’t want to crate him at night because he gets hot and moves so much during his sleep. I also enjoy our morning and evening snuggles too much lol.

Anyone have ideas on what could be cause this change in behavior?? I’m sorry for the long post. Just really struggling and looking for any helpful advice / similar experiences, etc.

My wife and I recently got a Golden retriever puppy that’s now coming up on 10weeks. He’s been such a joy to have, although here and there *definitely* has his moments (which is to be expected!)

One thing we’re having trouble with is leaving the house without him howling his mind away. He’s on a fairly strict schedule and has eased much better into enforced naps, about 3-4 throughout the day, but when he sees us leave even if he’s in the play pen, he sings the song of his people.

We’re trying to be better ignoring him once all his needs are met, and progress has been steady, but we feel shackled to our space. Either she leaves and I stay, or the other way around.

This weekend we have family visiting and of course we’ve established our situation but we’re trying to how best navigate when we’ll be out 1-2.5 hours out of the day multiple times and with our little guy.

For context he takes naps in the crate and his play pen, he’s easy to put down if we shush him and give him pets as he’s in his crate, but we literally tip toe around the house to ensure he stays asleep and doesn’t hear us leave if we even get a chance to!

Hi all! I have a 13 week old lab. Had her since she was 8 weeks. She is teething so she is a little bitey. The thing is, she has stopped biting me a bunch. She will get mouthy with me very rarely but for some reason she is very bitey with my boyfriend. She accidentally got her tooth in his ear and he pulled her off him and it ripped his ear open. I’m thinking it’s how he responds to the biting. He moves quickly, tries to get his hand away or move her away, which I’m thinking she thinks is a game. Typically I ignore the biting or say ow and she stops. I’m just not sure why she really goes after him lol. Advice maybe??

We have two 8 month old puppies, one who still pees on everything. Pillows, beds, blankets, carpet, cocks his leg on big furniture.

He’s good during the day, but doesn’t know how to hold over night. They were both crate trained but no longer use them, but even when he was using his crate, he still peed on his bed through the night.

Medical issues have been ruled out. He had bloods done and a physical check and they said he was OK.

He is yet to be fixed (he is quite small, and our vet recommended waiting until April). Will this help?

Last night, we let them both sleep in our bed. His brother didn’t pee at all but his belly band was full in the morning.

Is it too late to retrain? We aren’t home during the day and they have access to both inside and outside. He goes on a big walk in the evening, eats and drinks fine. During our walks, he marks on everything. Any plant, letterbox, anything he can cock his leg on.

Any advice is welcome! Thank you!

I got an 8 week old puppy. I lost my job before I even got him (3 weeks before pickup).

So I was able to do everything right. Train. Leave in short spurts and come back. All the suggested separation anxiety training. Got him to the point where he can sleep in pen in another room without screaming or any issue.

He's 14 weeks now.

I just got a new job.. but it's from 8am to 6pm 5 days a week I'm gone. Today was my 3rd day… (my old job was fully WFH so it was going to be easy…)

All the training seems to have gone down the drain. When I get home, he's screaming and screeching. I get my neighbor to check in on him and they're able to check in at noon and at 3pm for about 20 minutes.

I'm afraid he might get separation anxiety once this job continues like this…

My 18 week old Golden has been sleeping through the night most nights. However, the past two nights he has started whining/barking in the middle of the night to go outside. I don’t want to ignore his needs but I am concerned that he may have figured out that he gets my attention when he’s bored and barks in the middle of the night. So where do you draw the line and get out of bed when your puppy starts whining/barking in their crate at night for a legitimate potty break vs. just ignoring it?

Hello,

I have a 7 month old golden retriever. He's recently began some new behaviors that are both concerning and frustrating (perhaps this is the "teenage" phase)

First of all, he is forgetting/ignoring commands he was very receptive to for months; things like place, down, come, even sit. He is resistant to learning new commands, too. He's destructive too. From what I read, this is relatively normal for his age and breed.

What I am mostly concerned about is his new resistance to relaxing. Before, he was comfortable laying down (without napping) on his own in a gated room of the house. I used positive reinforcement when he would relax as a puppy, but stopped this long ago because he seemed to get the hang of it. Now, he does not lay down at all unless he is exhausted and needs to nap. It doesn't seem like he wants to play, either. He won't pick up toys or come up to me. Now, he will just pace around the house and pant for long durations of time… I can't really coax him out of it/ train him to relax the same way J did when he was a puppy. Is this concerning? Is there any way I can train him to be okay with relaxing again, even with his recent training resistance ?

hi everyone. my puppy just turned 6 months a few days ago but he’s randomly started peeing and pooping in the house and not outside whatsoever. we sometimes spend long periods of time playing outside and the second we come in he decides to pee on the rug. this started randomly, he’s always been good about his potty training but now he’s extremely out of wack as of 2 days ago. He did just get neutered a week ago so im wondering if that could maybe have something to do with it? Or is this a regression thing maybe?