Category: Top Dog

I currently have 5 living dogs and 9 sets of ashes on the shelves and at least one, if not more, have always felt the need to clean/groom me. There was one cat(Blackjack)that would clean me forehead in the morning. Even my first dog(Chica, Dachshund, 18 yrs)would lick my kneecaps for a while, sometimes the shins. Do they know there are bones in these bodies and are trying to get to them? Do humans taste good? Salty sweat? I feel blessed in a way but I just wonder what it is that makes some of my dogs feel they need to groom me.

Does anyone else have a pup or cat that feels the need to clean/groom you?

My first dog is almost 2 years and very well trained. Very good at holding positions, waiting, etc. I just got a puppy he is 4 months. I have started training him the same way u trained my first. I want them to understand different commands like if I want one to sit vs lay down etc. whenever I ask my puppy to do something, my first dog does it also. How can I differ the commands between the two? My first dog just gets confused.

Hi all, would appreciate some help on this. My lovely senior rescue dog has always had an anxious disposition. She’s okay around other dogs, but never approaches them. Usually she’s submissive or just stands against my lap if she does interact with them. She also co-exists with my family’s spaniel, neither really interacts with each other.

In short, a month or so ago, a small terrier like dog broke off its harness while we were at the park & charged over to attack mine unprompted. We were a good while away too. Separated them promptly, checked her over etc. Thankfully she’s fine (medium sized spaniel), but she’s been too anxious for walks where I live since. I’ve tried different paths instead of the original park she was attacked & the first few times it was alright. However a few weeks later, she refuses to walk even with encouragement etc. She now stalls by the car park near the back of my place, prior to reaching any park/path. I just had her stop maybe 6 times in a row on an attempted walk. She was okay when my dad was visiting, but still was too wary to stray off the lead (over woody areas).

It’s very unfortunate, I felt like she was gaining her confidence slowly but surely (was very jumpy with noises prior). I’ve had her for nearly 3 years now. However, this incident has clearly knocked her confidence but I am not sure how to approach it best. Thank you for your time reading this & I would appreciate any kind advice.

Hi all!

I've had dogs before but never a young puppy, so this is all new territory for me. I've only had her for 2 1/2 weeks so far. Right from day 1, she had a habit of biting everything and everyone. Following advice from the breeder, I'd hold her down, wait for her to stop squirming whilst calming saying "no", then release her. After a few beats, direct her to a soft chew toy.

This had been fine for the first 2 weeks, but this entire week she has been growing and even lunging to attack if I try to stop her from doing what she wants (eating her own poo, biting something, jumping onto the couch). Today was kind of a point of worry as within 5-10mins of leaving her cage, she'll begin this behaviour and each time she became immediately violent and tried to bite and attack. I'd hold her down, put her into a timeout. After 30-45mins, let her out. And the whole thing would repeat.

I'm concerned I am doing something wrong, or if this is the beginning of what can be a dangerous situation. Malamutes grow to be quite large, and I fear for the safety of my 161cm girlfriend if this issue isn't resolved.

Please, any advice would be welcomed!

Hello! I have a 1 y/o Pitbull-Catahoula mix named Auggie. He's super sweet but obviously high energy due to his age and breed. I work from home some days and work out of the home the rest. When I work out of the home, he happily goes into his kennel and chills there until I am home and can play with him and walk him. When I work from home, he usually whines and paces for the first few hours after I start working. I don't know what to do to make him feel more at ease, and I don't understand why he only does it in the morning when I am at home. Is there anything I should be doing to help him? I think he whines because he is bored, but I may be wrong. I will typically take him on a walk during my lunch break when working from home, and he will be fine then, but take a while to settle back down when we get back home. I also give him kongs and puzzle feeders throughout the day, which will keep him busy, but as soon as he is done with those, he whines again. Sometimes I say he's an iPad kid because he needs to be constantly stimulated lol. Plz help, I feel like I am doing something wrong, and I love my Auggie doggie, and I don't want him to be sad.

hi all! my dog M is a mix, but mostly black lab, and she’s 4. she was diagnosed with hip dysplasia at around a year old. she did physical therapy for a while and they taught us some stretches and things. she also had FHO surgery on one of her hips at around 2 years old, but i’m not sure that’s relevant. the point is, we’ve been told to walk her around our little area of the neighborhood once a day everyday to keep her strong and that it will help stabilize her hip joint. she used to ADORE walks, like would jump up and spin in circles at the door while we got her ready, then would pull the while time with tongue out and a big smile. but within the last 3-ish months or so she has become genuinely terrified. she’ll try to run back to the couch when i go to put her harness on her. then she barely makes it out of the driveway before she goes still, tail between her legs, and then sits down and refuses to go further. if we somehow do make it farther down the sidewalk, she’ll stay tail between legs and try her hardest to pull away/out of harness. i’ve tried observing what’s scaring her and there’s nothing consistently outside. sometimes i think it’s noises or cars, other times i think it’s people or cats. but sometimes none of those things are present and she’s still scared. we’ve tried so many things to help. i’ve tried making her do a few tricks and giving her a treat to distract her and get her to keep walking. i’ve tried waiting it out (like literally sat on sidewalk next to her for 20+ minutes). i’ve tried throwing treats down the sidewalk to keep her moving forwards (works sometimes but is not foolproof and we’re going through SO many treats). i’ve tried walking with a treat in my hand by my side. i’ve tried playing with her inside and then taking her on a walk as fast as i can while she’s still distracted (works momentarily but then she remembers she’s scared). we’ve also gone other places and tried to walk, and while it does work for a while, she eventually gets really scared again. and i also don’t have a car during the day so it’s not sustainable. but literally everything i can think of. the only thing so far that has helped is taking my in-laws’ dog with her on a walk (they live upstairs so usually MIL will join me). but we’re on different schedules and it’s hard to coordinate walking the dogs together every day, and with how strong M is it’s near impossible for me to walk two dogs by myself. and i feel like that also doesn’t address the issue. as far as we’re aware, nothing traumatic happened that would have scared her this bad. but it’s getting bad because i know she needs to walk every day for her hip but it’s impossible to get her to. i feel so guilty and so bad for my poor girl because she’s scared and i don’t know how to fix it. anyone have ANY tips or tricks to help figure out what’s going on/get her confident on walks again?

also: we’re 99% sure she’s not in pain. she goes about her day as normal and still runs in the backyard. there’s no limping. and when we go on a walk with my in-laws’ dog she doesn’t struggle at all. we did take her to the vet at one point, and one of her nails had split so we were like “ohhhh i bet that’s it”… it was not. they got her all taken care of and after recovering for a few days with no walks, she was back to being terrified when we tried to walk her.

I'm 15 weeks pregnant with my first, and have two dogs who are used to sleeping in my bed with me.

It's best that the baby shares my room for the first six months to a year, and it feels safest to transition my dogs to sleeping in a crate near my bed or outside of the room.

They're crate trained, but I'm feeling conflicted on which option will be best for them. The crates will allow them to stay close to me while removing the option of getting into bed while I'm sleeping, but being outside of the room will allow them more freedom to get water and stretch their legs.

I don't love having to make this decision and want to make sure I'm being as fair to them in this transition as possible.

So I purchased the AKC Leerburg scent work kit. After doing research and receiving it I found out that you should not keep scents together and unscented containers together. So that basically defeats the purpose of the kit correct? Ill need to store the items in a completely different way then the storage box that the kit comes with?

I have a 9 month old baby who is crawling, standing, and cruising on furniture and a 10 year old hound dog who is cuddly, stubborn, mostly lazy/chill, and has gotten a bit grumpy with other dogs as he ages. My baby is obsessed with the dog and he is clearly getting stressed. He makes a warning moaning noise that I take as a precursor to a growl, and he has growled a couple times. I place myself as a physical barrier between them, and baby just tries to crawl and reach around me to get to him. I move her to another part of the room and try to engage her with a toy, this sometimes works for a short time before she beelines back for him. We go to another room, dog follows us – he has spent his whole life being in the same room as me whenever I’m home so even when he’s fed up with baby he still wants to be where the humans are.

I feel so bad, I obviously don’t want a bite to happen and I also don’t want my poor pup to spend his twilight years feeling neglected or stressed.

Here are my ideas: 1) continue to move baby away and engage in another activity/use language like “dog needs a break”. (Though I know it will be a looong time before she gets impulse control.)

2) we have a dog bed on the side of our bed that he never uses. Baby rarely goes in our room, so I could teach dog to go there to take a break and give him a long lasting treat when he does. (Problem with this one: what do I do if he comes right back as soon as the treat is done? I feel bad that the bed doesn’t have a view out the window, his favorite thing is looking out the window)

3) I could put a safety barrier on the couch to block part of it off so he can sit up there and be close to us when we’re playing in the living room? (Problem: once baby can climb up the couch this won’t work anymore, but maybe by then she’ll have learned a bit? Also I would be taking away some of her space where she’s learning to cruise along furniture, but that’s better than getting bit!)

4) I am also trying to spend time outside of the house with baby as much as possible, dog is used to both parents working before baby came so I don’t think he minds this as he just naps and barks out the window, but it is a bit harder to get out with baby when it’s super cold.