Category: Top Dog

I’m so happy I decided to adopt my little puppy! She’s 13 weeks and doing great with potty training and crate training. She’s doing so well overall, but her extreme food motivation worries me a little. It’s great that’s she’s so motivated for structured training, but when I’m trying to subtly reward her for things like chewing on her toys instead of the couch, she then stops playing with her toys altogether and just sits and stares waiting for the next treat. She will stare for 10+ minutes sometimes just patiently waiting for a treat.

This also affects our socialization. I took her in her first stroller ride around the block yesterday and gave lots of treats for getting into the stroller and then again when we stepped outside. The entire walk she was just staring at me waiting for more treats and ignoring everything on our walk. I was hoping to be able to treat her for looking at cars, other dogs, people, etc but she’s not even interested when she knows I have treats.

I would like for her to be able to settle and relax a little with the intensity but I’m not sure how to do that.

Here is puppy tax: https://imgur.com/a/wzwcbOd

My 14 week old puppy has had loose stool for over a week. At first, I thought he had too many treats at Puppy Kindergarten, so we took a treat break. Got a vaccine on Tuesday (because I thought the loose stool was from treats not GI upset). Loose stool persisted but was manageable until he was no longer even holding it and actually slept in his poop Sunday night. 🙁

Went to the vet first thing Monday AM, stool sample is negative for parasites, and started him on boiled chicken, white rice & pumpkin puree and probiotics. It's 2 days later and he is still pooing very very loose stool in his pen at night/early AM. Every morning, it's a disgusting mess. He's been in the bath twice and he's a 47 lbs fluffy puppy with a double coat. Just put me out of my misery!

He somehow managed to still gain 4 lbs in 6 days even with this GI upset! Boy loves to eat. He's now barking pathetically at the stove because he knows that's where chicken comes from and licking his empty bowl.

Mostly just venting because we are under the care of the vet. But I'm not sure how much more of this I can take!

My Dog adores soft toys but I struggle to find him any because he is:

A. A voracious chewer (even supervised, with me trying to prevent it, he goes through soft toys in seconds)

B. Petrified of squeaky toys

C. Doesn't really love to play tug with his toys

I'm not holding out much hope here, but does anyone have a suggestion of a soft toy that could work for him. I'm basically willing to pay anything for a toy that lasts him for more than 4 seconds at this point!

Have a who’s 8 years old and 45 lbs (hound/collie/shepherd mix) and I just haven’t been able to get him out as much as I’d like recently. WFH and sometimes I can tell he’s just bored out of his skull, always trying to get me to play.

He has plenty of toys/bones but of course is bored of all of them. He’s very treat-motivated so putting a treat in an impossible spot to get inside a toy works for a bit until he inevitably always gets it.

Does anyone have any recommendations for toys/bones that can help cure his boredom? He’s also a heavy chewer so anything that can easily be bitten off (and eaten) most likely will be. Thanks!

I’m know considering a few different dog breeds. And I always dreamt of MAS, their energy level, character, size and a lot of other parameters suit my preferences perfectly. But the problem is that I can be absent from home up to 6 hours 5 times a week. And as this dogs have high attachment to their owner, so it may increase risks of separation anxiety??

So I wanted to ask someone who has a MAS, if it is okay to leave them at home for this amount of time, while leaving them interactive toys or other things for mental stimulations?

Has anyone subscribed to RescueBox? I've been a BarkBox member for 2 years but I want to try something new. Are the RescueBox items as high quality as BarkBox?

My husband and I are looking to adopt a pug. We are searching shelters and contacted some breeders as well.

I found one that is out of state. Shes been doing it for 10 years and says they are healthy. Im in Southern CA so breeders out here are a pretty penny. Not sure what state shes in and didn't answer when I asked. She says adoption fee is $700 with $100ish shipping fee. Is that normal? I want to ask more questions but im not sure what.

No luck with shelters yet. Every time we find a pug they've already been adopted.

We got our 14 week old puppy this past weekend. We're in love. She is house-trained (I hate the term potty-trained for a dog) with accidents happening because we didn't notice her signal.

She has 'sit' down cold, and now sits 'at me', unasked for, but staring at me like 'where's my treat?'

I'm working on 'stay' and 'come'. We haven't figured out 'down' at all.

But we have probably missed some steps. She doesn't always lift her head when we call her, for instance.

I started watching kikopup's videos and incorporated luring her away from my body with the treat, and giving her treats when she is just sitting calmly. But even attempting to watch her videos for beginners, I feel like she assumes prior knowledge or she references skills taught in other videos.

I read through all the wiki training links on this forum. But I didn't understand what a 'mark word' was or a clicker. (I know have a better understanding of that). A treat back and two clickers are being delivered Saturday (cyber Monday purchase meant very delayed shipping)

What I am asking for is a start-to-finish training program I can follow, with games that I can teach my 9 year old to play. (She's felt a little left out of this process) This program should assume no prior dog experience. (I had a dog someone had abandoned at 6wks when I was 17. But I didn't know what I didn't know, the result was a very sweet, but ill-trained dog. ) and I took her to puppy classes.

I homeschool throughout the day, so we can have 'family training breaks' throughout the day, we just need to know what to do, with a 'skill map'.

My puppy is around 15-16 weeks old. He goes potty outside and knows what I mean when I say potty ( if he gets distracted with playing and I say go potty he’ll stop and go potty). He only poops outside, He does not poop inside at all anymore so he’s gotten very good with that. The issue is he’ll keeps peeing inside sometimes and it happens just about every day a couple times a day and he walks while he pees at the same time so it’s a gigantic mess to clean up. We see about 90% of the accidents and tell him no, pop him on the butt, take him outside when it’s happening or sometimes crate him depending on the situation. We take him out just about every hour (unless he’s in the middle of a nap) and we have even started water limiting (which I hate) but even then he’s still having breakthrough accidents. Sometimes it’s a lot of urine so I understand it’s hard for him to hold that much but sometimes it’s just a little bit so it’s not like he couldn’t hold it. He also holds his bladder for the entire night, so I know he is capable of holding it for larger amounts but chooses not too? We already checked him for UTI, he doesn’t have that so I’m just looking for any tips or tricks that’s not the same stuff that I’m already doing. For more context we do have another puppy (almost 1 year) who is potty trained. Also we have done treats for pottying outside and other good behaviors. Any help is welcome if it’s different from what we’ve been trying or just hope that it’s all normal 🥲 our other dog caught on a lot faster about no inside pottying especially when we moved into a house with easier yard access.