Category: Top Dog

Hi all! November 13th my boyfriend and I were approved to pick up our dream puppy, being adopted from Romania (we live in France). The puppy is currently living in a foster family in Romania, so it already knows life inside a home. December 6-29 we had a trip booked to the United States to visit my family over the holiday season, but now we are considering moving it to December 16-29 instead. Either way, we would leave the puppy in the countryside with my boyfriend’s family for these days, it would be extremely well taken care of and rarely, if ever, left alone. It’s really unfortunate timing, but also we won’t not go to the states for Christmas. After we get back at the end of December, we won’t travel for at least another 7 months, so everything will be stable then. Moral of the story is, would it be the worst thing to have this instability in the beginning with our puppy, even if we are leaving her in trusted hands? If it’s going to be extremely detrimental we may cancel our adoption of this puppy. Let me know your thoughts 🙂

Urination issue. Background: Picked up a 5 month old mini American shepherd 3 nights ago that's vaguely a rescue (long story). She's very good about not eliminating in her crate (thank you to the previous rescuer), but has had a couple urination accidents, all within the first 24 hours. She has yet to poop outside. She's pooped in the house once a day since we picked her up. She had been using potty pads (heavy sigh, but there were reasons). We've been taking her out first thing, last thing, and before and after crate time. As of two nights ago, we got more educated and are following general potty training advice of taking her to a specified potty spot, giving her 5-10 minutes, and if she fails to pee or poop, back into the crate for 10-20 minutes, then back out to the potty spot, rinse and repeat.

Issue: We did this 4AM-11PM yesterday, as well as two 20-30 minute walks bookended by visits to the potty spot. She never crouched to pee. It's now been a full 24 hours since I FOR SURE saw her pee (it was a little panic tinkle by the crate as I was clipping on her leash yesterday morning, and she's very quickly becoming not afraid of the leash noise), but she has sniffed around intently, lied down in the grass for 5-20 seconds, then sprung up and started sniffing and trying to engage or head toward the door on some of the potty trips. Pretty sure that's her peeing. Since we aren't sure when she pees, we wind up staying the full 5 minutes minimum outside, and she occasionally gets bored and just sits and stares at us until it's time. She seems overall happy, comfortable, and energetic. She's eating, drinking etc. and seems fine. Doesn't seem to mind being in her crate as long as we're in the room despite how much time she's been spending in it, but I'm kinda not okay with it. We're taking her to the vet tomorrow for her first checkup in our care.

Questions: What the what? Has anyone seen a puppy lie down to pee? How the heck am I supposed to praise and reward her for peeing outside when I can't tell if she's peeing or just chilling?

Hi there! My corgi puppy is 7 months old. He's been very good about not pottying in the living room for the past month so I decided to try and introducing him to another part of the house, where he promptly peed.

My question is, how are you supposed to teach a puppy not to pee in other parts of the house if you've been confining them to one part of it? Is it a going back to basics sort of thing where I take him out hourly again? I've tried searching the subreddit but I haven't been able to find any concrete advice on the matter.

My puppy got his final vaccinations 2 days ago and we were told by the vet we could take him out in a week , just to stay away from canals etc for now , I’ve read online that you should wait 2 weeks to take them out after vaccinations and now I don’t know what to do , there’s a outdoor shopping centre near me that I was planning on taking him to in a few days but there is usually quite a few dogs there , if I take him and keep him away from the dog drinking stations and lampposts etc will I be okay to take him out ?

My mini goldendoodle is a few weeks away from being a year old and we are struggling now more than ever. He was so well behaved as a puppy but this teenage stage is almost unbearable.

The worst is the biting. If he’s not sleeping, he’s biting us. He will grab our clothes and yank on them and rip them. We have tried ignoring, we have tried telling him off, we have tried redirecting but he does not care about any toys other than our clothes. He also just ignores most of our commands now too. He runs off during walks (which he never used to do).

We walk him twice a day, both hour long walks, as well as mental stimulation on an evening. We also have a cat which he’s been fine with, but will recently chase her everywhere and now I’m worried he’s bothering her too.

Will neutering him help? Someone please tell me it gets easier than this!!

I’ve had dogs all my life, but this is the first one that I’m personally raising and training. None of our other dogs, including our current adult dog, have ever been crate trained but I am an incredibly anxious person and wonder if it would be better for my mental well being as well as my puppy’s. Our main issue is bedtime, it’s been inconsistent and I’ve only been able to sleep for one to four hours a night so far. I’m currently writing this from my living room floor at one in the morning while she sleeps on her bed down here. She was fine sleeping in my room two of the nights she’s been here, but the other two she’s insisted on being downstairs. She wants me to be near her, and I think she might want to be near our adult dog too? She’s very fond of her. I’m just not sure what to do here. She’s too young for me to leave her alone down here without being gated in or crated but the couch is horrible to sleep on and when she does choose to sleep in my room I still barely sleep because I’m paranoid about her getting into something or somehow managing to hurt herself or her going potty on my carpets. Would crate training help? Would my older dog having free rein in the house make it harder to do it? The puppy seems to want to shadow everything she does. I also think it could help when I need to shower or do something that requires me to leave her somewhere, so far I’ve been getting my mom to “puppy sit” while I get in a quick one hour nap or jump in the shower but I know that won’t work long term.