Category: Top Dog

For context, I'm in the process of buying a house and have moved in with my parents until the sale goes through. My parents have a German shepherd and chocolate lab (both adults). I have a puppy border collie who is almost allowed outside.

My mum takes the adult dogs for a short walk every morning. IMO, they are poorly lead trained and the lab has terrible recall. She is so excited to be able to take my puppy on these walks.

WIBTA if I asked her not to take puppy on the walks until she's fully lead & recall trained, by me? I would like to take puppy on walks, just me and her, so I can train her properly. I think that letting her loose on these chaos walks with someone who has a different training style to me will slow down the training process.

I know that my puppy would benefit from the extra exercise of a short morning walk, but I have plenty of capacity for taking her out on walks, training, dog parks and other activities by myself. I also know that telling my mum this is going to upset her.

Am I overreacting – should I just relax, or do I have a point? I'm more than happy for her to join these walks once she's properly trained but I can't help but feel like this is going to muddy the training waters

Hello. I have an eight-month-old puppy who requires a lot of brushing and trips to the groomer — at home I generally do it when she’s tired, with food and in short sessions, but I am still learning technique so she still seems to mat despite brushing at least a section of her daily. She’s also still learning to be without me and does have some separation/isolation anxiety that we’re working on. Last time I took her to the groomer, he told me she had some behavioral issues — she had a lot of anxiety and wouldn’t stay still (which did result in a few cuts). He suggested it could be related to the separation anxiety, but she does wriggle a lot at home so I suspect it’s also that she’s not good at standing still. Does anyone have any advice on ways I can help her learn this? She’s not super food motivated, though she’ll sometimes lick peanut butter off a lick mat while I trim her nails or let me comb her snout for a few minutes in exchange for a bit of cheese for every stroke.

This breaks my heart but because of serious personal health issues I have to find a new loving home for my 3 year old purebred French Bulldog. He is housebroken, crate trained, very sweet and I hate to part with him but it’s just not fair to him that I can’t physically care for him. If you can offer a loving home to my sweet baby please let me know. I am asking a rehoming fee to make sure he goes to someone who wants to spoil and care for him the way he deserves. Breed experience preferred. He is not a toy or an accessory. He is a sweet loving family member. Please no negative comments. I have agonized over the decision and I’ve cried every night about it. I am located in Northern Virginia. I can not travel and will not ship. Must be picked.

I have 2 senior dogs and have had multiple beds for them. Many where annoying to wash. We have muddy mat rugs by our doors, so I purchased their dog beds – they were just okay, especially for the price. They got flat very quickly. So I ordered cordaroys dog beds (similar price), and they are great, substantial, and well made. Even my old lady with hip issues loves it. Cover comes off easily for washing.

Hi, looking to make sure my 3 month old puppy is well socialized. Per vet guidelines we can’t walk her yet, so I was looking at a few options: 1. Bringing her to a dog friendly store like Home Depot/a pet store. We won’t let her interact with other dogs, just bringing her around. 2. My local pet store has puppy training classes in a group, it does require vaccines, but I’ve read some reviews and am a bit worried about her accidentally contacting something, so not sure about that. 3. Just bring her in a sling and walk around? Looking for good advice on this 🙂

My boyfriend just got a new puppy. She's a Japanese spitz, I believe 13 weeks old. She sleeps in a crate and has only had a handful of accidents in there. The problem is, during the day, she's kept in a play pen. She's regularly taken out to the toilet but seems to get too distracted and won't go to the toilet until she's back inside in the pen. I've given him some suggestions like taking her to the same spot each time, standing still and keeping the lead short for 10-15 minutes but she just tries to eat things on the floor, run around, and watch cars that go by. I've suggested keeping a very close eye on her when he puts her back in the pen but he isn't able to watch her constantly (which is why she's in a play pen). So she usually has an accident a few minutes after coming back in, sometimes longer than that though. He cleans it up very thoroughly but that also hasn't helped to stop it from happening. Is there any advice you guys have, or anything we can try that I haven't thought of?

Weird title, I know. I adore this dog; I love this dog more than life itself, and she fully returns that affection. But I'm worried now that her fondness for me is doing more harm than good.

She's nine months old, and normally very sweet and playful. She has a lot of energy but she's good about keeping her destructive habits to her toys. That being said, the past few days she's been kind of weird. She's been hiding under places a lot more (like sleeping under my bed), and literally cannot stay in a room if I move from it. She follows me everywhere, even if she's relaxing or comfortable. This one it's own is fine.

But the worst thing that's new with her is that she growled, and apparently lunged at my mom's friends. She didn't actually bite them or anything, but just the fact that she growled at all (and she's met these people before and was fine, mind you) is shocking to me. I was out of the house both times, and when I came home one of the friends was still there. As soon as I walked in, my dog was all wags and happiness and was back to the sweet little girl I knew.

My mom (who watches her while I work) says she often gets really depressed when I leave and spends a lot of time sleeping in my room. I'm getting more and more worried about her behavior- maybe it's dog puberty mixed with me working long seasonal hours, but I don't want her to be so attached to me that she freaks out whenever I'm not home. I love her to death, but is it possible she's too attached for her own good?

I have a 2-month-old Rajapalayam puppy (a sight hound breed) showing strong territorial aggression and frequent biting. He tries to bite when I show affection or interact, which worries me a lot. He is not fully vaccinated yet, so I can’t take him for professional training or socialization outside safely. I’ve struggled with managing his aggression and biting, especially given the breed’s natural hunting and territorial instincts. I’m looking for practical guidance on managing and reducing this aggressive, territorial biting behavior safely at home while waiting for vaccinations, as well as ways to build trust and control his impulses effectively.

Can it be a uti if it’s only in the evenings? I’ve had her for a month, and she was pretty good about holding her bladder for 2-3 hours. She only had an accident about once a week, and that was my fault. Since yesterday, she’s been peeing inside within 2 hours of going potty outside. Today I thought that I would start taking her out every hour and a half, so she learns where to go again, but she just had two accidents inside. The first was within an hour of going outside, and the second was within an hour of the first accident. She didn’t go very much each time either. Could this be an uti? Maybbeee she’s done this in the day (can’t remember), but it seems to mainly be in the evening. And only until she finally sleeps on the couch for the rest of the evening.

The only other thing I can think of is that maybe I need to wash the carpet better? I use an enzyme spray, but she does a lot of sniffing in the same areas before going. (And I know, that’s going to be my signal to jump up and take her out now). She is mainly only playing a ton on the living room floor in the evenings, so that could explain why this isn’t happening during the day.