Category: Top Dog

i'm adding behavior as flair but the behavior i am concerned about is my friend's. i am dog sitting her dog this weekend, 1yr 2mos with mine, 11 mos and my boy is fully house trained and he walks around 5-6 times a day. i live in a studio apartment so it's really worrying that my friend who owns the 1yr 2mos old dog does not 1) want us walking her dog outside to potty. he is in a diaper and since getting to my place 5 hours ago, has already pooped twice, 2) also does not want us to walk her dog around inside spaces like ross or marshalls and would only want the dog to be carried or put in a cart. friend said that it's because her dog just showered and she doesn't want him getting dirty? 🙁 background of this dog is that he was from an abusive home and my friend took him in 6mos ago. he has so much energy that he would often have zoomies around place and would snap at / bully my dog 🙁 i am concerned that friend's dog is not getting the exercise he needs to let all the puppy energy out. and it would really be helpful for him to get a structure to grow out of his aggression.

please help – how do i tell this to my friend?

I'm thinking of getting one of those dog breed DNA test kits for my aunt for Christmas. Are they worth it? Any particular brand I should get or avoid? Thanks!

My absolute favourite thing to read is about dogs who have protected their owners/ families/ home or rescued them from whatever situation. Do you have any stories of fur babies looking out for you ?

Me and my wife are going to "adopt" a dog for a week to try the dog out if the week goes well we will keep the dog. What are somthings I may not be thinking of?

Almost a year after losing our previous dog, a sweet Maltese of 18 yo, I really felt the need to fill the hole in my heart and home again. So I adopted a sweet little 11 week old cocker, 3 months ago to become my new BFF and cuddler in crime. However…

Puppy blues hit very hard. Although the breeder assured me that this type of dog would be a great companion for a first time owner (I was still a child when the previous dog was being raised), he is stubborn and extremely low threshold. He is definitely easy with picking up commands, but gets bitey and growly after the slightest trigger. At 5mo he also suddenly started refusing to eat his dry kibble, and whining again in crate at night after sleeping perfectly alone for 3 weeks. That in addition to him being underweight (the "he'll get hungry eventually" isn't working for us, too stubborn) and already on special urinary care kibble for his bladder stones has me feeling very worried and incompetent, like I cannot raise this puppy or even keep him healthy.

As a breaking point today, he chewed on my mom's glasses, breaking the glass (we found all pieces, so no ingestion luckily) . I have always been 100% positive reinforcement, except for using timeouts with leash tethering if he really needs to calm down/did something wrong. At puppy school, my family, a friend of mine with dogs all say that I need to be more strict. That by cuddling and trying to bond with my dog, he sees me as equal and will never be well-behaved. They say I should let go of the BFF image and be more severe in my tone of voice, show who's the boss, ignore him more. And that really hurts.

So TL;DR I would like some advice on how to be more strict with my subborn/low-threshold puppy. How to make him see what is really unacceptable behaviour, but without losing the bond that we built so far.

So far I have called up three veterinary clinics and compared all of their prices, all of them being in the range of $100-140, I do not mind spending that kind of money at all, puppies are expensive and I knew very well going into it. But I was doing more looking today and remembered they do vaccinations at the humane society for cheaper, and I do love to save money where I can. My main worry is that it could be done idk…wrong? The lower cost is just more worrying.

Has anyone had experience with getting your pups vaccinated at a humane society? Did anything go wrong or am I just too worried?

The other day I gave my puppy a new chew that she’s never tried before. She loved it. But she was chewing it super fast and it seemed like she was swallowing it in chunks, so I got worried. I tried to take the treat from her calmly and she growled at me and barked and lunged at me. Didn’t bite me or anything but it was clear she was guarding it, so I gave up trying to take it away. I tried to trade for something better, and nothing was working. She slightly did it again today, just less intensely, when I gave her a frozen lick mat. I just walked near her while she was working on it and she barked at me.

She’s only 15 weeks old, but I’m scared because I really don’t want this to turn into a normal behavior. She doesn’t seem to be like this with her regular food, just with special treats but I don’t want it to get to that point.

Should also mention she’s a golden retriever. I’ve read that they commonly resource guard their food if not trained correctly. I can train her out of this, right? Any advice?

Hello! I'm bringing home my puppy next week. He will be 9 weeks old.

Yesterday, he got his second round of shots at 8 weeks. I live in a townhouse/apt complex, and was just reading that it could be dangerous to take him outside on walks at such a young age. We have a shared grassy backyard and I know many neighbors have dogs. How should I go about taking him potty? We also have a private concrete patio but I don't know if dogs would go on that.

And as for walks/socializing, should I just carry him the whole time and not allow him to get near other dogs, just observe? I got a sling bag to use for socializing him.