Category: Top Dog

Basically the title. My poodle is 10 months old, so he's not a tiny baby any more. He's definitely capable of sleeping through the night—he would sleep from about 11pm to 7am starting when he was around 5 months old. I was basically like "Great! This is it!" No such luck, though. Starting at like 8 months—what I'm thinking of as his adolescent phase—he's a very light sleeper and will wake up around 3 or 4am most nights.

He'll be woken up by some noise outside, or just nothing in particular, and then whine and cry until I get up with him. I'm pretty resistant to taking him out, because I feel like it's teaching him that he gets what he wants when he whines, but usually for sake of my sleep I do take him out. He'll pee a tiny bit and then is willing to go back to bed.

So, what is this behavior? I don't know if he really "needs" to pee, since he is capable of holding it through the night, and there are certainly nights where I just soothe him back to sleep and he doesn't pee until morning. At the same time, though, it's not like he wakes up needing exercise or fun—when I take him out, he pees and goes back to sleep. So I'm at a loss. What can I do?

Hi! I’ve gotten better at watching my 4 month old pup and knowing when he needs to go based on routine and his belly lol. Accidents have gone down to almost 0 in the course of 3 days but he just peed on his bed in the crate even though I put him in the playpen where it’s covered with peepads.

Can someone tell me why he keeps peeing on beds? Or no beds for him till he’s older? I previously cleaned the bed with enzymatic cleaner and he even slept on it without peeing on it last night.

I realised he also likes to lie down in said pee on the bed. Sigh. Does anyone understand his doggy brain? I need help with translation.

Thanks!

NOTE – just fully vaxxed cannot get on grass, no fresh patch in house either.

She’s a 6 month old lab and i’m not sure if ‘issues’ is even the right word, some people say it is and some people say it’s just puppy behaviour.

A friend of mine thinks my puppy doesn’t know how to behave around people especially guests, which she jumps all over and starts snapping at out of excitement. If they sit down, she crawls all over their back and attempts to bite their hair. She offers a ‘sit’ if the guest stands up and ignores her but she starts jumping up again the second the guest tries to reward her good behaviour. I have been trying to train her to understand that she will be ignored if she jumps and or snaps. It doesn’t seem to be working.

She also has a huge thing for shoes, socks and the laundry basket. I know that’s all normal lol but the issue is that she doesn’t stop and also doesn’t give back the item even if i’m trying to bride a trade with her using a treat, she completely ignores it. And i know not to chase her around for it but she still thinks it’s a game. I turn my back to her and sit down and pretend i don’t care that she has something but then i have to pry the item off her once she’s close enough.

She doesn’t have an off switch, she’s an American Labrador and doesn’t settle outside of her crate and honestly that’s okay because i understand settling will come with time. But i think all of that behaviour is simply because she can’t settle.

I was recommended by a friend to keep her awake for a few hours more so she can learn how to behave around people but she’s not getting much better, even with being kept awake for longer. Can someone recommend a sleeping schedule for a 6 month old lab? She sleeps through the whole night and wakes up at 9AM. She has 2 naps throughout the day but i’ll be honest, i’m a bit lost with her sleep. She does get TONS of sleep, but i’ve went off schedule a lot since she’s getting older and forgetting that she needs more time awake and less naps etc. I’m not sure if she’s sleeping too much or too little or if it’s fine. I’m pretty sure she isn’t tired, but i’m getting confused with overstimulation, boredom and just normal puppy behaviour.

My expectations aren’t too high, i just want to know if i’m able to tackle these issues with her. She’s so smart and takes onto training very quickly but seems to struggle when it’s to do with guests or wanting random objects she can’t have, so if excitement is involved she seems to struggle a lot. She has even started to have little peeing accidents when she’s excited.

She’s got a lovely personality and she is such a velcro dog, no separation anxiety but wants to be all over people lol.

She is my first ever puppy, and i’m looking after her on my own. Please be nice, i’m trying my best and so is my pup

Hey r/puppy101, I've dreamed of having a dog since I was a kid. My boyfriend and I finally got a puppy, but it's been way harder than I expected. He's 12 weeks old and requires constant attention and training. I feel totally misled by the seller – he's not pad-trained or crate-trained like they said. It's been overwhelming. The constant biting, especially on the walls, cleaning up accidents 5-6 times a day, and lack of sleep is exhausting. We can't even leave him alone for a few minutes, and he gets carsick, so we're stuck at home. Plus, he's scratched up our apartment floor, and we might have to move. My boyfriend and I have no time for each other, and I'm falling behind on school because I'm always researching dog training. He also steals my slippers constantly! I know it's only been a week, and he has an awesome personality. He's really smart, which I like, and he's training really fast. I'm starting to really like him and have feelings for him, but he gets overstimulated really easily and takes up so much of my life right now. I do see small improvements every day though. I know he's just a baby, but it's so hard. I have no time for myself, or even to clean, because he's always underfoot. It's hard to even walk around! I feel overwhelmed because he's so affectionate and needs my attention, but I just want some time to myself. I want to be a good and responsible pet owner, and give him the best. But today, I was so frustrated with how many times I had to clean up his poop. Even the first day he was here, I was anxious about everything he was doing – chewing on the walls, my slippers, the plants. I couldn't sleep for a couple of days because of it. Luckily, he sleeps through the night, so I can at least get some rest. Is this normal puppy blues? Does it get better? I want to be a good dog owner, giving him lots of attention, training, and cleaning up after him, but this is so much harder than I thought. It just takes up so much of my time. Sorry for the long post, but I really need to be heard right now. Any advice, support, or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated!

Hi everyone

My fiancee and I got a puppy on Monday. She is a cockapoo but looks more like a cocker spaniel (mum is cockapoo, dad is a cocker spaniel) Its now been 4 days and she is doing a great job!

She is happy in her crate, tells us when she needs a poo or pee by making puppy sounds, “sit” before we give her meals, and she likes her enrichment toys and can independently play for 10 mins before she wants cuddles.

I need advice with setting up routines as I am heavily into the gym and since Monday I havent trained!

7am wake up, poo and pee 7.30am eat 8.30-9.00 training and play 9.00 she gets hungry again!! 9.20 sleep (she doesn’t poo straight away after eating even if we take her in our balcony) 10.30 to afternoon this is when my fiancee takes over as she looks after her when I’m working. She is mainly asleep at this time as shes tired from the evening. She trains her as well when shes up from her nap. Around 4pm she eats again. Evening she gets hyper again and around 9pm she is asleep. 10-11pm we take her outside for a wee and she does

How do we insert gym time, looking after her, and work?? When is the realistic timeline of routine when she becomes more able to tolerate being in her crate awake so we can go out and train?

We can’t take her outside for a walk yet as shes not fully vax so I’m losing my mind not being able to go to the gym.

Thanks guys, hope pawrents who are gymheads understand the struggle!

I understand now that I oversimplified what having a dog meant and probably only thought about taking them on walks, doing some training exercises and playing with them. So the first two weeks were super overwhelming. We got a 4 month old rescue and he was already potty trained, so we thought we skipped the difficult part. I was not mentally prepared. I was in my head 24/7 thinking about the dog, being with the dog or looking at videos on how to train a dog. I was so scared of doing things wrong, teaching him the wrong thing, being a bad dog owner, that I cried a couple of times.

Things that helped me makes sense again we're keeping a journal. Simply listing when he woke up, when he napped, how long a walk was, what play we did or training, helped a lot to refer back to a day later. Finding what routine was slowly forming, helped make a day more predictable.

Next up was to not keep thinking about when he did something 'wrong' and keep feeling upset about it. Telling myself he's just a baby helped. He just wants to do what he thinks is fun and doesn't like me telling him he can't. Redirecting helped sometimes, or interrupting with a small training session for food as well. I still have times where I'm just exhausted and don't have the patience to be calm and collected, but there's moments where I am, and I see how that works better.

I was also scared of trying new things, being convinced it wouldn't work and just the thought would stress me out. For instance, we brought him to the vet the second week since he had some issue with his eye. We got a cream for it, that we had to apply 3x a day in his eye. I was dreading this, but my partner was super calm, letting the dog sniff, reassuring the dog, taking his time to make the dog feel like he could trust us. The first two days were still very difficult, but in the following days, my partner actually could apply it by himself and the dog wouldn't really mind as much. More things like that happened as well, were the first one or two times it seemed like it wasn't going to work, but turned out okay later. Another example is that we got him a food toy, so he has to work a bit harder to eat his food. At first he would use his paw to drag the toy around and bite in it. I thought this wasn't going to work and he would just break the toy, but now he sits patiently for us to to give the signal he can eat and almost doesn't drag it around at all. Now it's actually a calm moments where we can just give him some food and do stuff in the meantime.

All in all, I'm getting better adjusted. It's still a big learning curve and I've accepted that it's going to take months, maybe years to really feel like it's second nature. Hope this helps some others on here too.