Category: Top Dog

So this is kind of a long one but I started fostering a pitty mix puppy about a week ago. I would guess he’s about 12 weeks old, though I’m not super sure. (We rescued him from a neglectful house and are just trying to train him as best we can while we look for a new home).

He has been doing pretty well overall. But training seems slow in a lot of ways because he gets so distracted by other animals. I don’t have any dogs of my own but we share a property with my family and as soon as any other dogs are around all bets are off. At night when we go outside for potty breaks the other dogs are normally inside and it’s fast an easy. He goes to the bathroom almost immediately and we can come right back inside. But the daytime is tricky. Anytime we walk out the door and another dog is within sight he takes off to be with them and will not focus up.

Hes doing mostly well on potty training.He has only pooped inside twice in the whole time we’ve had him, but he does have a couple pee accidents in the house during the day most days. I think that’s mostly because we go outside and he gets distracted and won’t go. I try to isolate him as much as possible when we go on potty breaks, but having to coral four other dogs to do so isn’t always possible.

Similarly, when we are inside he is pretty good about coming when called. (Expect when he’s being a sleepy lazy boy and it’s almost impossible to even get him to stand up). But outside, especially if there are any other dogs around he doesnt want to have anything to do with coming when I call. the other dogs are the most important.

I can’t keep everyone apart all the time and just want to know how other people have dealt with the presence of other animals and how that maybe has impacted your training experiences?

My pup is teething right now. He's super gentle and doesn't bite humans at all. Just sniffs and licks. But he does enjoy biting on his toys a ton.

I assume that's a good sign. Chances are he won't develop a biting habit, right?

A friend of mine has the same breed and he's uncontrollable. He'll bite ANYONE's ankles except for his human parents. I want to make sure my pup NEVER gets like this.

He is freshly 4 months old, he is an aussie/heeler mix with a little English Shepherd and Pitbull terrier. Sweet as pie, great with kids and people. Extremely intelligent and pretty much entirely potty trained. He is a rescue and I got him about three weeks ago and got him acquainted with his crate, he goes in it willingly but does not like me being out of his sight at all, he will scream. Even when he's out of the crate he will scream if I leave his sight for even a few seconds. He does not like to play independently even when I encourage him to. I am worried that he isnt getting enough sleep. Lately he has also started barking at dogs that he sees while on walks and at people who walk up our driveway. I turn him away and walk in the other direction but I don't know if thats the right thing to do.

Me and my partner keep going back and forth on getting one. We both want a dog but I'm not sure we've really thought it through properly. Like do we actually have the time for the walks every day? Can we afford it? What happens when we go on holiday?

I've been Googling around and can only find generic breed quizzes which don't really tell you much. What I actually want is something that shows me what day to day life would look like before we commit. Has anyone found anything useful or is it just something you figure out when you get the dog?

Would genuinely love to know how other people approached this before taking the leap.

my puppy's almost 11 months old and I figured it's finally time to get him a muzzle since he's probably not gonna grow enough to outgrow one. he has a bad habit of eating stuff off the ground or just picking it up in general (and when he's off leash in our yard, his favorite thing to do is to pick up something he knows he's not supposed to have because he wants us to chase him 🙄)

I tried a Baskerville anti-scavenging muzzle and the fit itself was great, but the strap was far too short and didn't go around his head entirely. I think going a size up would end up too big thoogh.

does anyone happen to have any reccomendations? he's a glen of imaal terrier and they have really big fat heads but all the muzzles can find are either for dogs with thinner heads and longer snouts, or ones for dogs with big heads and short/broad snouts. my dog is neither and has a relatively normal length snout and a fat head. any help is much appreciated !!