Category: Top Dog

What kind of rope should I be using and is a tire ok to use in a tie out? Is a harness better than a collar for a tie out? My dog as far as I am aware has only used a collar. If a harness is better, what would be recommended for a dog that has destroyed a collar he was wearing. Comfort for the dog first.

Currently I've been using regular rope, tied to a tire. The rope is around 50ft for him to explore the yard safely. My dog is supervised on the rope. He usually just sunbathes. He does go on at least 2 walks a day.

wanting the opinions from those that use or is knowledgeable with tie outs. If tie outs are considered dangerous even with supervision, please let me know. This is my first dog that needs a tie out.

"Stay confined to the home and garden until vaccination" "take your puppy everywhere with you in the carrier" "keep your puppy home" "take your puppy out" agh!

So much information my brain is exploding. How do I socialise a puppy effectively? Can someone give me the rundown of what to do on a week-week basis? Im so lost

Thank you so much

Recently rescued an adult working dog from a pound and not sure if I made a mistake.

She is the most beautiful girl, over the past month we’ve really bonded and I can tell she loves me and she seems happy, but I worry I’m not giving her enough.

Part of me knows, the life I can give her (access to a decent size garden, 2 hours of walking, and comfy caring home, I also do training activities everyday and sniff play) is WAY better than being at the pound. BUT she’s a working dog, she’s meant to be on a farm.

All I know about her history is that a farmer dumped her because she didn’t do well enough herding sheep and got too distracted by the workers.

She doesn’t know how to play, so I struggle to get any high intensity exercise. The off lead walks are mainly her sniffing everything while following me. She will run, but only if I run and I’m not a runner, I can go for about 30 seconds 😂.

I live in a pretty rural area so she’s getting lots of walks in forests and across fields. But always walking, never running.

Should I try find her another home? It breaks my heart thinking about it. And think she’d really miss me/struggle to be moved again. But all I want is what’s best for her.

Please be nice!

I know this sounds like a ridiculous question. The only dog I have been responsible for was a German Shepherd who would shake off a sweater when it was clearly below 0 F.

Now I'm fostering a mutt, four years old and about 50 pounds. She's a true mutt – a herding dog's feet, a terrier's head, long legs, shorter hair generally and almost no fur on her belly. Very energetic. She's pretty stoic generally – been with me four months – and hangs in her crate where she has a big, fluffy bed. I'm wondering if there are ways to tell the cold is bothering her other than her refusing to go out. Where I am, zero degree days are unusual at the depth of winter, but not what I'd call rare. Those temperatures are months away, but I'd like to be prepared. Thank you!

Hi all, My husband and I have a 6 month old cocker spaniel puppy. She has previously been sleeping in a playpen + crate combo in our living room, and spent her time there overnight and while we were working during the day.

She recently worked out how to jump over the playpen and began roaming around the house while we weren’t home, which wouldn’t be a problem but she has been having some toilet training regressions recently and we would come home to accidents on the carpet.

She had no issues holding on in her pen, and would happily play in there, and take herself to sleep in her crate. Our trainer suggested that we start to leave her outside during the day, and that we should move her crate and toys to where she would be spending more of her time. So we moved her crate to the sunroom at the back of our house and she has access to the backyard all day long. During the day this is fine, however she has been napping on the armchair in the sunroom rather than her crate.

As her crate is in there during the day we have been trying to get her to sleep in the sunroom overnight. She hates this. She will cry until one of us comes to sit with her, and even if she falls asleep in her crate as soon as we leave she wakes up again. We never had this problem in the past and she has always loved her crate and went to sleep easily from the day we brought her home. This has been happening for three nights in a row now.

Ideally we would love for her to get used to sleeping in the sunroom overnight, but is this just not going to happen? Should we just move the crate back to the living room? Any advice would be appreciated 🙂

I just found a three young fleas on my 7 month old puppy even though she was just given simparica trio two months ago. The last thing I want is for it to spread to my other three cats and dog, but I’m worried that all the dog flea sprays will poison my cats. If anyone has any recommendations on sprays or applications (not medicine) that are safe for all my pets, please, I’m desperate! Thanks!

My vet says that it's nothing to worry about, but I find it really weird. First dog I've ever had/seen do this.

It seems to be based on how excited she is…? The louder her play growls are, the faster she has to stop playing and start licking. She only ever licks her chest. It's not that she wants to stop playing, as she will often go right back to the toy for a bite before immediately resuming the licking.

Any idea what's going on?

Hello! I've had two cats since they were about 8-10 weeks old, and they just turned 6 years old recently. Behavior wise the cats are pretty amazing honestly. I've watched plenty of dogs and had plenty of people stay over, even had a pet bird for a while that the female cat very much adopted as her baby to the point of having several safe but monitored out of cage interactions, and through it all the cats have been occasionally timid but usually pretty solid. My wife and I now have an opportunity to get a 8-10 week old german shepherd from a family friend, and I wanted to see if anyone had tips for introducing the puppy to the cats, especially since there has been no permanent additions to the household since we got the cats 6 years ago.

I will say that the only real pre-existing plan we have at the moment is for pretty intensive behavior training for the puppy from the start; my wife is a licensed therapist so while this puppy would be a family dog first, we hope to get the puppy it's own therapy license so it can eventually go to work with her everyday. With such easy-going cats and such intensive training for the pup, I think we should be fine in the long term. So I'm mostly looking for short term solutions for helping develop that initial relationship between the cats and the puppy.