Category: Top Dog

Hi,

I’ve grown up with dogs my whole life but this is the first time I am taking primary responsibility of our new family puppy. He’s a 12 week cavoodle named Toffee, currently enrolled in puppy school and has been doing super well, we’ve been trying to desensitise him to his brush as recommended by our trainer and vet.

Only issue is, he thinks it’s a toy and barks and chews it. He’s starting to let me brush his front paws for a couple seconds before he tries to grab the brush. Any tips or word of advice would be much appreciated!

Hello – I am stuoid and don’t understand the lingo. I am hearing a lot about puppies needing enforced naps in a crate but what does that mean? If we are on a schedule and it’s time for the nap and we put the puppy in crate but they don’t sleep and cry for 2 hours is that an enforced nap or what is it? I hate myself.

I’ve had my puppy (6 months, pit mix) since he was 2 months old and he lives with me, my partner, and mu partner’s cat. I work from home 3 days/week and take him onsite to my job 2x/week so he spends the majority of time with me. I take him to training and the majority of his walks and am the main one feeding him. He doesn’t see my partner as much as he sees me but he listens to my partner much more than me. When it’s just them on walks, he doesn’t pull and walks really well. When it’s just them at home, the puppy is chill. As soon as I join the walks, he misbehaves more and as soon as I come home, he has a burst of energy and wants to play with us and his toys. My partner is the one who plays with him more though when he does want to play.

We were looking it up and the only thing that came up that made sense to us was that the puppy sees me as the fun parent and my partner as the stricter parent. I enforce rules and have boundaries almost just as much as my partner and I take him to training and practice with him weekly. I don’t want to chalk it up to gender (me, F and my partner M) but we’re wondering if height and tone factor into this behavior. It’s really frustrating for me in particular because my stress tolerance is lower than my partner’s. I don’t lash out or anything, but I do get pretty annoyed at the fact I don’t do much differently than my partner and yet I get the brunt of his energy. Does this happen to anyone else or does anyone else know what is going on?

hi!

my puppy got fully vaccinated this month (YIPPIE!!!) and we have been going potty outside! minimal accidents inside, luckily its only been pee accidents! shes done so so so good with going outside and waiting until its time to go (we go at 7am, noonish, 4:30pm, 9pm) and i try to make one of those a longish walk, usually the 7am one!

she struggles BADLY with keeping up on walks, wanting to smell absolutely every single speck on the ground. be it car oil, bird poop, literally everything and 85-90% of the time i WILL let her smell it, shes a curious girl!! but the other 10-15% of the time i literally have to DRAG (not literally i just pull the leash so she will come, she wears a harness. i also will just tap her or give her a pet to get her attention again) her to continue the walk or to come up the stairs. once she finally does end up coming i reward her with a treat or give her some kind of good girl yay or something along those lines. What do i do? Do they grow out of this with age? I know shes SO young and im not trying to expect her to be fully trained (we start training classes this week so hopefully i can learn valuable skills and lessons) im proud of her and her accomplishments shes truly been a breeze and a walk in the park for a first puppy, i really got lucky.

i hope this is just a phase she will grow out of. Shes not VERY well socialized, i had a puppy before her for a few days who died of parvo (the puppy had it when i adopted her) and it made me terrified of taking my new puppy out on walks and she was growing FAST so carrying her everywhere was getting… heavy. She jumps up to everyone (something were working on) and gets excited every time someone passes by or even a car on the street or a crow in the tree and even a leaf rolling in the wind, the girl has to investigate!
im really excited for the puppy class and know it will bring some clarity and general advice, i just thought i would ask here as well before the class so i can start working on the issue 🙂

Have a 17 week old Cockerdor (spaniel x lab)

She naps and sleeps in her crate. She sleeps through the night 9pm – 6.30am.

But during the day nap times in the crate she only really sleeps up to an hour? Then she’s awake for say 30/45 mins before getting cranky again so she goes back for a nap.

I know every dog is different but she rarely sleeps past the hour mark. Sometimes we can get two out of her if we take her out for a wee on waking during her nap.

It’s like she has massive fomo tbh and rarely choosing to nap longer. We can leave the house easily she has no issues with that but again after an hour starts stirring.

Normal or no? I know not every dog can be the same so it’s tricky to navigate.

She sleeps so good in her crate but won’t ever choose to go in it. We either have to pop her in or play crate games to be able to shut the door,

Think she just wants to be around us.

Our bea-gal turned 1 in February. She is mostly a good girl, but a few behaviors I’d like to address. Our first dog was a beagle also but we adopted her at 7, so she was much older, calmer, and her big behind didn’t move too quickly so we weren’t dealing with puppy behaviors.

Our pup is still struggling with a few behaviors:

1. Taking food from the kids (6, 4). For example, my 4 YO was standing up holding a pancake this morning and the dog is jumping up to try and take it from her. Many times she helps herself to a pancake.. toast.. a sandwich.

2. Getting on the kitchen table. Food or not, she jumps up on the table and walks across.

3. Taking toys that aren’t dog toys (I can’t blame her so much for this… if the kids have a stuffed animal out, it’s hard for her to know the difference between hers and theirs).

Now we know beagles love their food, so to avoid 1 & 2, she goes outside or in her pen while we eat at the table. The kids have breakfast at the kitchen island most days, which makes it easier to keep food away from her. But she cannot quit! No food is safe.

If she actually does something (like take food from the kids) she goes into the crate for a few minutes. Any suggestions on curbing these behaviors?

Hey all

Sorry I have posted on here a few times, I'm an anxious girl 😂

We rescued a stray Labradoodle about 2 months old & we believe he's 6 months old roughly now. He has all his adult teeth so I'm assuming teething is over.

He nips us when he wants play, attention or treats.

Saying ow! Does nothing neither does yelping.

Currently we are disengaging when he does it (get up walk away) and he gets fuss & play when he approaches without nipping. Sitting on our own sofa is IMPOSSIBLE as he jumps all over us nipping us unless he has a toy.

Can I have some reassurance this behaviour will pass from people who's dogs still nipped at this age and beyond? I can deal with a lot of dog behaviours but not nipping.

We have a really big yard at the front of our house which is fully fenced and has a street next to it. There's quite a few people everyday walking their dogs on that street. Everytime my dog is in the yard, she will bark aggressively and growl at every dog that walks by. If you didn't know her, you'd think she is very suspicious and even aggressive towards dogs.

But now the strange thing is, when she meets dogs on the streets, in training or even when we have visitors and she plays with their dogs in our yard, she is the friendliest dog ever, shows no signs of aggression or anything and is super happy to play with the other dog.

At first I thought she may be protective over her home/territory and that's why she was being "aggressive" towards the other dogs, but literally the second that dog would enter the yard with her, she would be happy and totally friendly.

Maybe she's showing frustration that way because she so desperately wants to play with the dog but can't? I don't know, it's just been confusing me as to why she does that.

also side note she's only 6 months old, idk if that changes anything. but she's been like this ever since we got her from a shelter.

I have a 4 month old male chocolate lab mix. Adopted him from shelter and he’s already been neutered at around 10 weeks of age. I’ve been reading a lot about impacts of early neutering. Are there any diet/supplements that would increase his testosterone naturally? He’s already 35 lbs at 4 months of age.

I was wondering if anyone has tried the Genius Dog subscription box? I saw an ad that said they make champagne and popcorn for dogs, and I think it could be fun to try. I worry about my dog getting less active as she gets older, so I was looking for some more enriching toys and treats for her.