Category: Top Dog

Hi. I am dogsitting next week for 3 dogs (1 is mine and I won't be talking about him too much) 2 of the dogs have a very different schedule than the one I'm going to have to use with them and I'm trying to think of ideas on how to handle them.

My parents (the owner/caretaker of the 2 dogs) are both retired and home about 95% of the day engaging with the dogs. One is 5 year old Corgi, who will settle nicely but has major resource guarding issues (I do have management solutions for this and have watched him before), and is prone to weight gain so on a very strict diet. The other is a 1.5 year old mixed breed large dog (German Shepard, Lab, Pitbull and boxer mix) who has no ability to settle and my parents created a marathon dog with…he is not crate trained and the one I am the most worried about.

I do work 100% remote and have a great deal of flexibility in my work but I do need to be available for meetings and such.

The dogs normal routine is, wake up, go outside to go to the bathroom, eat breakfast, play outside for like an hour (with my dad normally) nap for 2 hours while my dad goes to the gym. Go on a 2 hour + hike, then they come home for another 2 hour nap, then the puppy goes to the dog park for like 2 more hours. Then more outside time (normally fetch), dinner, more outside playtime and then they sleep.

I cannot do this schedule and work. I honestly don't think its a healthy schedule in general for a dog this young, but it's not my dog and my parents have made it clear that they don't care about my opinion here.

My plan is, keep their morning routine very much the same, then for the first walk, give them some each some sort of food puzzle with half their breakfast. I will put the corgi into his crate for this to manage the resource guarding (and likely my dog too cause he has food allergies). Then after I get through work I will take them on a long walk (probably not 2 hours but a decently long walk)…they are all except the puppy good on the leash, instead of the dog park because I have no interest in dog parks. Then they get outside time, dinner, probably split in two again with half in a puzzle feeder for each dog separately, then outside. Then I will also do some brain game training with all 3. My dog won't go to sleep unless we do like 15 minutes of training every night so I'll just work with the other 2…

For the puppy's extra energy cause I know he will have some I am going to bring a flirt pole which he does like, and he does play nicely with my dog which I hope he will do to burn off some energy.

Thoughts on this? Any other sorts of recommendations you can think of? I'm kinda at a loss for other ideas as to how to handle a 75lb barely trained puppy who has no real off switch…I would love to do some settle work with him but I just don't know if it's too late (and I am almost positive my parents will just undo whatever I do when they get back…cause they think its normal to have a dog that only sleeps like 6 hours a day–yes he is 1.5 years old and doesn't sleep through the night).

Should a dog be able to yawn while wearing a Halti head harness? I measured my dog and ordered the size that fit her measurements, but it seems a little small? I spent 2 months slooowwwlly desensitizing her, so she is totally happy wearing it and she doesn't seem to mind too much that she has trouble yawning. She'll try a couple times and then forget about it.

To address all the people who will tell me not to use a Halti: I am pregnant and I need to be able to walk my dog (who is a high prey drive and extremely extroverted working breed) to and from the park where we play fetch. She wears a front clip harness, which (together with training) got us 95% of the way to loose-leash walking, but there is still the occasional moment when she'll lunge at a bird, fixate on a dog/person/rabbit, or find a scent that she NEEDS to track down. I'm planning to use both the front clip and the Halti to reduce the risk of hurting her neck.

I have tried so hard to potty train my weenie and she just will not stop having accidents in the house!

I take her out right when we wake up, after each meal, we walk 1-3 times per day, I take her out right before bed, and I give her a treat every time she potties outside.

I don’t know what else I can do and I’m at the end of my rope. I just want to cry because it doesn’t get better. The problem is most of the time I take her outside she won’t go to the bathroom we just stand in the patch of the yard for 10-15 minutes. Even in the morning right when we wake up she WONT GO! But we will come inside and then she will hide and potty in the house.

Is my only option to try to crate train her?? Are there tips of how I could start that? She’s extremely needy and has separation anxiety so I worry that will also not work well, but I will do anything at this point.

Please help me!, I’m desperate!