Category: Top Dog

Hello. I have a new GSD puppy, she just turned 10 weeks. She’s literally perfect, but I have an issue I don’t know how to solve. She can’t stop chasing the cats. There are baby gates up and cat trees for them to escape to, and every time she goes to chase the cats I stop her with her house lead, but I really don’t know how to prevent it. The cats are very friendly and interested in her and try to go up and sniff her, but they run away when she runs at them, making her chase them in turn. I’m working on getting my GSD used to them, giving treats when she is calm and turns her attention to me when the kitties are around, but I can’t stop her from chasing them outside of those training periods. Especially since my cats seem to always be testing her limits further and further.

I play with her a lot, and we take her outside in a stroller for socialization, do sniffing activities with her, etc., so I don’t think it’s just a matter of playing with her more.

Any advice? I’m pretty new to having a dog, so I’m sorry in advance if I ask a lot of questions! Just want to do right by her and my cats.

I’m curious — at what age did your puppy start clearly liking some treats more than others?

Did preferences change quickly as they grew, or did they latch onto favorites pretty early? Would love to hear what you noticed.

TLDR; My 16-week-old Australian Shepherd mix puppy is extremely stressed sleeping outside at my boyfriend’s parents’ house for the holidays. She’s used to sleeping in a crate/playpen near humans, but here she’s in a patio away from the adult dogs and can see the house. She barks nonstop, is scared of the adult dogs, and tries to get inside. I’m worried about stress, crate regression, and reactivity. His parents insist she must stay outside and “bark it out,” and my boyfriend doesn’t see another option. I’ll take over care soon, but how can I limit the damage until then?

Hi everyone, my boyfriend and I have a 16 weeks old female puppy, a Australian shepherd mix. At home, she sleeps in a crate/x-pen just a couple of meters from our bed, and she sleeps calmly through the night until about 7 am. She also rests well during the day and has her own routine where she would get at least 10 hrs sleep during the day.

For Christmas holidays my boyfriend brought her to her parents’ house. They have a big garden and two adult dogs: a 6 year old BC and a 2 year old Mix Shepherd. Very patient the BC, while very reactive the mix shepherd. My bf parents rule is that dogs sleep outside. They set up her crate in a closed patio, she is away from the adult dogs (which she's scared of) and she can see the inside of the house and the humans inside.

She is not used to sleeping outside or being separated from humans. As a result, she is barking nonstop and cannot calm down. She has tried several times to get into the house, by climbing a chair and opening the window (it can be open from the patio). When she tries to settle, the shepard barks at her. The adult dogs free roams the garden, while she is shakes and barks occasionally at the other dogs when closed in the patio.

I am quite mad at my bf to have put our puppy in this situation since I thought that the best option would have been to get a sitter for the holidays and be back as soon as possible after that. But this was never an option for him.

Now, my bf is struggling to know the best way to handle this very stressful situation. I understand that adult dogs can be used to sleeping outside, but my puppy is still very young and attached to humans. I would say the only option is to have her inside but this is not negotiable and she can't by any means sleep inside.

His parents are very strict for this specific thing and they are more of the idea of "she'll bark it out". I am afraid she will be reactive more to dogs, she would regress in her crate training and trust us less.

This situation should not last a lot, since I'm going there on Sunday night and I can handle the situation myself and focus on more positive reinforcement of the new situation instead of letting be there and ignore her.

Before going for Christmas holidays I was at home most of the time, I did most of the training and gave the routine to my puppy and we were doing a lot of gradual socialization with a trainer to build our puppy's confidence.

I feel now this went to waste because of what my bf wanted for his Christmas holidays. I am very scared of all this stress and what can mean to my puppy.

How can I limit the damage as much as possible? Now my bf just went out with friends and let our puppy alone with her parents in the patio. I am very annoyed and I think it's unfair to our puppy. This is not how I wanted to train her and I feel such a fool to not have been more pushy into leave her with a sitters.

Please any advice is very welcome. Thanks a lot!

Edit1: unfortunately I can't just go there, our parents live 15hrs apart and our house is 10hrs away from where she is right now.

Edit2: The patio is covered and closed, she is not outside in the cold. She has a crate covered like at home and her bed, our clothes and her toys with her. She actually slept quite well last night there, from 9pm to 7am with a brief 15mins break at 4.30 to pee. My bf is sleeping in a room close to the patio where he can hear her if she cries.

Edit3: My plan is to get there as soon as possible (not so easy to change flights from where I am) and take control of the situation (possibly move where the puppy can sleep closer to us)

Our 1 year old pup is always on leash when we go out. How do you all deal with situations when you’re walking in an area where there are lots of off-leash dogs around?

We’ve had situations where a few will come up and want to play, and so does ours, but it kinda feels unfair (?) when our pup is on leash and they’re not. Also feels potentially dangerous with our leash potentially getting caught on one of the other dogs when they all get a bit excited.

One thought would just be to scoop her up (she’s only 7kg) but wondering if others had any suggestions. Thanks!

Seeking advice again, our 3.5 month old lab and 10 year old aussie/collie mix play just fine, no aggression and they tire each other out. With the aussie being an elder, she tires out way faster than he does. But that doesn't stop him from trying to get at her face, even when they aren't playing and they're just chilling in a room together, the lab automatically thinks "play time!"

We've tried everything from distractions to time outs to rewarding his chill behavior, but nothing seems to work for him. Is there any advice out there to not stop them from playing, but from stopping him from harassing the elder dog all the time?