Category: Top Dog

Hello!

Took my 6 month golden to their first puppy foundation class. We practice a lot of the basics at home so we were fairly confident in the sit/down/stay etc. however we wanted the pup to do this amongst other dogs.

When we were sitting in a large hall with about 9 other dogs, our dog just wanted to meet all of the pups. He wasn't allowed to so he began to bark (other dogs were also barking).

This made him quite stressed to the point he was heaving. When the obedience exercises began he was fairly good and not focused on meeting other dogs. The issue was in between exercises where they were all told to lay on the mats.

I want to try to eliminate this stress for the next few times, or work towards it. Any suggestions that could helpy dog would be much appreciated.

Ps. The trainer suggested we get him to focus on us when he barks. And suggested the relaxation protocol out on the park.

Cheers!

Hi all! I’ve had dogs my entire life, but this is only the second dog I’ve had as an adult and the second dog I’ve crate trained.

Cassie is my almost 1 year old GSD (halloween birthday) and I love her and her teenage shenanigans to death, but she’s recently started crying after I put her in her crate for a nap. She goes in without protest, knows it’s a good place, gets her meals there etc, but just this last month or so she suddenly really started protesting after being tucked away, usually midday. Night time seems to be okay so long as the house is quiet / the family is going to bed.

I know it’s because she wants to be free and hanging out with my family and I since it’s exclusively when she can hear us talking, but how do I help her settle down instead? I don’t want to tell her “no” while she’s crated and make anything feel like a punishment, so I usually tell her she’s okay and maybe stop by with a treat after she stops for a bit. If she REALLY protests I’ll take her outside on a leash to see if she needs to potty (never does smh), let her sniff somethings, and then put her back.

It would be cool if my family could watch a movie without GSD puppy yelling in the background. what can I do besides wait out the teenage phase? her crate is in the living area of the house in a quiet corner, and the only change to the household was me putting my senior dog down months ago before this.

I live in a duplex with a neighbor upstairs. We just got a puppy (with landlord's blessing) and of course he is barking sometimes. Overall he's pretty quiet but gets riled up sometimes when playing, and especially will bark/whine when I try to crate train him. When he does bark more than once or twice, my upstairs neighbor starts shouting at us to shut up our dog. She has started blasting music at all hours of the day to "drown out" the dog noise (again I swear he's quiet 95% of the time). If we're even being "too loud" unrelated to the dog like watching a movie at normal volume at 8pm on a Saturday, she loudly bangs our ceiling to try to get us to quiet down. (I measured the decibels, the movie was 50db at the loudest and certainly not nearly that loud upstairs through the ceiling)…

All that to say: how can I attempt to crate train my 9 week puppy without incurring my neighbor's wrath? I'm worried she'll try to retaliate.

Hi!

I got my puppy (golden retriever) at 8 weeks old and I’ve been trying to crate train her from the day I got her. Put her in the crate the first night and sat next to her until she settled (she whined at first but once she realized she wasn’t going to be alone she layed down).

She’s fine in there when she’s sleeping. I slept on the couch near the crate in the living room so that she could alert me if she needed to potty, and she did just that. I always transferred her in there for naps. Still do, if she’s being bitey and I know she’s tired I put her in there, she whines for a bit, then goes to sleep (I always make sure she potties first).

However, I’m struggling to be able to leave her in the crate when I’m out of the house. She’s fine in there with a lick mat or some sort of enrichment toy, sometimes she won’t even realize I leave.

Once, as soon as she realized I had left (she heard the door open), she stopped her enrichment toy and started barking nonstop. Like literally never stopping. I was hoping she would settle after a bit but I was out at a casual dinner and have a camera on her and she never stopped for a whole hour. Other times she will finish her toy and go right to sleep after. But then as soon as she wakes up and realizes she’s alone she freaks out.

Any tips on how to increase the time? I need to be able to leave the house more without worrying about stressing her out too much. I hear different information from different sources. Some people say she’ll get used to it. Others say she will start thinking of the crate as a scary stressful place.

Hi all, basically what the title says, but let me give you some backstory first.

So Boo is a 7 month old Cockapoo and we adopted her from my mother’s friend 3 weeks ago today.

Now, the previous owner works a 9-5 job, so Boo was on her own in either a playpen or a crate for 10 or more hours a day (by the time she travelled to and from work) and only had 3 hours with the previous owner in the evening before she was being put back in the crate for bedtime. Rinse and repeat for 5 days a week.

The issue is, the prev owner would lay puppy pads everywhere – in the pen + crate and around the house to go on, but said she was toilet trained and only has odd accidents here and there. Well, either she lied or it’s something else, but Boo will not potty outside. I can stand out the garden with her for 15 minutes and she won’t go, but as soon as I bring her back in, she will go on the runner by the back door. It’s insanely frustrating.

I feel like I knew how to toilet train a dog, but now I’m second guessing myself. I had no issues training my cocker spaniel the 2 times I had to do it (yes, I used a giant re-washable pad at first, but that’s because I’ve had foxes in my garden and parvo is a big risk in my area) and he caught on incredibly fast. He was easy peasy.

But Boo? Impossible.

I let her out first thing in the morning and she will go do her business no problem, but as the day goes on, it’s like she refuses to go potty outside and would rather do it inside. I will let her out for 10-15 minutes every half an hour and the majority of the time, she won’t go and she will come back in and will potty on any sort of soft surfaces, so carpet, rugs, runners, sofa and the bed. We’ve stopped her from going upstairs altogether for this reason, unless it’s to go to bed and she goes straight in her crate.

I do the usual, positive reinforcement + treat when she goes outside and no reaction when she goes inside, just a swift redirect to the garden where she will just look up at me like I’m stupid and won’t finish her business. She even watches the other 2 dogs go outside, but it’s not sinking in.

I am at a loss. Has the prev owner made this more difficult by letting her go in the house as she pleases? I also don’t think it’s a settling in problem either because she was completely settled after the first few days, now it’s like she’s always lived here and she owns the place lol.

Any sound advice is appreciated.

I just moved into a new house, and whenever we turn the heat on my dog starts freaking out. He starts panting super heavy, pacing the house, and shaking uncontrollably. I’ve never had this happen before we moved in here. Has anyone experienced something similar or know what the issue here could be? It’s getting too cold to not use my heat.

I’m pet sitting a 1-2yo dauchand and he’s a very sweet boy but he is non stop barking 🙁 I know dogs bark, it’s not like that. I throw his toy for like 45 minutes and as soon as I stop he keeps hysterically barking- he will not stop, he either barks at me or then runs to the windows and barks outside at nothing and whining. He will bark at the window NON STOP like did it for an hour when I was trying to do my work. I had him out in their yard throwing his toy and he just stopped and stood at the drive away barking for like 30 minutes straight before I tried to distract him and let him in. He won’t let me go to the bathroom, and I took him on an hour and half walk and he got back home and just starts barking again. I feel horrible. I don’t know what to do because he’s I’ll play with him but as soon as I try to use the bathroom, do a little homework, anything- he will bark. I just don’t know how to help him 🙁

Makes me keep an extra lookout when I'm walking my pooch and going over the park