Category: Top Dog

Hi everyone! First time poster here with an interesting situation. Our pit/foxhound mix is just over 6 months old and she’s SUCH a good girl. Shes super sweet and smart — but we’ve noticed she does need a lot of time to warm up to things and experiences. We’ve had her a little over 3 months now and she still doesn’t really freely walk around our house or explore…like at all.

She has her spots — her little bonus room where her bed / toys / bowls are where she also sleeps, the couch in the living room, and the bed in our bedroom. She will only walk to these specific spaces. She won’t stop to check out another room or sniff around and half the time she still needs a little bit of a push to get to where she wants to go. To get her to go down the stairs, we literally have to walk behind her nudging her butt lol. We’ve tried putting her in the kitchen when we’re cooking dinner or on the floor in the living room to play and she will just beeline to one of her 3 spaces. We’d love to get her to a point where she walks to our back door when she wants to go out and stuff like that but she just…won’t?

She had parvo as a pup so she spent a lot of time in isolation and then was in the shelter…so I figured she’s just a little anxious of the world around her. She’s just now getting into being in the yard or walking outside around the neighborhood, after months of building the habit.

My question to y’all is — how do we help her get used to just existing? We took her to a family member’s house to play with their two dogs and she had a blast when they were outside and running around but as soon as she’d get inside; she’d freeze up and just stand in one room. She’s not food motivated at all so treats and stuff don’t really work. Should we be worried‽

Thank you!

My puppy has a puppy friend who she adores, but they both get too excited and bite each other. My puppy is 6 months and about 15 lbs the other puppy is 5 months and about 20lbs, but much taller than my pup. They both bite each others’ faces. There has never been a fight, blood drawn, whimpering, or fear between them. We always separate them once we see a bite. Sometimes they are fine, but we mostly let them play in 30-60 second spurts of chasing each other bc the smaller puppy gets winded faster, then we have them sit and catch their breath until the smaller puppy starts trying to play again. Both dogs have some herding breeds in them so nips and puppy biting have been difficult to train out in general. What is the safest way for them to play and how do you train out the biting? My puppy listens well with redirection in chill environments, but the two dogs ignore all toys when around each other. They just want to wrestle and chase each other

Hey all! First time posting here. I got my dachshund puppy (kaninchen, 9w, girl) yesterday. I'm stressing a bit if I'm not spoiling her. I don't plan on crate training but I'm using play pen for her in living room/office plus small one just with bed and toilet tray in bedroom. My worry is, she can't fall asleep by herself at all.. I have to soothe her first, make her lay down with my hand or something under her and then when she falls asleep I move to do my stuff. After that she sleeps pretty well, wakes up after hour and a half to go pee we play a bit and she goes back to sleep but again, same thing. It was this way both during day and night. It's been 24h since pick up so I feel I'm expecting too much from her but I also don't want her to have issues with sleeping when I'm not around later on. It's my first puppy alone, I only had family dogs (dachshunds as well) so I'm freaking out a bit. I can't figure out where is the line between "she just got separated from her litter" and "it's gonna cause issues later".

Hello my puppy is almost 4 months, he threw up 3 times. 1 brown watery, 2 yellow watery, 3 chunky. They have all been hours apart I’m very worried he only has his 2nd booster and has only been taken out to my yard and I live in a very quiet suburb area. I’m not sure if I should be alarmed he’s been acting normal all day just fell asleep a little more today.

Hi everyone,

I have a 3-month-old dachshund mix who ive had for a month and I’m trying to figure out grooming options. He isn’t fully vaccinated yet (still needs rabies + bordetella, next vet appointment is April 16), but he could really use a basic puppy groom (bath, nails, light trim).

I’ve read that a lot of salons won’t take puppies until they’re fully vaccinated, which I totally understand—but I’m wondering if anyone knows of:

• groomers in the LA/OC area who work with puppies not fully vaccinated yet (maybe with precautions), OR • mobile groomers / private groomers that might be safer options 

He also gets really scared around new people and can start to bite a little , so I want his first experience to be as calm as possible.

Any advice or recommendations would be really appreciated! Also open to tips on how to prepare a nervous puppy for grooming

Last week my 20 month old Cavalier King Charles Cavalier ate a sock and had to undergo surgery.

He’s not crate trained but we’ve had him crated all week and he is kind of used to it now and fine sleeping in it all night.

Tomorrow I have to go out, it’ll be 6 days post surgery and the first time he’ll be alone which I know he won’t cope with being in a crate.

His day 4 check up went well and vet was so happy with the healing. And can tell he’s regaining all of his puppy energy (which is difficult to manage).

What do I do with him while I’m out for approx 3 hours tomorrow? How can I make him be okay?

this may seem kind of dumb because my puppy only got home yesterday, but he hasn't shown much interest in me, his toys or treats. it's my first time taking care of a dog and i just want to do it right. he doesn't whine much in his crate and barely makes noise in general, but he doesn't seem to want to/able to come out of his crate. am i doing something wrong or does he just need time adjusting 😓

he's a 9 week old maltipoo

PLEASE someone tell me how to fix this. i got a golden doodle (mini) he’s about 11-12 weeks old and ive had him for over a month, he was doing so good using his bells and going potty outside, not pottying in his crate overnight, and all of the things. after about a week of good potties he started peeing inside again, how can i train him to stop without punishing him/scaring him?

Hello! I’m posting here just looking for advice. I got my girl as a puppy and now she is 5 years old. I wouldn’t say she was ever fully potty trained as she has just been unfortunately left alone for long periods of time and would pee and poop. I work 12+ hour shifts and the person I was living with was un willing to help. Anyways, now I am in a new place. Same job and hours. When I got here I just started to let her roam free between the kitchen/living room/dining room which are connected. This is really new for her as she was originally caged and then was just put in one single room when left alone. She has a raised bed, is allowed on the couch, has fresh water, and I make sure to open the blinds and put a show on for her (although it turns off at some point).

Originally she was doing so good. She had an accident the night we moved in which we think was out of excitement or nervousness but since then she hasn’t had any…. Until last week when we had bad storms that caused the power to go out. I was at work and when I got home she had peed. I cleaned it up and went about the day because I know she was scared. Now this week she has had accidents in the same exact place two days in a row!! And this was only working 8+ hour shifts. The first day this week I just wiped it up and used my swiffer but I was reading up and got some enzyme cleaner on my way home (just had a feeling it would happen again) and cleaned it with that today. This is laminate flooring and an apartment so I’m terrified it’s going to ruin the floor. I really want to prevent that.

Anyone who has potty trained an adult dog, how?!? What am I doing wrong??? She was doing so well and is obviously capable of getting through the day (of note I work 3 days a week) and now she can’t?? I was originally scolding her but I read that’s not good and started just sending her to place so that I can clean it up and giving her the signal to break once I’m done. Obviously when I’m here or only out for 1-2 hours she is accident free but idk. I have a lot going on in general right now and feel guilty and overwhelmed about this.

Hey there! I hope everyone is well! I am looking for dog toy recommendations. I imagine there is no such thing as an indestructible dog toy but has someone found anything close? LOL. Is that even a thing? Even just dog toys that lasted long/longer than expected. Creative ideas welcome too lol. Got a puppy recently and just tryna figure it out. Would love to hear y’all’s experiences 🙂 thank you for reading!