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So this is our second puppy. Shes a mini aussie. We got her last week at 10 weeks old and started “crate” training (its more a play pen with small areas for bathroom/sleep/play). This is mainly for when we return to work next week. We have been feeding her in her pen, putting her in there when shes napping, short term leaving the room, treating when shes settled, and ignoring when crying.

Today we left the house for the first time for 2.5 hours to see how she does with treats/toys/a puzzle/water. She cried for an hour and a half, finally settled for 20 minutes, cried more, then settled again before we finally returned.

Our last puppy, we didnt have to crate all day until she was about 4 months. This one we are forced to do it much earlier. We will try and return from work at lunch briefly, but then back out.

My question/plea for help is, what else can we do? I know shes a baby and its going to be hard regardless of how much prep/training we do for a few days. But has anyone else had success with this? Is it really as bad as every youtube trainer channel says it is? Did we do this puppy a disservice without having a way to be with her until shes a little older? Idk its just really hard turning on our ring camera and hearing her cry. I feel like jm just ranting now…anything to help please

Hey everyone, I have had my 3 month shep-pit puppy for about a week now and im growing concerned because of the loquat tree in my backyard. I rent a townhome with a quaint backyard and a loquat tree that covers at least half of the yard. The fruit fall from the tree constantly and my puppy will not stop finding them and eating them. Through research I’ve learned that the fruit itself is okay for consumption but the seeds are toxic… I have tried holding the sides of his mouth and making him spit them out but I’m struggling to catch him every time as the fruit are small and hidden in the grass… I have also checked his potty multiple times and i keep seeing the seeds in his poo so he is passing them. Overall, I’m not sure if it’s possible for me to stop him due to the amount of the yard this tree covers/drops fruit and because I’m renting but any ideas on how to train against or prevent him from eating these would be helpful!! I have a vet appointment In two weeks to discuss health concerns but training wise, I’m not sure how to stop him!

TL;DR we have a crate with pen around it. 14wo puppy has (for the two weeks we've had him) been able to choose where he sleeps, but often seems to choose crate. How would you approach taking the pen away – crate train first with pen still in place, or take pen away to assist with crate training?

Full context:

We have a 14-week-old westie puppy. He came to us 2 weeks ago. It's very difficult, of course, but he is definitely getting more settled and familiar with us, his new home, being a dog and interacting with us, other people and dogs. We are getting better at observing and meeting his needs. He's picking up some commands quite nicely and sleeps a good 6 hour stretch over night in a different room to us without needing to pee or poop.

Our current set-up is a crate (it's like a piece of furniture – wooden, but with bars on the front and sides) with a playpen around it. We are feeding him in the crate – he knows to go in there for food. He seems somewhat comfortable in there and we have started experimenting with closing the door during meals and occasionally for naps, but there's still work to be done.

Generally speaking, we've left the crate open to give him access to both pen and crate and he can choose to sleep in either. He'll often end up in the crate and we'll find him in there in the morning. Unfortunately the camera we bought has a really stupid, loud "connected to WiFi" alert and we are worried it could go off in the night and disturb him so we've not been able to observe his movements. The crate/pen set-up was intended to give him autonomy and confidence as he acclimatises, because he had a bit more freedom/space at his breeder's home, but we think it may have been a bad choice because we've not been absolutely enforcing crate-sleeping so we'll essentially have to start from scratch.

So far he's slept in the crate with the door closed only on a couple of occasions for daytime naps of at most 2 hours and we haven't done a full night in crate. He has had a couple of pee incidents in the crate, but only when his woolly topper is on the bed. Most incidents have been in the pen instead, but even these are getting rarer.

We realise there is the task of building up his tolerance of crating so he can spend the whole night in there. But I actually want to ask: what would you do with the pen? Would you leave it around the crate during crate-training so it isn't a big change to his current familiar space, or would you just take it away?

Species: dog

Age: 10.5 months

Sex/Neuter status: female, not yet spayed

Breed: golden retriever

Body weight: 65+ lbs

Hello, I'm wondering if I should be concerned with my puppy's stamina. She is fairly active; I take her on one 30 minute walk plus a few 15 minute walks daily during the week, and hours long outings on the weekends. She is good on her walks and can go for miles/hours with no problem (though she will lay down and sleep/rest after).

The problem I notice is that she gets tired fairly quickly 10-15 minutes after playing/running hard with other dogs (playgroup, dog park). She will go hard for short spurts, but then will come and sit down by me panting quite hard. She also gets very thirsty and foamy at the mouth. She is a field golden so I would expect her to have a bit more running stamina, but maybe I am wrong? I'm not sure if it is that she hasn't built up enough running endurance (we do mostly leisurely hikes/walks), and she is slightly out of shape, or if there is a underlying health issue I should be concerned about?

She does not cough, or exhibit any other worrying symptoms besides the panting and fatigue, and her heart hasn't exhibited any murmurs under normal vet visits. Within 15-20 minutes (sometimes sooner) she is usually back to normal breathing, no panting.

She is not yet spayed and just completed her first heat mid March.

I would greatly appreciate anyone's opinions on whether this is still in the realm of normal puppy behavior or if I should be on the lookout for additional health concerns?

Thanks!

My caption says it all. She’s a 5 month old golden retriever who was seemingly potty trained for 2 months. Until she regressed randomly.

She finally started signaling to go out again like she used to after going back to the basics

Except now she will squeeze out 2 drops of pee just to go play. I don’t know how to fix this without just letting her. I don’t want to punish her for peeing by going right back inside, as I am finally getting her to signal again.

Any advice?

Hi all, I have a 9 month old Bernese mountain dog cross who stopped being able to go up stairs 3 days ago. We live in a bi level and so he has to go up/down stairs multiple times a day to get outside. He’s not in pain or experiencing a health issue – it’s definitely a confidence/fear issue. He normally does a little hop onto the stairs and bunny hops his way up, but he’s lost his rhythm and can’t figure out how to pick up his back feet to go a different way. It leaves him stuck barking/crying/whining on the landing all day cause he wants to be with us but can’t get to us.

However – he won’t let us touch him on the stairs to show him where to put his feet – he bites. He actually now just bites if you come near him on the landing. It’s all fear and he’s just devolved so fast. He won’t let you pick him up – he bites. At the end of the day, we’ve been putting a cone on him to get him up the stairs to go to bed safely. We’ve tried every treat and high value item to coax him up. We brought him to a different, shorter set of stairs to try to build his confidence and he did great – and then came home and it was no change on our stairs. If he’d let us pick him up and carry him, it would be so much easier but the biting is bad.

He’s a cuddly lovable pup normally – this has been awful and he’s becoming so stressed and reactive. I’m so worried it’s gonna mess him up long term and it’s honestly been devastating to listen to him cry but have no way to intervene. Please, please if anyone has any ideas, I’m desperate to help my pup.

I'm a few weeks into a new puppy (my second post here, I'm guessing there will be more). She's 13 weeks old, 3 pounds, and an absolute terror, but we can handle that. What I'm going insane about is that my old dog (Luna – chiweenie, 14, Cushing's Disease) prefers to pretend the puppy doesn't exist, but the puppy barks and jumps and loses her whole mind anytime she sees her. The puppy does go up for enforced naps and spends most of her time in a pen because she can't be around Luna.

(Background on how I got into this situation: seven months ago we were told Luna had probably 6 months left because she has cushings and had a seizure. Our younger dog is inconsolable without her, so we started looking for a puppy. Now we're a few weeks into a puppy and Luna is going strong with no signs of going anywhere soon. We thought we'd be a 2 dog household, but now we have a very old and grumpy dog, her younger brother who she only now likes after a few years, and a puppy she wishes would leave her alone.)

I'm keeping them 100% separated for the time being, but it makes everything SO much harder. Life is simplest when I can put the old girl up in my bed and she sleeps for a couple hours. The puppy can run around to her little heart's content, explore, play with our middle dog (almost 5 and loves her), and everything is pretty chill.

Inevitably, the old lady wants to come out and the puppy goes wild. Once Luna settles, the puppy will forget about her, but give it a few minutes and Luna will want to move four inches on the couch to a new spot. I can't have the puppy out without running constant interference because she hops along the edge of the couch and barks and I am in no way confident that Luna wouldn't go after her if pushed too far. I would LOVE to just have the puppy on one side of a baby gate and Luna on the other, but Luna will whine and bark to be let back in, even though she doesn't actually want to be anywhere near the puppy.

I honestly don't know how to manage this. I want the puppy to be able to roam around safely, but I want Luna to be included in the family, and right now I don't see how I can do both. Does anyone have any suggestions?

My 4 month old puppy (toy poodle) rarely drinks her water. She only drinks after she has a peanut butter treat, but even then she doesn’t drink much. We’ve tried putting broth and ice cubes to lure her in, but it doesn’t work. At first we gave her milk, which she liked a lot. But our vet told us not to give her milk very often. So now we’re not sure how else to get her to drink

We have an 8 year old dog and a 5 month old puppy. I'm trying my best to keep up with the potty training and going where they're supposed to, but my husband does not. The biggest issue is at night or when I'm not around.

At night, both dogs get a dental stick. they're supposed to only get one, but he's a pushover, no discipline at all. When our 8 year old whines, he gives them more treats. We also have water for them in our bathroom. Eventually they need to potty, but my husband either ignores them, or gives them more treats.

it's gotten to the point that before we even got the puppy, our older dog will pee on the rug in the path to the bathroom. I started to put pee pads down in the bathroom and sometimes she uses them and sometimes she doesn't. I've cleaned up the spots I know are there, but I know there are spots I don't see.

Intro new puppy, who has now learned that when she needs to go potty, she'll go upstairs and hit the pads, the rug, or the hallway.

I've mentioned it before and told him that when she whines, find out why and don't give her treats. Needless to say, it's still happening.

Any ideas?