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This morning my dog ate something in the yard when I wasn’t looking, I went to see what it was and it was a small pile of RANCID SMELLING poop, the poop itself was fairly large in diameter (size of dog poop) and had a good bit of hair in it. After doing some research I think it was bobcat poop. I don’t know what to do, I’m really worried for her and also for us living in the house in case she brought in some parasites or something. Should I bring her to the vet?!? Sanitize everything she touches??

Hello! I am currently raising (or trying to) my beautiful 4 month old, female, black and tan cavalier who has been at home with me since 8 weeks old. I am feeling very overwhelmed. I have always owned rescues that are 3+ years old. I was gifted my puppy by family for my birthday, as I have been grieving the loss of my two rescue soulmates over the last two years. This is my first puppy in 25 years. The last puppy I had was a German shepherd.

I love her dearly, but I am feeling very overwhelmed and exhausted and like I’m not doing anything right. Our main issue is defiance and chewing.. I have tried everything to stop her chewing on particular things (mainly I don’t want her to hurt herself 😩). I’ve watched every possible training video, read everything I can, we have been to puppy school. I think I’m a bit stuck with how to discipline her? She is doing fantastic at crate training and she has her own pen which is her chill out space. When she is doing something naughty, I will say “uh uh”, remove her from said item and redirect her with a chew toy or something along those lines. I don’t believe in discipline that causes fear etc or is aggressive or mean, as I don’t want her to fear me, but I wonder if I’m being too soft? My issue is there are things she’s chewing on that I’m scared will hurt her, eg. The ramp to my bed, corners of cupboard drawers, she loves to chew on cement or brick, the corners of walls… I have tried redirection, she has every chew toy in the world, I take her outside so she’s away from said thing and distract/play with her, I’ve put her in her pen with stimulating toys. I have sprayed the areas (ramp etc) with vinegar (diluted with water) to deter her, but that didn’t work either. I don’t know what else I can do? I will show her not to do it and sometimes she even looks at me like a petulant child and goes immediately back to it?!?! (Which I admire because it’s really quite amusing to see her look at me like that 😂) If anyone has any advice I will take it because I feel like a terrible dog mum and I’m doing it all wrong. I am trying really hard to do everything right by her but feel like I’m failing. I just want her to be safe, happy, loved and well adjusted and also having her behave well would be ideal, but I do understand she’s just a baby. I’m doing this all by myself and I think I’m failing her.

Hey everyone! I’m getting my sweet King Charles puppy in just three weeks, and I couldn’t be more excited! I work four days a week and want to make her adjustment to my home as smooth and comfortable as possible for both of us. I am very nervous about leaving her at home while I am at work. I am planning on coming home during my lunch break to let her potty but it still makes me anxious, and I hate the idea of her being in a cage all day. I have a large back yard, so letting her stay outside and play is an option, but the idea of a hawk getting her also makes me nervous.

I grew up with Labs, but this will be my first puppy of my own, so any tips, advice, or suggestions would be so appreciated. I just want to give her the happiest, coziest home I can!

I need some reassurance/advice about my 12 month old large bernedoodle (80lbs). I call her a sour patch kid (sometimes sweet, sometimes sour) she is so good in the house & when we are doing training lessons inside. We go on a walk and she changes – jumps on me, bites my clothes and shoes, barks at me with frustration – I have tried acting like a tree, redirecting & all the treats. The treats make her worse, when I bring them on a walk she than jumps at me nonstop to get them. We are working with a positive re-enforcement trainer and she has given me advice and of course when she is here working with us she is better! I feel lost and in the thick of it with no end in sight. Advice or just reassurance things get better!!

I took my 14mo pup to the vet and they tried to find his chip, but couldn't. T hey had me try, and I found it where his front leg meets his chest.

They conferred and just decided I should have him wear a collar with the number on it. But it seems not thorough to me. Has anyone run into this? Did you ask for a replacement chip?

I was wondering if there some creative ways of doing it and will help save my time. Hoping to learn a thing or two here.

Hello 🤗 my puppy is a EB, she is 13 weeks old today. We've had her a week. Her toilet training is going wellish, she knows we are happy when she goes outside but it hasn't clicked to NOT go inside. I'm confident she'll get there. She's pretty smart and confident, will investigate loud noises and we are exposing her to all sounds, scenarios and textures. The only thing we are stuck on is alone time and crate. We have a crate which we have adjusted to a small size so she isn't overwhelmed by it She will get in at night and sleep, at first she howled for 20 minutes and now only a few mins before she falls asleep. The crate is in our bedroom for now, hoping to move it to the kitchen/living room which is the permanent spot soon. She will NOT nap during the day. If we put her in there in an attempt to force nap, she freaks out. I don't know should we let her cry it out? Should we leave the room for long periods of time? When do we move it out? If she freaks out do we move it back in? This is so overwhelming 🙈 I am scared we made a mistake getting her, that we won't be good parents for her.

Hi everyone, I just adopted a 7 month old shepherd mix. My understanding is she was an owner surrender at about 4 months and she was on the euthanasia list due to overcrowding + her high stress in the kennel until a rescue stepped in last minute. We JUST brought her home Saturday, so we are going through a decompression period where we are introducing her slowly to new things and even rooms in our house, with no outside people or places. Shes very shy but has opened up so much already! Shes a great listener too, and she’s crate trained. I’ve been putting her in the crate periodically for naps, occasionally for meals to keep it as a positive place, and when we sleep at night. She maybe cries for 1-2 minutes and then settles.

My work office is upstairs and we haven’t introduced her to that floor yet, she’s scared of how many steps there are, and we are taking it slow. So when I “go” to work she’s been hanging out with my boyfriend because we haven’t had overlapping work hours yet, but we will soon. Today was the first day we attempted to leave her “alone” in the sense that my boyfriend crated her to go to the store and I was upstairs on meetings. She would not settle and was frantically crying for about 30 minutes. I felt terrible because I couldn’t step away to go check on her. She had to of been crying loud for me to hear her all the way upstairs too. After my meeting I came and let her out of her crate, she was thrashing around (but may have only started that when she saw me, I’m unclear) and took her outside just in case it was a potty situation but it wasn’t. She was stressed and jumping on me. I got her settled down by redirecting her energy into playing fetch. Luckily I was able to finish my work day downstairs, so I didn’t have to crate her again.

I’m struggling with how to handle this. I understand the importance of crate training, and my goal is to keep her crate trained and use the crate when we aren’t home, for sleeping, naps, when we need her to stay safe in a spot, etc, so it’s not like I plan to only put her in there when we aren’t here. But it seems to be when she becomes distressed. Equally I know it’s bad for her to never be left alone. This is going to naturally be difficult because I do work from home, but my hope was crating her could give her some independence from me during the day too. But it really broke my heart to hear her cry like that, I just kept thinking that she must be so scared from her experience in the kennel. I’m so scared of doing this wrong and making her associate the kennel with something negative, her developing anxiety, or worse, reactivity. My previous dog was reactive and although she will always be my soul baby and mean the world to me, I would be lying if I didn’t say it was also equally exhausting and I really am probably overly nervous about going down that path again, so I want to get this right. How can I get her comfortable in the crate alone – is it cruel to do so given her background?