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My bf and I just got a free 6-month old puppy from a friend of ours.

She’s a shiba inu & a precious baby!

The only issues are that she’s going through a lot of adjustments. She has no vaccines, but has a dewormer so far and has been an indoor puppy using bathroom mats in a fenced setting. Walks have been challenging as I’ve been short leashing her and getting her used to walking without dragging herself. We did get her a crate recently too, and I did try welcoming her to her food and water inside the crate so she doesn’t feel punished. I did ignore her cries until she stopped, which had me unlock it.

We’re taking her to get fixed with vaccines at the end of the month. Meanwhile we’re waiting, I believe she’s going through a heat cycle simultaneously while getting used to our home and our cat. She ragebaits the cat a lot while also wanting to play with her, and our cat gets along with dogs most times except for right now. Cat has no anger toward us luckily. On top of that, puppy has a stubborn behavior not responding to commands and sometimes her name. We try giving positive reinforcement, but sometimes she can be a brat and refuse treats.

I’d like some help with what to do.

Hi everyone, looking for some advice (and maybe reassurance!).

We have a Labrador puppy who turns 20 weeks old this Friday, and toilet training has been much harder than we expected. We’ve been really consistent — taking him out to the garden as soon as he wakes up, after meals, after naps, and after playtime.

He’s had a couple of accidents on our carpet, and now he seems to actively prefer going there. He does circle beforehand, but it’s always on the carpet. As soon as we see him start circling, we take him straight outside — but he often just runs back in and tries to go on the carpet again. Sometimes this cycle repeats multiple times, and it feels like we’re getting nowhere.

When he toilets outside, we give lots of praise and high-value treats immediately, but it doesn’t seem to be fully clicking yet.

For extra context:

• We tried toilet pads, but he just rips them up.
• We also tried bell training, which unfortunately didn’t work for him.
• Very occasionally he will tell us he needs to go out, but it’s rare.

A few questions:

• Is this normal for a nearly 5-month-old Lab?
• How do we break the carpet preference?
• Are we accidentally reinforcing the run-back-inside behaviour?
• Should he be signalling more reliably at this age?

We’re trying really hard to set him up for success, so any tips, reassurance, or things that worked for your puppies would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!

We welcomed a very crazy, energetic yellow lab in October at 8 weeks old. He came from a rescue where his momma and littermates were found dumped in a drainage ditch, one of the poor little guys got hit and didnt make it.

It's been cold in the Midwest since he received his last round of shots so we took our very first walk around the neighborhood today while the weather was cooperating. He was excited for all of 3 minutes.

I thought he was just a little fearful of car rides, I've had to pick him up and place him in the car while the poor guy was shaking on any necessary trip out. On our walk, I realized he was less excited about all the sights and sounds and just petrified of parked cars. His ears were back the whole time and he had to hide behind me at times. Moving cars he found more interesting than scary.

Im hoping with warmer weather we can try to take him to places he will like in the car and grab pup cups and all the things our older dog enjoys so much.

Does anyone have any advice on how to help him through this? I feel for him and hope we can resolve this through support and positive associations. I will nit be able to lift him into a car when he is full grown, he's 45 lbs now and Im already struggling.