I bought a well reviewed snuffle mat with lots of fabric loops but expected it to have pockets where I could hide the treats. I'm not seeing any pockets; is there a trick to using these? Without pockets, my puppy could send all the treats flying with one head shake.

We have a little 5 month old puppy. Both my partner and I work full-time jobs, I am WFH two days a week.

We started sending her to doggy daycare so she could learn some socialization skills and so she is not alone all day.

She absolutely LOVES doggy daycare. Tons of friends to play with, when she gets home she's tuckered out but not completely drained of energy (she's some sort of Chihuahua/American Spitz/Husky mix). She has also learned how to play with other dogs and learned when other dogs don't want to play and leave them alone (which is a HUGE positive given my family has a lot of senior dogs that she'll be around).

She's been going for a couple weeks and now she runs to the car every morning super excited to go to daycare. Originally the plan was to only take her the 3 days none of us are home, and then she'd be at home all day with us on my WFH days and weekends, but she seems to want to go every day.

Is there a point where it's too much doggy daycare? On the weekends we try to spend as much time playing with her and running around in the yard, but we can never seem to match the amount of energy she is able to expend at doggy daycare!

I just moved out for the first time to an apartment with my boyf and our 6month old puppy.

He never lived with dogs at home, even tho he likes them. Ive always lived with dogs my whole life, i dont know anyother way.

Obviously im very cautionate with the things we bought, and i want to take care of them.

But i also know the joy of having a dog at home also comes from the marks they leave around the house.

However, my boyf is constantly obssessing over eveything. She scratched the door, she left marks on the sofa while having zoomies, she barks a little when hearing the neighbours…. eveything is such a big deal. she is a very high energy dog, and she is in her teenage years, she will do messups, and im not gonna be always worrying about everything she does as if its the end of the world. yes id prefer the sofa stays perfect forever, but id take a ruined used sofa, over not having my dog or dogs in general. and he knows this, damn it we have been togheter almost 10 years he knows dogs are my eveyrtinhg. And ofc i know for him its not the case, and trust me i am giving him the time to adjust to her and vice versa, but things like these also make me wonder how it will be when our kid paints the wall with markers.

i know this is not the AITA subreddit, but i need some advice from fellow puppy owners please!!

It's Wednesday!

Welcome to our new Wednesday Wins post. Someone mentioned wanting a day where we can focus on the positive aspects of puppyhood. So let's get it done!

Share a win that you and your puppy had this past week! Learned a new skill? Overcame a challenge?

If you're new and just starting, set a goal!

Looking for advice for my 7 month old cocker spaniel. When I work from home and sit up in my office room she relentlessly whines and howls. After her morning or lunchtime walk I might get an hour of quiet but then it starts up again, particularly if she hears me talking on calls. Unfortunately it's not an option to just let her work in the same room as me as she will just bite my feet/tug at my clothes for attention, because she wants me to play with her. Despite our best efforts for months, she is still pretty mouthy, it's her default when she wants to play. She isn't mouthy when she wants to just sit for a cuddle in the sofa in the evenings or if she's just walking round the house following you, it's only when she's in play mode (which is still quite a lot of the time!). When my husband works from home she does some occasional whining for attention but nowhere near as bad – I think it's because in general I am "her person". He says I just need to ignore it but we live in terraced housing and I don't feel it's fair on our neighbours to let her whine and bark for hours on end.

Any advice is welcomed!! We want to avoid giving her too many unhealthy chews to keep her quiet as she's already slightly overweight (we are working on this) so on a diet. My dream would be able to get her to the point where she can independently play quietly either in the room with me or another part of the house.

FYI: As a rule she whines if left alone in another part of the house but strangely doesn't at all if she knows she is home alone entirely. When home alone she is quiet, calm and mostly sleeps.

Hi everyone, for context, I have an adorable 11 week old german shepherd mix. She knows some cues like sit, lay down, touch, shake, leave it, drop it, go to bed, give me kiss, etc. I have been trying to get her to learn heel and how to settle, but i seem to be getting nowhere.

Specifically with heel, i have watched countless videos where they have you take a step back with a food lure and flip your wrist to bring her in position and say yes, then reward. She can do that as long as i do the food lure but i feel like she isn't understanding why she's eventually getting the treat. I don't think it clicks for her that its because of how and where she is sitting in relation to me. I have tried doing that against the wall so she cant stray far but she will just walk in front of me and sit.

As for settle, I feel like she doesn't know how and I am at a loss for how to teach it. Sometimes she'll sit on her bed with her toy and we tried rewarding for that. But then she would forget the toy and sit with her ears perked waiting and anticipating the next treat. We started with small increments of time before rewarding, if she stayed on the bed. We slowly brought the time up between treats but then if it wasn't as fast as she would like, she would come jumping with her two front paws on the couch asking for attention or treats. She doesn't seem to be able to settle unless she has a long lasting food, like a bully stick or lick mat, and even then, its 85% of the time she'll stay with that but still a small 15% of the time she eventually gets bored and comes asking to be brought up.

We brought her on the couch and first time, after playing a bit, she fell asleep on me. Then the next two times, she won't settle at all on the couch without her bully stick. She won't relax and stop moving or even register that sleep is a possibility.

I get that she is a puppy and they have high energy and no regulation yet, as well as get overtired but she sleeps the recommended amount of time for a puppy – always somewhere between 18-20 hours and it is in her crate in the living room.

Please help with any pointers, it would be so appreciated!!

Hey so I just got a new puppy yesterday and although my partner and I are able to be with him most of the time, there is about a 2 hour time period later today where we will both be away from home. That being said are there any tips or tricks you have to making sure our puppy isn’t too loud in his crate? We live in an apartment so i’m worried about him making too much noise and disturbing our neighbors. Any advice helps!

My pup is 8 months old and just this past week or so he has started whining constantly. This is new.

He’ll come into the room at 3 am, jump on the bed and just whine and whine. Every single night. Theres a dog door so I know he doesn’t need let out.

We get up for our day, I feed him, play with him, walk him and he is STILL whining.

There’s no signs that he’s in pain.

Is this just a phase? Is he feeling lonely? We have a 9 year old GSD but he doesn’t care to play or interact with the puppy, he just ignores him.

Hi all! I have a 3 month old mini dachshund puppy, she is now fully vaccinated so ready to go outdoors. I live in an apartment and have pad trained her really well, she always goes on the pad without fail. Since yesterday she has been allowed in the outside world and I’m struggling to work out how to get her to pee outside! She currently is holding it in until she gets home to go on the pad and I can see she is holding it in and is uncomfortable. This morning I took her to the outside area of my building (there is grass etc) and waited over an hour and still nothing even though I could see she needed it. After this I took a pad outside and she eventually peed on it after about 20 minutes. Does anyone have any tips on letting her know it’s okay to pee outside? When she went on the pad outside I gave her a treat and positive reinforcement but it still hasn’t clicked for her. Any advice appreciated 😊