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Hello! We adopted a puppy on 02/28, and he is now 10 months old. He’s a schnauzer mix, we think with some border collie. He’s been very good, picking up commands fast, generally taking well to his kennel. However, this week he’s had 3 accidents in the house: two of which were today while I was in the room. There was no behavior beforehand that made me think he had to go outside, though he probably had fewer potty opportunities today than normal as he didn’t get an evening walk due to bad weather.

Is this just him being a puppy and being new? We’re going to start giving more regular potty breaks and rewarding with treats when he goes potty outside or asks to go outside. Up until now he’s had no issues holding it overnight, or during the day while kenneled (we work all day, so he has 3-5 hours of kennel time in the morning, then a 30 minute pee and play break with a sitter, then another 4-5 hours of kennel time). As soon as he comes out of the kennel he goes outside for a potty opportunity. Fridays are a different routine because I don’t work so I’m home most of the day. Any insights would be appreciated!

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".

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

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!

Hi all,

My puppy just turned 1 this last month. We got her in May of last year and we knew she was going to be a tough puppy. Laika, our pup, is a blue heeler mutt and we knew she would struggle with biting.

We have tried almost all methods of bite inhibition and NOTHING has worked.

We have tried:

– Yelping/crying/saying ouch when she bites

– Using a no bark beeper ( no shock just the noise )

– Putting her in timeout

– Putting ourselves in time out

– Using treats to distract her

– Tapping her nose ( makes her bite more )

We WONT try:

– Abuse or shock methods

I was wondering if maybe she kept biting because she was bored. However she does this even when she has been throughly taken care of, played with, etc. She mostly directs her biting to me (her owner) and my mom. I am at a complete loss on what to do. Starting to feel like bite inhibition only works for puppies that dont have the natural instinct like a heeler.