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I can’t get over the yelp she yelped when I accidentally stepped on her tail today. My poor girl.

But I’m curious if it actually hurts or if it’s more startling?

So my wife and I just adopted a 1 year old shepherd/lab mix from Azerbaijan and picked her up from the airport last night. She’s a very sweet girl, but to be perfectly honest, we are overwhelmed trying to figure out how to care for her. We walk her 3 times a day, even in the cold weather in the northeast, but she never goes to the bathroom outside the house. The foster in Azerbaijan told us she did indeed go to the bathroom during walks, but that she occasionally would have accidents in the house. We put wee-wee pads wherever she peed in our apartment but we are honestly in over our heads. How do we get her on a regular schedule for eating and walking, and get her peeing/pooping during her walks? We both work full time (me 9 am – 6 p),so any advice would be greatly appreciated

I had my cats at my partner’s place for a few days because of a winter storm in my area, and I was worried about losing power in my area. He lives with a roommate who has a Shiba, and we knew to keep her away from the cats because of their high prey drive. She actually got into his room once and chased the cats and it was really scary and stressful. They remained in the bedroom the entire time.

When I had to leave and head back home, I had packed all of my bags in the bedroom and needed to keep the bedroom door open to move everything quickly. I was alone in the house and decided to put the Shiba in the spare bathroom for like 3 minutes max. She freaked out and started frantically scratching the door. I immediately opened it after a few minutes, and I heard from his roommate that she scratched up the paint on the door. I apologized and offered to fix up the paint on the door. He didn’t respond to my apology. Is it harmful to keep a dog in the bathroom like that for a few minutes ? I’ve only had cats in the past.

Does anyone know of any shows, channels, or series that are basically a dog version of My Cat From Hell?

I’m specifically looking for practical, evidence based, real life examples of improving a pup's everyday quality of life, specifically NOT flashy tricks, dominance myths, or influencer stuff.

The two things that get to me and are hard to weed out are 1. A huge amount of misinformation that contradicts basic behavioral science. And 2. A lot of good information that’s so elaborate, idealized, or time intensive that it’s unrealistic for normal people with normal lives

I already put a significant amount of time into my dog on the daily, and I dounderstand dogs require commitment. What I’m struggling to find is clear, reliable “ground rules”.. the behavioral fundamentals that apply to most dogs (even though every dog is an individual of course)

Everyone seems to have different answer, and I’d really like to see real dogs, real problems, and simple, replicable principles applied in normal households, not "ideal" training setups.

Just, less theory and noise. And more grounded, practical examples of what actually works LONG TERM.

Any recommendations appreciated 🙌 Peace. Love. Unity. Respect ✌️

My puppy (husky, mom was purebred but dad unknown) is month and a half old. I adopted her 2 days ago and like other puppies, pees and poops everywhere. I immediately started potty training her to do it on a daiper i placed on the ground but we are experiencing few difficulties. I had to follow her with a diaper for her to step on it and do her business on it. Then i bought some drops with a scent that makes dogs do it there. She did it there a few times and everytime i said "Good job Aska" and gave her a treat. But even with her knowing that its the place for toilet she still most of the time go to other place to poop or pee. Once i saw her starting to poop,p picked her and placed her on a diaper, she ran and pooped in the other room. I know shes still young and it takes time but do you have any tips to make her do potty on a diaper. I cant take her out until she get hers vaccines, when she gets em ill take her outside to do it

Hi,

I have a JackChi that I adopted when he was younger, he's always been ver reactive around both people & other dogs. With a *lot* of work & help from a behaviourist we've managed to decrease his reactivity around humans massively and we are continuing to work on this.

So the reason I'm posting is that when we are at home he will bark at any & every sound. Car driving past? Bark. Wind? Bark. Our cats walking around upstairs? Bark. People walking past outside? especially bark. We've tried all sorts- trying to distract him, treating him when he is quiet, having the tv on constantly, even telling him off when he does bark (but it felt awful). It's been 2 years of him going bark crazy over every little thing & of us never being able to settle because we're trying to stop him. I would really really love to be able to sit with my dog and him not explode at every single sound. Please can anyone advise me.

Side note: Im not expecting him to be quiet constantly, I understand if the door goes etc I don't blame him for getting uppity.

Issue: I am nervous about introducing one of my dogs to my mom and dad's new senior dog. I think I know how to introduce them, but I have trouble reading my own dog in these scenarios and tend to assume she is aggressive.

Background: I have two female dogs who LOVE their grandma and grandpa (my mom and dad). They are their favorite people on earth. My 3 year old dog, Charley, is a coonhound mix with a history of resource guarding (food and people), but we trained her early on to help her with that. I'm thinking it's the guarding that comes out when meeting new dogs but I'm not sure. She always meets new dogs while walking in the neighborhood on a leash. She is not hesitant, marches right up to them, makes aggressive sounding vocalizations (the same she makes when she plays), her fur stands up, tail up and wagging. I just have a hard time reading her and am very protective of her on the leash, quick to pull her back. From my observation, if the other dog responds to meeting her without nervousness and is like "okay cool let's play!" she is fine. But if the other dog is intimidated by her forwardness then her noises get scary sounding (very guttural), scaring the other owners, I pull her away, and she lunges (never biting). The other dog (2 year old chow/pit mix) loves any other dogs that Charley "approves" of.

Charley used to be a dog park dog and got along with most dogs in that environment. We stopped going after seeing a couple bad dogfights there (not involving Charley). So I don't understand her pattern with meeting new dogs. I really suspect her vocalizations are alarming to other dogs AND their owners. She really sounds like she is in attack mode but that has ALWAYS been how she plays.

Anyway, trying to make this brief. Mom and dad already have a smaller senior female terrier dog that Charley loves and respects. Now they have a ten year old male black lab and we all want to make this introduction as smooth as possible, because my mom and dad watch my dogs when I'm out of town or have long work days. They have described him as sweet but anxious with walks and seeing other people (he's only been out of the shelter for 3 days). We are going to wait a few weeks for him to decompress and settle in.

Options for introductions:

-On leash at a park where we "happen" to run into mom and dad? Charley will be EXTREMELY excited at randomly seeing her favorite people.

-Go to their house and meet on leash in the front yard then walk? Charley will already be EXTREMELY excited to see her favorite people.

-Go straight to the backyard on a leash? One dog at a time meeting?

-My husband wants to use the e-collar on Charley for this situation. I prefer NOT to.

I know we can make this work! I just want everyone safe and set up for success.

My family has had my 5 year old dog for 3 years now, after a family friend was looking to rehome him. When we got him, he was fully housebroken and trained (sit, stay, leave it, release, etc), besides barking. Over the past year though, he's been exhibiting growingly disobedient behavior. It started out with ripping into trash bags, then grew to counter surfing & ripping into anything he could reach as long as it is edible. The most current issue is he has been defecating inside. At first it seemed to be some stomach issues or something as it wasn't regular, but it has been over a day & he has gone inside the house 4 times. He is walked three times a day, so he definitely gets the ability to do his business regularly, and there has been no recent change to his diet. I need some advice as to what to do here. What actions do I need to take?

We brought home a 1 to 1.5 year old rescue dog, Vinny, about five weeks ago. He’s a 40 lb mutt, energetic, and extremely sweet with people. Our household is my wife and me, a 15 year old cat, and a 7 year old Great Dane mix. We love Vinny, but we’re dealing with some serious issues that are making us question whether this is the right fit.

Cat issues

Vinny is completely fixated on our cat. Most of the time he just stares at her or sniffs her nonstop, but he has nipped at her a few times and pinned her once. Early on, the cat was still spending time in common areas. Vinny would occasionally bug her, but usually we could get him to disengage just by redirecting his attention.

She started hiding under the couch, and he would post up and stare at her for long stretches, occasionally trying to squeeze in after her. Around the same time, the cat started limiting her movement and would only use to her food and litter box at night. We eventually put up a dog gate in a room off of the living room, and moved her food and litter in there to create a safe space.

Now the cat stays in that room full time and won’t come out on her own. Vinny spends a lot of time on the other side of the gate staring at her and sometimes trying to get through the cat door. Once he locks in, it’s very hard to redirect him. If you call him to you, 90% of the time he won’t react at all. The other 10%, he’ll start walking over, turn around after a few steps and go right back. Oddly, this mostly happens in the evenings when my wife is home, and is not as much of an issue when it’s just me during the day.

The main questions I have around this are:

Is having a barrier set up, and the cat only hanging out in the one room, making the situation worse and/or keeping Vinny from getting used to (and hopefully bored with) the cat?

Is it significant that this behavior gets a lot worse in the evening after my wife comes home? Literally, as soon as she opens the front door Vinny dashes to the cat room gate.

Issues with our other dog

Most of the time, the dogs get along well. They play and cuddle, and even though play can be rough, both dogs seem happy. Vinny is usually the submissive one, probably because the other dog is much bigger.

That said, there have been several incidents where Vinny suddenly snaps and goes after the other dog. Early on, this mostly happened around food, so we now feed them in separate rooms, which has helper a lot. Because of that, we’re cautious about using treats for training.

More recently, it’s happened a few times without an obvious trigger. One time when our older dog was lying next to me on the couch and Vinny tried to climb into my lap. Another time when they were both in a narrow hallway trying to follow my wife into the bathroom. Those times, it feels like my wife and I might be the resources being guarded, and we have no idea how to deal with that.

At first, our older dog was pretty shaken after these incidents, which was really hard to see. Now, he seems to bounce back almost immediately and doesn’t act any differently afterward.

Separation anxiety

Vinny has severe separation anxiety. He’s destroyed wire crates and managed to open an airline rated plastic crate multiple times. When left alone, he cries and barks nonstop. At this point, we can’t leave him home alone for more than an hour or two. His ability to escape also makes us more worried about leaving him with the cat and our other dog.

He sleeps in his closed kennel every night. He used to cry every night after going in, and at bed time I would literally need to pick him up him up and carry him to the kennel. He really hated going in. We started feeding him in his kennel for every meal, and will spray pheromones in there around bed time or when we go out. He now runs into his kennel himself when it’s time for bed, even without us telling him, but when we leave the house he goes nuts.

We love this dog and want to make it work, but we feel guilty about the stress this is putting on our other pets. We don’t want to force a situation that isn’t right, and we’re starting to wonder if Vinny might be better off as an only pet.