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my chihuahua (5 months old) is an angel to be honest – sleeps all night in his crate, can be alone with 1 or 2 visits in the day from a pet sitter while im at work, getting better every day with walks and meeting new dogs and people, and loves learning new things. It's just this potty training taking us so long!

It took a long time to get his vaccines sorted as I had a problem with the breeder not being honest, and as I don't have a secure garden I was using a patch of grass in the corner. I then had a relationship breakdown which was a blessing in disguise as I had to stay with my parents who do have a garden, so we got him potty trained in 2 weeks – holding it all night in his crate and everything.

Since we came home to my apartment we had 2 major setbacks; 1. he got a bad stomach from eating something he shouldn't have which meant he was having diarrhoea with no chance to scoop him up and run him outside and he started getting 'used' to going indoors for 2 days, and 2. he started looking for the grass patch i since removed and at first was a great signal for me to know he needed to go and take him straight outside, but now he runs off and goes on something as I'm putting his harness on like he cant hold it, or he is going in his crate overnight which is really hard to manage without disrupting our sleep routine.

I definitely feel like we are back to square 1. He goes every time we are on a walk but it's still set us back in terms of him going in his crate at night or when he's home during my days in the office he doesn't hold it and wait for the sitter anymore like he did before.

I understand now that I cant wait for his signals anymore and I'll have to go back to taking him out every time he drinks, naps, and plays like when he was really small, but I'm curious. How have people managed potty training in apartments?

Hi everyone! Looking for some advice/reassurance from people who have been through the very early puppy stage. My husband and I brought home our 8 week old boxer puppy a few days ago and she’s adjusting really well overall.

We’re currently trying to work on potty training and crate training at the same time. For daytime crate training we’re working on trying to build positive associations with the crate. We’ve been feeding her in crate, doing crate training sessions with treats, rewarding her when she chooses to be in the crate, etc. During the day she does take naps in her crate and will choose to go in there on her own. We usually leave the door open and she stays in there comfortably. She’s also okay being left alone for a few minutes at a time while she’s in the crate (in another room). I’m a stay-at-home mom though, so she hasn’t actually been left completely alone yet.

However, she is really struggling with the crate at night right now and becomes very distressed… screaming, howling, etc. To set the crate up, I got a breathable crate cover, a comfy bed, and one of those heartbeat stuffed animals. We’ve also been trying to help her get comfortable with the crate by sitting near her so she doesn’t feel completely alone, but without making a big deal out of it so she has the chance to settle herself. We’ve also tried giving her opportunities to self-soothe before intervening, and we’ve also played calming dog “anti-anxiety” music on the TV to help create a relaxing environment.

The first couple of nights my husband and I ended up taking shifts with her on the couch because we didn’t want her to be alone and screaming or crying all night while she’s still adjusting to a brand new environment away from her litter. Tonight we decided to let her sleep in the bed with us she settled almost immediately and fell asleep curled up between us.

My husband and I are both fine with her sleeping in the bed with us. We honestly figured it would probably happen at some point anyway. Our bedroom is “puppy-proofed” so there isn’t anything on the floor she could get into, eat, or tear up other than possibly the legs of the furniture. I also have waterproof blankets on the bed in case she has an accident while she’s still learning.

However we still wanted to work on crate training so she’s comfortable in it for times when she does need to be home alone, emergencies, etc. My main question is whether allowing her to sleep in the bed at night will interfere with training her to be comfortable in the crate during the day when we leave the house?

We brought home our wonderful pup a little over a week ago and are smitten! She’s a pittie mix, almost 4 months old and was in a foster with other dogs before coming to us. Yes, she’s a puppy doing puppy things, but it’s been mostly expected and fun and we still get to snuggle at the end of the day.

For that whole first week, she didn’t have a single accident in the house. Morning routine has been to pee outside first thing, then breakfast, then out again for poo about a half hour later. The past two mornings, though, she’s gone pee outside first thing as usual, and has then pooped inside right after. We are going to try and actually walk first thing instead of just out in the yard, but does anyone have other insight?

I have a 13 week Australian Labradoodle. He scored all 4s and 5s on his volhard and the trainer that tested him labeled him a 3 out of 10 energy level. This has absolutely been exactly what we have seen over the past 4 weeks. He is calm and sweet and has no prey drive at all.

But he does like to sniff the cat. He won't chase him, pounce on him or really do anything of consequence to him at all, BUT the cat hates his space being invaded. Our trainer suggested just letting the pack dynamics play itself out, but I really don't like that idea because if the cat is having to defend his personal space, then it's stressing him out and I don't want to do that to the cat.

I've seen how to teach the "leave it" it command for food, but I'm not sure how I would go about teaching him that the cat doesn't want to be his friend…

Has anyone ever had a permanent "leave the cat alone" training plan. I know it's not an overnight fix, and really the problem is fairly small, these interactions are happening maybe once a day, but I don't like the cat having to be stressed out like that, he's not a hissy or swatty cat, so I don't want him to have to hiss and SWAT because he feels like somebody's all up in his business.

Some background: I have an adorable 19 week old puppy. Crate training at first was a little tough. But she’s been great for weeks now! Even when she was getting up in the night to go potty, she’d settle back down in the crate rather quickly.

Now the issue: The last week or so, she has been getting up in the middle of the night (new as she’s been sleeping great through the night for weeks) but now on top of that, she is not settling back down after going potty. She keeps crying and will not settle. Sometimes this is happening twice (and well before our wake up time)

Any tips? Or is this simply the sleep regression period and it’s temporary and you just have to ride it out? If you dealt with this, how long was the sleep regression/what age?

Thank you in advance for any advice.

Hello,

I have a 10-month-old mixed breed dog who came live with me last September. I love him so much and we already have a strong bond, but our daily routine is still a struggle.

I have anxiety, and sometimes his energy is just too much for me. Mornings are pure caos. He wakes up full of energy and jumps all over me, but I'm slow to wake up and really need some quiet time before I can start the day. He is also quite aanoying during breakfast. He usually gets a walk mid-morning, and after that he's calm and quiet until mid-afternoon. Then he' full of energy again. He gets another long walk after I finish work.

The balcony is another big problem. He barks a lot from the balcony, and sometimes he just can't stop wanting to go out there. He scratches at the door over and over asking to go out again. (what kind of training would work for this?)

Crate training didn't work for us, so I'm looking for tips and routines without using a crate. Right now he sleeps with me, and honestly I'm sleeping better this way for now. In the future I'd like him to sleep in his own bed, but maybe when he's more mature.

I'm thinking about hiring someone to walk him in the mornings when I start work, so he could get a good hour-long walk and hopefully be calmer after. Not sure if I can afford it though.

For enrichment, most things only work for a little while. I give him pâté in a lickimat and sometimes something to chew. Pork ears keep him busy the longest, but I know I shouldn't give them too often.

I know a lot of this is probably just his age and it'll get better with time. But right now, I'd really love any tips, routines, or ideas for managing his energy and the balcony barking.

hi all! i’ve been a lurker here since i adopted my boy two months ago. he’s 19 weeks and a mountain cur/border collie/coonhound mix. he was found with his litter and mama running around the railroad!

all in all, i think im really lucky. he’s a very good, very smart, generally well-behaved boy. he sleeps through the night with no accidents, lets me know he needs to potty by barking or going to the door, and knows “no” when he wants to.

anyway, here’s what i do everyday:

three meals a day of large breed puppy food, one cup each. he was using a snuffle mat i made but he tore it up so he’s eating out of a bowl or scatter feeding right now. i switch between the two. the vet recommended large breed food.

two walks a day. i think you might call them sniff walks, because i let him lead and sniff the whole time. both walks are a little less than a mile, so probably 1.5~ miles a day, 1-1.5 hours a day. he pulls but not too bad and isn’t a maniac normally. sometimes if he knows he has the room he will run in circles around me, which is silly and i love it.

we play every time he comes out the crate, about every two hours or when he starts barking incessantly—but i wait til he’s quiet to let him out tho idk if that’s working haha. he’s out of the crate between 30-60minutes each time, and we do tug, fetch, or light wrestling/running around together.

i also let him chill on his own, with a ball or chew. he seems kinda bored with that sometimes, or like he can’t pick a toy.

we also train nearly every time he’s out of the crate. he’s very good at Sit and Paw and will lie down but only if you put the treat on the ground.

when he bites or destructs we redirect to a toy or a chew, but his bitey-ness has been getting better and i’ve been giving him cardboard to destroy (which helps my recycling fit in the bin). i saw a comment about frozen carrots helping with teething and biting so i put some in the freezer this morning, too!

i guess… i just feel like i’m not doing something right. like he’s in the crate too often or i don’t train him enough or correctly. his recall is weak but he’s barely been alive so i guess i can’t have expectations like that? i want him to have more enrichment but i don’t have a lot of ideas for what to do. i saw a tiktok of dogs bobbing for fruit, is that okay? and also how do you measure treats vs food and calories and whatever? i just feel like i know nothing and am absolutely flying by the seat of my pants and im afraid ill have a frantic, untrained, hard to handle dog as a result of my personal failings.

he’s my first dog and i know i probably just have anxiety and some weird type of imposter syndrome, but maybe you guys could tell me what else i could be doing or doing differently?

I have a 11 week old puppy, he just got his second booster, I was wondering if it’s okay to take him to my front yard or back yard to potty, I live in an area where there isn’t much dogs and in a pretty alone area so I was wondering if that’s okay I’m scared of him getting parvo I took him out 2 times but I feel bad and I’m scared.

My partner (31M) and I (28F) have a 20-month-old Boston Terrier. As first-time dog owners we tried very hard to do everything “right” from the beginning, including training him to be comfortable being home alone.

Around 6 months old he started showing signs of separation anxiety and one day completely panicked when we tried to leave. We then began working with an amazing trainer and basically started our training all from scratch: We had also unknowingly been overstimulating him a lot with obedience training and activities, which she helped us dial way back and practice calmness instead.

After about a year of training calmness and careful routines, things are now much better. For the past ~3 months he’s been able to stay home alone for a full workday (6–7 hours), 5 days a week without any issues. He mostly just sleeps all day (we monitor him still) and we’re just so happy that it worked out.

However, here’s our new struggle:

Though he is cool with us leaving him to be by himself all day, he gets extremely stressed when we have other people watch him – e.g. if we have to go to a wedding or something where we will be coming home late and can’t bring him along.

Because his separation anxiety was so difficult, we never really practiced leaving him with others. We’re also both pretty introverted and don’t have people over very often, so he’s mostly used to just being around the two of us.

When family or friends watch him, this is usually what happens:

– We arrive at their place (or they come to stay at our place), and he seems happy and is often very excited to see them

– We sit down to talk a little while, and he usually settles

– They take him on a walk without us (which he doesn’t mind)

– We leave while they’re out so he doesn’t see us go

We’re told that he seems fine when they get back, but is often a bit hyped. The issue is that he almost never calms down again and just cannot seem to relax at all. He often won’t sleep and only lay down for very short periods of time.

Then, of course, he ends up being overly tired. We usually tell people to sit down and do something else so he can calm down on his own (since attention often makes it harder for him when he is all worked up), but either way it often escalates into more and more frustration → seeking attention → jumping → biting furniture → barking → sometimes even grabbing/biting their clothes or even arms/hands.

Personally I interpret this behavior as frustration from not being able to settle + confusion about the new setting and lack of routine = a self-regulation issue rather than seperation anxiety.

(I’d love to hear what any of you think, though!)

An example: Yesterday I dropped him off at my dad’s in the afternoon and picked him up today, and he told me that he didn’t really settle at all from around 3 pm and until 10 pm, when they all went to bed, and he finally gave in, after my dad had ended up physically holding him down onto his bed – which I don’t know how I feel about to be honest.

Our dog has been prone to doing something similar when we have had guests over in the past, where he just wouldn’t leave them alone. But now that we’ve trained calmness so much, he usually ends up settling on his own when everyone has sat down and we ignore him – and if not, we have a few method that usually help him (limiting him by wearing a leash indoors, sending him to his bed, giving him a stuffed Kong etc).

We’ve tried explaining these methods to friends/family watching him, and even writing down instructions for them to follow if he did end up acting like that. But since we’re not there, we obviously don’t know if it is because they don’t do it completely right, or if it is because it only works when we do it. I also feel that people will take my advice very lightly and saying stuff like “he’s just a teenager” or “we’ll manage, don’t worry”. They seem to be thinking that I’m overprotective, when what I’m really worried about is that them taking it so lightly ends up making it worse, making it a bad experience for both them and my pup.

So I’m wondering:

Has anyone else had a dog that

– is totally fine being home alone,

– but becomes overstimulated or stressed when being watched by other people?

What did you do to train it specifically?

I’m also curious if our lifestyle might play a role. We’re both pretty introverted and rarely have guests over.

Has anyone noticed their dog struggling more with visitors because they simply weren’t exposed to people that often?

And how did you manage without changing your lifestyle into something you don’t want?

I’m a bit worried that the solution might be something like “just start having friends over a few times a week and gradually practice leaving for short periods” etc., because the thought of having guests over that often is honestly overwhelming for me. I’m autistic and already struggle to keep up with everything in a normal week, so it will probably be difficult for me to sustain such ways of training long term. I really want to do whatever is necessary to help him feel safe and not anxious, but I’m worried that a solution like that might end up overstimulating me instead.

TL;DR:

We’re introverts and our teenage dog used to have separation anxiety but can now stay home alone all day without issues – he just can’t settle when he is being looked after by our friends/family. What should we do to train it?