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My puppy is a small breed dog and she's going to max out around 10-12lbs. Right now she is about 7lbs and is super social and playful! My friend has a big dog who has had puppies before (rescued and spayed) and is very gentle playing with my girl, and there are a couple dogs in my area who like to play with her who I trust. I want her to be able to have interactions with other dogs.

I've been trying to train her to sit first when she wants to say hello to another dog. She doesn't always want to, somes she ignores them or is just sniffing things so I don't do it every single time I see a dog up the road. Since she's so small I dont want her bouncing excitedly up and down on her leash to meet a random dog, and if I'm doing something like picking up her poop its just not safe. It only takes a second for something to go wrong. Also, not every dog wants to say hello to her so I think its helpful if she can watch them pass by and understand that means no, I give her big rewards when that happens.

But other people don't seem to respect that at all. I'll kneel down and start trying to get her to calm down and sit, and people will just say "Don't worry he/she's friendly" and let their dog come over to my puppy. I never get a chance explain until the interaction is basically already happening. Sometimes I quickly manage to say "I'm just training her to not run up." and they just say their dog is friendly again 😭 like that's not the point!

I've still been making decent progress, if she sees a dog she knows and some stranger dogs she sits and waits for me to say OK before saying hi, but when she's already excitable and the other dog is excited she still hops up and down at the end of her leash. When people are respectful I can usually get her to calm and sit for a moment before she days hi. It's just so frustrating when Im obviously trying to train something and people don't care!

I have a 10 week old boxer puppy from hell. i have raised and trained dozens of dogs and have never had an issue..but this one just isn’t getting it. if i put him in the kennel he immediately pees everywhere and will nonstop bark for about an hour before he gets quiet.

after the barking stops it’ll start back up after no more than about 4 hours later so it’s extremely hard to get sleep. everytime i go to get him out of the cage it’s COVERED in shit.

he seems to go and PURPOSELY step in it and track it everywhere.

in the last 24 hours (this is from running short errands or trying to sleep) i have had to clean the kennel 8 times and he has had to have a full bath everytime too.

what do i do? how do i stop this?

I gave a deposit to a breeder and she never said it was nonrefundable or refundable. She didn’t say anything at all actually other than what the fee cost was. No contract or written agreement nothing. After some conversation, I sent her the deposit to hold one of the puppies. Less than 48 hours later my house is flooded and I now have thousands of dollars in water damage. I can no longer afford the puppy so I wrote the breeder and sent her a video of my flooded home asking if I am able to get my deposit back and that I cannot get the puppy now. She said the deposit is nonrefundable. Which again she has never stated this not on her website or Facebook page or through text nothing. So I explained my situation further saying that it’s been less than 48 hours and that I need my money back in this unexpected situation. I have asked her for at least a partial payment and have not gotten a text back in a few hours. What should I do? She’s already relisted the dog of Facebook and offering “referral bonuses” in the time she’s been ignoring me.

To be honest stresses from other areas of my life is amplifying the puppy blues by a lot.

I have a reactive 8 month old puppy. We’ve been doing a lot of work and well I see small progress for sure, but today was a bad day.

It felt like we took a jump backwards. She’s reacting at a Ievel she hasn’t in a month or two.

Redirection was much harder today and the distance from triggers had to be significantly farther. I feel so down on everything.. I feel like it’ll never get better.

lab pup, Wednesday he's 14 weeks, had him since exactly 10 weeks. senior is some kind of chi I think but looks like a rat terrier maybe, almost 12 years, had her since rescuing around 6 months, and she's mostly blind.

General training was going really good, and he was doing really well at potty training. He's totally crate trained already. One of the only issues we've consistently had is he demand barks at her, begging her to play. she wants nothing to do with it and makes that abundantly clear with growling. they can be in proximity as long as he's not nipping or barking at her.

the last week has been really overwhelming for me. i'm dealing with a lot. and a lot is an understatement. I'm experiencing an increase in my mental health symptoms, I had an injury that has been causing me even more physical pain than usual and I was in a spica brace all week, I'm getting ready to move and just got approved for the new place this week but the uncertainties – especially financially – around the move is giving me more panic attacks, and I have a puppy on top of it. my patience has been stretched really thin this week.

because I'm already struggling, his normal non-linear puppy progression feels like I'm doing something wrong. it seems like he's started acting out to get treats, especially leash biting when we're inside. but he's still having accidents inside the house, probably because I struggle to keep track of time or a couple times it's been because I misread his cues and didnt wait long enough while we were outside for him to get all his poop out. So I've been keeping him on lead to be able to notice, respond and get him outside quicker. Last week he was even telling me when he needed to go outside by whining and apparently when he steals my shoe it means he needs to go out cuz two or three times now he's stolen my shoe and once I've gotten him to drop it, he's promptly stepped 3 feet away from me and started peeing.

Today he had been demand barking at my senior and went to lunge at her on the couch, but because he was already at the end of the leash, he lost his balance and fell. he started limping, so I checked his legs and paws over from top to toes with no reaction or indication of pain, and its been over an hour now and before I put him in the crate for a nap he was walking mostly fine. But now I feel guilty that he got hurt. I feel guilty he harasses my senior girl and no matter how many times I redirect him or she growls at him, he'll stop for about 15 seconds and then start up again and keep doing it until he's bored.

he's started biting at the treat bag the last couple of days. it's a shitty bag that I havent had the time to make a stronger one, so I'm scared he's going to rip it. he's started trying to chew on furniture this week, too.

and I'm single and still grieving my last relationship. so everything is on me. if I get overstimulated from the biting and the pulling and the barking and all the very normal age appropriate behaviors, there isnt anyone I can pass the puppy off to. I've been yelling a lot this last week between trying to handle the puppy and trying to manage my senior so she's less likely to be bothered, and I feel absolutely horrible. theyre both good dogs, and I know yelling isn't helpful and probably making things worse.

he only just started showing me appropriate affection yesterday. he's been playfully biting and chewing on me since the first week, but he just started licking me yesterday.

I dont want to screw him up. I dont want my seniors remaining time spent stressed out because he demand barks at her so many times a day.

i'm exercising him via fetch inside the house and the flirt pole in the yard (he really loves the flirt pole) until he's fully vaccinated in 5 weeks or so, we're in training classes once a week, I'm giving him mental stimulation, he's getting enforced naps, if we're not playing or sleeping or pottying or eating we're training (if we include correcting and redirecting negative behaviors as training), I'm trying to keep him to a decent schedule. I'm doing my best and this week definitely feels like my best isnt enough and I'm simply not cut out to raise a puppy.

I have an 11 week old lab puppy and have been working on basic obedience with him, and I’ve been thinking about starting practicing walking on a loose leash with him just around our yard. The issue is he isn’t used to wearing a collar or leash as he doesn’t wear his collar most of the time since he can’t go into public places yet. When I put the collar and leash (or harness and leash) on him, he’ll usually try to bite the leash and collar and it’s hard for him to get to walk with it on. I’m just wondering how I should acclimate him to a collar or harness and how to get him used to wearing it on its own and with a leash without biting the leash.