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I’ve noticed my puppy has been chewing a lot more lately and is gravitating to different textures. All fine, she has a ton of toys and is generally crated when she’s home alone. WELL this weekend she took a chunk out of my leather couch and started pulling the stuffing out. I caught her doing it and told her no and gave her something else to chew and she hasn’t chewed that couch since. She went after a different chair just now though.

Am I just always going to have to have her crated when she’s out of my eye sight? I’d love to eventually give her more freedom, and for a while I’ve trusted her to be free in the gated off living room for a few hours but now I don’t think I can!

Hey, I was walking my dog through winners today to help desensitize him to stores and busy environments. It’s not usually a store I go into so I was surprised by their pet aisle and prices. I got a chuckit launcher for 11$ and almost bought a bag of bully sticks too.

My question is has anyone else ever boughten treats or bully sticks from Winners? They looked different than the ones in pet stores – less dense and lighter in colour. Are there any quality issues I should be aware of or look out for??

i've been having my puppy ring the bell every time we go outside for about a month, but he has only used the bells to signal on his own twice and only after I've said, "do you need to go outside?"

is it just a waiting game, or am I missing a step? I'm not sure how to get him to transition from doing it when told to doing it on his own.

Just came here looking for the last resource of advice. my wife and I have a 12 week old golden retriever puppy. To make a long story short, we never planned on getting a puppy as we have 3 dogs already, but the entire litter was adopted by her family and we felt like leaving just 1 puppy left, was, well sad. Back to my points, we do not feel like we can get this puppy trained, we’ve had her for 4 weeks now, the accidents continue to happen in the house, she doesn’t seem to know her name, leash training is going horribly, and overall just doesn’t seem to be clicking.

Potty training – we’ve tried multiple different attempts at potty training her in different ways, including some $40 training app she downloaded. we’re currently on the idea of special treats for when she pees outside and that’s the only time those treats are given to her. My wife hates the idea of bells on the door because she works in the vet field and has heard too many stories about the bells getting used for attention and not to go outside, so as much as I’ve heard it works, we’ve exed out that one. She continues to have accidents in the house and just can’t predict when they’re going to happen, they have become less frequent the older she’s gotten, but there’s no sign of her telling the difference between carpet and grass regardless of how often we make sure she goes outside.

Recall – her recall is pretty much nonexistent, while we know she’s only 12 weeks and it’s not going to be anywhere near perfect, she doesn’t even seem to know that we’re calling for her. We have sat there with her and just her calling out her name just to maybe get a slight look or a headtilt, but that’s all. Our 5 year old GSD knew her name within days around the same age and by 4/5 months could be off leash in the backyard and we knew with a yell of her name she was at the door within seconds.

Leash training – horrible, not sure how else to explain it, we’ve started trying to walk laps with her in the backyard on the leash (because we don’t take her on real walks yet due to not being fully vaccinated yet) she just bites at the leash and feels like she needs to be dragged, even when bribed to take some steps with treats.

We love this dog, BUT we’re tired, and we also understand at the end of the day she’s ONLY 12 weeks old and she’s still just a baby at heart, but are we insane for thinking that she should be better at this point? Or is this just the puppy blues??

(I should also mention the rest of the litter her family has is potty trained by this point, and one of them seems to be almost fully leash trained, while knowing sit and shake too.)

my 6 month irish wolfhound x rottie mix might be dumb. since i got her 4 months ago, i’ve been trying to teach her basic tricks (sit, lay, paw) every day with training treats and affirmations, but she just doesn’t seen to get it. i’m trying to consistently train her, but it either might not be enough or she’s just a little slow. the only thing she’s gotten down was letting me know she has to go out, and she’s good at waiting for her food. i don’t remember training being this hard with my other dog.

Hi guys I was hoping for some guidance on this weird thing that's been going on. My 1.7 yo yellow lab is by all means a very gentle, nice, and sociable dog. I take him to the park every weekend and in general he plays really well. He generally always loves to be the more submissive dog, rolling on his back, letting other dogs kind of wrangle him. he's not possessive of toys and will drop his toys for other dogs as soon as another dog shows interest in them, he tolerates other dogs being aggressive or standoffish towards him and doesn't engage in aggression in return. all this to say he's generally a really good boy with other dogs.

However, when we are the park there is sometimes there is an elderly little male dog present. The owner has two dogs, a big dog and a little dog so she just brings the little dog into the big dog area to have them both in the same place. My dog is obsessed with this elderly little dog. He will follow this little dog incessantly and when other dogs approach the little dog or my dog when the little dog is around my dog goes full on aggressive; growling, snarling, snapping at other dogs. He isn't aggressive towards the little dog at all (other than following him around and trying to lick his butt incessantly) and when the little dog isn't around my dog has no problem playing nicely with these same dogs. So why is my boy having such a behavior change which this little dog around?

lots of people have said that it seems like he is trying to protect the little dog because it is so small. does that make sense? Is there any way to train out this behavior?

note: he's not neutered yet and I understand that may be the issue. we do plan to have him neutered we just have not been in a rush since, other than this weirdly specific aggression, his behavior is stellar.

I want to pamper my dogs but as per many of us in this group I am BROKE. I plan on brushing my dogs really well and giving them a “bath” using no rinse shampoo but I wanna watch somethigg my on tv they will like. How can I give my dogs the best day ever from home with no money.

Edit: I can’t take them on a walk because I have multiple disabilities that would make it unsafe for both me and my dogs to go on a walk.

I've never asked anything on reddit but today I was crying and petting my dog and he was looking at me and was showing his teeth. He didn't bite me or anything. I've never seen him do that before he is very sweet and never harmed anyone. Idk what breed he is sth like Labrador retriever mix… So what am askin is if thats sign of empathy or he feels uncomfortable or sth like that. Has anyone experienced it? Might be dumb question but im curious.

Hi all, I have a male Yorkshire terrier. He is 9 years old. About 2 hours ago I gave him his monthly advocate flea treatment in his normal place between his shoulder blades. He has been on this for years. He was in his bed and started acting a little erratic, digging really fast and acting really restless. He then sprinted upstairs on his own (which he never does he’s always by my side) and when I followed him up he was acting erratic on my bed again and his body doing small jolts. His pupils are also dilated and he’s drowsy. He’s asleep now and I’m monitoring him but was wondering if this has happened to anyone else? Thanks

My dog is supposed to be white, but lately, that's more of a theory than a reality. Every single day she goes out, digs like she’s looking for buried treasure, and comes back completely gray.

I was giving her daily baths, but it became a never-ending cycle: I’d dry her off, she’d head back out, and immediately rub herself in the fresh dirt to "fix" the fact that she smelled like shampoo. It got so frustrating that I’ve stopped the baths entirely, but now she’s just permanently filthy.

I'm at my wits' end. Does anyone have tips on how to break the digging habit or stop the "dirt-rolling" ritual every time she steps outside?

She is a border collie mutt