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From the time she wakes up from the time it’s bed time she wants to play with our older dog. He usually is up for it and they play great together. He has a room he asks to go in when he has had enough. She will whine for a few minutes when he does. Is it ok to let them play bitey face so much? They take breaks to eat and go outside. Tell me this calms down and it’s just normal 5 month old puppy behavior. 🤦‍♀️

I have a 4 month old Scottish deerhound that we have had for two weeks now and we are trying to crate train her as me and my husband work in the office for 3 days of the week. She is only home in crate alone for around 4 hours usually as my husband can work remote half days on his in office days. She has been doing fairly good at night when in the crate with only a few hiccups of crying once or twice. she is also fed her meals in her crate and has willingly gone in to grabs her plushie, we also do some training with treats with her crate. During the day however is a different story, she cries for around 10-15 minutes when we first put her in (she works herself up so much that she pees sometimes) and the she settles but whenever she wakes up she cries again and it is a cycle. Sometimes so gets into a cycle for 20 or so min where she cries for a few minutes then settles for a minute and then repeats crying and settling multiple times.

Before crating in the morning we always go outside for her to pee and/or poop and also we play with her to tire her out. I have put a cover on the crate along with a heartbeat plush in the crate, we also play noise and stuff on Alexa to help.

We cant have her out as we one don't 100% trust her not to get into stuff but we also have cats and since she is high prey drive breed we are being cautious. Any advice or similar experiences? Want to make sure we are helping her adjust and not traumatizing her…

We just adopted a 4 month border collie mix, Roscoe, a couple days ago. He's truly such a sweet boy. Other than trying to get our cats to stop hating us and them being terrified of the new puppy, things are going well.

The biggest issue we're having is crate training. We were told by his foster mom that he was 100% crate trained. He slept in his crate every night and she had him crated between 8-3 when she was working. She said he may whine and be restless at first in a new environment but will settle down quickly. This is not happening. The first night he cried for a half hour after we left the room. My husband thought he just needed to get used to us, so he slept on the couch next to Roscoe. Roscoe calmed down and slept the entire night without issue.

We contacted the foster to see if there's something we could do to help him. She said she never had any issues like this when she had him. She said we needed to ignore him and he'd eventually settle down because this is a routine he's used to. She said not to comfort him because he'll learn that when he cries, we'll come.

So last night we gave him half a Greenies calming chew to help with a little anxiety along with another treat he always gets when he goes in the crate. He cried for an hour before finally calming down and going to sleep.

He's fine(ish) in the crate if he can see us. He's great when he's not in the crate. However, we have noticed he still freaks out when we leave the room even when he's not crated. So we're worried about possible separation anxiety starting.

Any tips? He needs to stay crated at night at least until our cats stop being afraid of him and accept him. they were here first, so we're trying to put their needs first by making sure they have rooms that are just theirs where they can relax. We also need to keep him crated when we're not home until we trust he won't destroy anything or accidentally hurt the cats (which isn't a huge fear since he adored the cats at his foster which is a huge reason why we chose him).

Hi friends, my dog is 14 months old. She had a pretty rough go of it when she first got her nails trimmed by her vet. She refuses to have her nails cut and doesn’t like her paws touched anymore. She’s 62 lbs and I’m not able to really hold her down myself. Anyone has suggestions on how to slowly get her to let me cut her nails? I have had to get her fully sedated at the vet to get her nails done and I don’t want to spend $200 regularly to keep her nails cut.

Like the title says. I have a 15 week old puppy and he's really good for the most part. We have in the last few weeks of having him overcome the worst parts of overstimulation, that made him a total menace to society. I know he's doing so well for his age, but I miss having a life too, to be honest.

We tried early to crate train him due to overstimulation, but quickly realised this wasn't Working out for either of us. He likes the freedom to roam and can settle alone, as long as he has something to chew on. However, the chew only lasts for like 15 minutes at Max. until he starts to howl, whine and bark. We've tried short intervals of 30 seconds with no reaction and he does just fine. He even does a few minutes-5 minutes just fine, but it's like he knows the difference between when I have to train it, and when he actually has to be alone.

Honestly, I need to be able to go grocery shopping for 30 minutes. I would like to take out the trash without worrying about him barking our apartment complex down and needing to ensure he's well prepared (peed, tired etc.) everytime I need go out with some trash. I would like to be able to see my friends again, go to a bar for a few hours, or something – at least at some point.

I know it takes time and I need to be patient, but oh my god I feel so isolated and all of a sudden the other issues of him wanting to greet everyone, locking his focus on them until they leave makes me so impatient at this point, because all I do is spent time with him and think about my next steps with him.

I see him worrying and wanting to settle for a nap on my lap to calm himself if I left him for too long, but good riddance, I need groceries man?! I don't know what to do at this point, I'm so afraid he'll get/has seperation anxiety, but I really don't know how to train it with him. He won't settle on his own, so it feels like the short intervals are in Vain (even though I know deep down they are not).

But like, in between walks, settling for naps, playing, chilling, eating, training etc. It seems so difficult to find several times a day where he's well fed and tired enough to train multiple short intervals of alone time..

So my question to you all is – How do you balance life and taking care of your pup, alongside training alone time and having a life that needs to go on beside him?

I know that adolescence can bring distractibility, more independence, and boundary testing in all dogs. I'm not expecting completely different developmental stages based on sex, but I'm curious whether there are behavioural tendencies that are more common in males than females in this period. Or does it mostly come down to temperament and breed?

Hi everyone,

I' d love some advice on leash training and attention training for my puppy. She’s a Border Collie mix (adopted dog, we think around 6 months old- today she lost all her puppy teeth) and she’s been with us for about 7 weeks now.

She’s very very smart and learns quickly at home. She knows quite a few cues, her stay is good indoors, and she clearly understands what we’re asking most of the time. But outside is a completely different story.

On walks she pulls a lot, zig-zags, and gets very distracted by literally everything. When we call her while she’s focused on something, she often just ignores. We are trying not to repeat our commands, which were not so good with it in the first couple weeks? Heel only lasts a few seconds. Attention is very hard to keep once we’re outside. I know these are normal for a puppy, but I want to make sure I train her well and don’t build bad habits.

She’s also socially curious with other dogs. She invites them to play, but when they come close she sometimes runs behind me or wants to be picked up, then tries to chase them behind. So I think shes excited but a bit unsure. We will go to the dog school in 2 months.

What helped you most with:

• loose leash walking & heeling
• building reliable attention outdoors
• positive socialization with other dogs

Any training methods that made a big difference for you?

Thank you 🙂

Title says it all. My boy is 4 months old. Doesn’t pre anywhere except at home. Will he grow out of this naturally? I want to take him on a road trip this year

Hello! I will be picking up my mini dachshund in a month and am looking for your puppy must haves (besides lots of patience lol).

Because my boyfriend sometimes has allergies to dogs, we will be starting off with the pup sleeping in a crate right next to our bed. I WFH so I will be crate training throughout the day in hopes that he will love being in it come night time.

Other than the obvious necessities, what are some must haves for a smooth as possible transition for us & the dog? I will be getting the heartbeat stuffed animal & over the shoulder carrier as additional things I’ve heard have been great for new pups.

My cart total has skyrocketed with all different things so any input on what saved you in this phase would be a huge help 😊

TIA!

I recently adopted a 3 ish month old puppy almost a week ago and he’s teething and losing teeth like crazy but he is starting to refuse to eat even his kibble that we soak in water for a few minutes until its all soft. I’m not sure if maybe his bowl is an issue for his teeth? It’s a metal bowl. He gets fed 3 times a day and he used to eat okay for the first few days, he was even eager and jumpy. He is now indifferent or even walks away after a bite.