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Hi all, My husband and I have a 6 month old cocker spaniel puppy. She has previously been sleeping in a playpen + crate combo in our living room, and spent her time there overnight and while we were working during the day.

She recently worked out how to jump over the playpen and began roaming around the house while we weren’t home, which wouldn’t be a problem but she has been having some toilet training regressions recently and we would come home to accidents on the carpet.

She had no issues holding on in her pen, and would happily play in there, and take herself to sleep in her crate. Our trainer suggested that we start to leave her outside during the day, and that we should move her crate and toys to where she would be spending more of her time. So we moved her crate to the sunroom at the back of our house and she has access to the backyard all day long. During the day this is fine, however she has been napping on the armchair in the sunroom rather than her crate.

As her crate is in there during the day we have been trying to get her to sleep in the sunroom overnight. She hates this. She will cry until one of us comes to sit with her, and even if she falls asleep in her crate as soon as we leave she wakes up again. We never had this problem in the past and she has always loved her crate and went to sleep easily from the day we brought her home. This has been happening for three nights in a row now.

Ideally we would love for her to get used to sleeping in the sunroom overnight, but is this just not going to happen? Should we just move the crate back to the living room? Any advice would be appreciated 🙂

I know this sounds like a ridiculous question. The only dog I have been responsible for was a German Shepherd who would shake off a sweater when it was clearly below 0 F.

Now I'm fostering a mutt, four years old and about 50 pounds. She's a true mutt – a herding dog's feet, a terrier's head, long legs, shorter hair generally and almost no fur on her belly. Very energetic. She's pretty stoic generally – been with me four months – and hangs in her crate where she has a big, fluffy bed. I'm wondering if there are ways to tell the cold is bothering her other than her refusing to go out. Where I am, zero degree days are unusual at the depth of winter, but not what I'd call rare. Those temperatures are months away, but I'd like to be prepared. Thank you!

Recently rescued an adult working dog from a pound and not sure if I made a mistake.

She is the most beautiful girl, over the past month we’ve really bonded and I can tell she loves me and she seems happy, but I worry I’m not giving her enough.

Part of me knows, the life I can give her (access to a decent size garden, 2 hours of walking, and comfy caring home, I also do training activities everyday and sniff play) is WAY better than being at the pound. BUT she’s a working dog, she’s meant to be on a farm.

All I know about her history is that a farmer dumped her because she didn’t do well enough herding sheep and got too distracted by the workers.

She doesn’t know how to play, so I struggle to get any high intensity exercise. The off lead walks are mainly her sniffing everything while following me. She will run, but only if I run and I’m not a runner, I can go for about 30 seconds 😂.

I live in a pretty rural area so she’s getting lots of walks in forests and across fields. But always walking, never running.

Should I try find her another home? It breaks my heart thinking about it. And think she’d really miss me/struggle to be moved again. But all I want is what’s best for her.

Please be nice!

My vet says that it's nothing to worry about, but I find it really weird. First dog I've ever had/seen do this.

It seems to be based on how excited she is…? The louder her play growls are, the faster she has to stop playing and start licking. She only ever licks her chest. It's not that she wants to stop playing, as she will often go right back to the toy for a bite before immediately resuming the licking.

Any idea what's going on?

I just found a three young fleas on my 7 month old puppy even though she was just given simparica trio two months ago. The last thing I want is for it to spread to my other three cats and dog, but I’m worried that all the dog flea sprays will poison my cats. If anyone has any recommendations on sprays or applications (not medicine) that are safe for all my pets, please, I’m desperate! Thanks!

Hi all! We’ve had our puppy for nearly three months now and he’s going to be five months old in a few weeks. The time is flying and he’s honestly been doing really well with most things. He is crate trained, does well with commands, has stopped chewing on things he shouldn’t, and rarely has accidents in the house (just the occasional excited pee when someone comes home). We’re still working on side-by-side leash training and reinforcing commands outside with distractions.

The one thing I have noticed over the last few weeks: the boy is starting to bark at things he’s never barked at before. He used to just watch as other dogs walked by but now he barks at them – especially if they’re across the street or down the block. He barks at people now too – again mostly if they’re a little further away and mostly if it’s dark out. He’s also started barking at home (we live in a multi unit building) – mostly if someone is stomping down the hallway and making a lot of noise. For the outdoors, we’re doing our best to try to redirect him/have him sit and look at us while continuously giving treats and talking to him.

The only other change is that he goes to daycare a few times a week now as I still don’t trust him to stay home alone. We don’t have the best space to keep him gated (the boy is 22lbs already and can climb). I don’t want to leave him in the crate all day with only a few drop-ins from a sitter especially with how energy he has.

I guess my main question is: is this normal as pups get older? Or does this happen to dogs as a result of daycare for some reason? I feel like we’re doing things mostly the right way but I’m just concerned with the change in his behavior. Any insight or help is appreciated – TIA!!!

Hello! I've had two cats since they were about 8-10 weeks old, and they just turned 6 years old recently. Behavior wise the cats are pretty amazing honestly. I've watched plenty of dogs and had plenty of people stay over, even had a pet bird for a while that the female cat very much adopted as her baby to the point of having several safe but monitored out of cage interactions, and through it all the cats have been occasionally timid but usually pretty solid. My wife and I now have an opportunity to get a 8-10 week old german shepherd from a family friend, and I wanted to see if anyone had tips for introducing the puppy to the cats, especially since there has been no permanent additions to the household since we got the cats 6 years ago.

I will say that the only real pre-existing plan we have at the moment is for pretty intensive behavior training for the puppy from the start; my wife is a licensed therapist so while this puppy would be a family dog first, we hope to get the puppy it's own therapy license so it can eventually go to work with her everyday. With such easy-going cats and such intensive training for the pup, I think we should be fine in the long term. So I'm mostly looking for short term solutions for helping develop that initial relationship between the cats and the puppy.

Right now we have a 6 month old pup that gets super aggressive, to the point she growls, snaps, and bites if you try to interact with her when. She eats.

She is drawing blood now, and we can't figure out how to train her out of this.

The real problem is, we have several babies, a 1 and 2 year old that are at real risk of getting hurt.

We try to separate them. When feeding the pup we keep her in a separate room to eat, but any time either the kids or the pup gets a treat its a problem. The pup is easy enough, she eats in a blocked off area. But when the kids get a snack she more than likely steals it, and then gets aggressive over it.

She got me when I tried to scoop her up after abit of sick she made, and I had to put her outside. We don't WANT to put her outside, but when she gets like that we can't risk it

Please help me out. My puppies won’t stop digging. I fill the hole and cover it but they just go to a new one. How do we get them to stop. I don’t want them scared or to have anxiety towards me or water as they already hate water with a passion. I need help. My mother’s trying to get rid of them because she had to take care of them for a day. They’ve helped me with a lot of mental issues I’ve had. They’re golden retriever puppies. 3. Triplets. 3 months old.