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Would love to figure out a schedule for my 4 month old golden retriever mix we just adopted in the evenings when we come home from work and are getting the kids dinner and ready for bed. I am home for a couple of hours everyday around lunch which is when puppy gets a long walk and lots of play time, and she is crated a few hours before and a few hours after while I am working.

Right now when I get home in the early evening puppy gets let out and gets more play time in the yard and then fed dinner and hangs with us the rest of the evening. This is when I don’t know what to do with her. She’s only been with us a few weeks and is so so crazy in the evenings, and I can’t seem to tire her out no matter how many walks or how much outside time she gets. I’ve read about tether time and would like to incorporate it so she learns how to play/chill independently, but I don’t know when is a good time for her to do it because I don’t want it to seem like a punishment. And I also feel bad doing it because she’s been in her crate so much all day. Lastly, I want to add some sort of chew items/enrichment activities for her but don’t know when the best time is for this either, and if it’s supposed to be part of tether time? (right now it’s just when we need a break from her lol).

Curious what peoples schedules look like with their pups when they get home from work if their dog has been crated for much of the day?

My wife and I adopted a now 16 week old mini Australian Shepherd 4 weeks ago. She had spent a month with a foster before we got her where she learned to spend the night in the crate (8-9 hours), mostly potty trained, and a couple simple commands. We usually keep her out of the crate for 1-3 hours at a time with naps in between of 1-3 hours. She overall has done well in the crate with some exception… but she is young. Also, she did break a canine a week ago that exposed the pulp where the vet recommended extraction only if she is showing signs of pain, infection, or decrease in eating, which fortunately, she is not showing at this time. Just today, I did allow her to simply be in her play pen for an hour with minimal interaction with me allowing her to bark and eventually mostly relaxing while being bored. She is also getting very aggressively snarly and bitey with our hands and leash the past week plus but giving her something else to chew on does help part of the time.

The problem we are currently having the past 2-3 days is that she has been getting very barky and whiny in her crate during the afternoon pawing at the door and sides as well as biting and licking the cage when we put her in. We make sure she is fed, watered, and pooped/peed yet she still is barking and whining.

So, what should we do? Take her on a car ride (calms her right down), let her bark it out (which makes my wife feel like a bad dog mom), spend more time with play, or something else?

Hi all, I have a 4 month old cavoodle who has some pretty bad separation anxiety.

I haven’t gone to my regular sports (usually 3/4 times per week in the evenings) since I’ve gotten him a month ago,

He can handle being in his crate if I am in the room, but if I leave he starts crying.

I sometimes leave him outside for 20-30 minutes, but he will usually just whine / cry or sit by the door. He won’t eat any food or treats if I try leave this out for him in this time.

I want to get back into training (usually will be gone for 2-3 hours), but is this something I will have to put on pause until I am able to address and manage his separation anxiety?

Any advice is appreciated

Hello. My puppy seems to have just gone into heat (i say “seems” because once before i thought she had gone into heat but i took her to the vet and the vet said it was ambiguous but probably not — so I don’t trust my own judgement now). She is licking her vulva a lot and I did pick up some blood twice when I pressed a tissue against it (something the vet suggested). I know most of the basics as I have been preparing a lot but I am wondering:

1) did you take your puppy to the vet when she went into heat?

2) we live in an apartment so not taking her outside isn’t really an option. obviously I’ll try to keep her away from risky places like parks and schedule walks for quieter times, but if there are other dogs around but they are girls/desexed is it still best to avoid them? (I presume yes but the time I thought she was in heat I noticed people would say “oh, don’t worry, she’s a girl” etc about their dogs when I told them we had to stay away) (obviously in any case we wouldn’t deliberately socialize but living in the city it can be hard to completely avoid other dogs, esp when they’re with owners who are used to briefly saying hi)

3) similarly, she’s meant to be being dogsat next week but the dogsitter has an older desexed female dog. Is it okay for them to be together or is there a risk the scent will create issues? Should I cancel my plans to stay home with her instead?

4) at what point in the heat cycle does the frequent urination begin?

5) if the dog is fastidious about grooming herself, how can you tell how far through the cycle she is?

Thank you! and also just in case people are wondering I do plan to get her desexed — the vet advised to wait until she’d been through a heat cycle.

My puppy is a 13 week old female pitbull mix that me and my girlfriend have had for almost a week.

She started to chew on my pants button on the floor and when my girlfriend tried to take it away she growled at her and then nipped at her hand. My girlfriend brought her over to show me and we saw she would do the same thing with her toys but only if you touched her paws or get close to her face.

She just started this today and we want to prevent it from becoming a problem in the future.

She was rescued from a hoarding house by an adoption place a couple weeks before we got her if that has anything to do with this

Hi! Adopted a wonderful rescue pup about a month ago. She just finished her last round of shots. We had her about 80% potty trained to go on pee pads in our backyard, we’ve been marking it with “go potty,” and she’s able to sleep the whole night through in her crate without issues.

Today I tried to graduate her to doing her business outside on the front lawn. Unfortunately, she finds the grass the most interesting thing in the world. Not only will she try to eat it, she will dig and try to pull out each individual blade of grass. She responds well to “leave it” but we fall into this cycle of her just tearing up everything and me correcting her. I’ve waited outside with her 15-20 minutes and she will have a blast doing everything but going and then immediately when I take her inside, she goes. I have also tried putting pee pads on the grass and she just eats around them.

We had one successful grass pee today but it’s just been downhill since. She was destroying our lawn, so we caved and just took her to the backyard where she immediately let out what seems like days worth of pee and poop. I know she’s a puppy just figuring things out but I’m trying not to make going outside such a miserable experience for both of us. Any advice? Thanks!

I have a 4mo spaniel, who generally is doing great. The main thing that’s getting me down at the moment is that she’s still not sleeping through the night or even close.

She’s still waking me up 1-2 times to pee. First time anywhere between 12 and 3am, then second time 4:30-5:30am. Then she wants to start the day 6-6:45am. Sometimes we only get a 3-4am wakeup. If she’s in my bed she will go all the way through (I’ve tried this twice).

She is crated in the room next door to me, if I ignore the whining she just gets more frantic. If I get up and let her out to pee she does immediately go back to sleep after. I hear so many people saying that their pups were sleeping through from 8-10wks and it’s pretty depressing 😭

This is pretty much the same number of times she was waking up when she came home at 8wks so I just don’t feel like we’ve made any progress at all. I can’t just leave her to cry for ages because of my neighbours (and because it’s not fair on her if she genuinely has to pee) but I’ve started trying to ignore for 5-10mins and then let her out if she’s still going (waiting for a little bit of quiet first) but that’s worse for my sleep than just taking her out immediately 🙃

Any magic tips? Am I the only one who has a pup that can’t make it through? Any light at the end of the tunnel?!

Hullo! Getting my pup tomorrow (12 weeks) and want advice for good toys that will help keep him busy during the car ride, 2.5-3 hrs.

I’ve not met the pup, just the parents,so don’t really know what he’ll like and am curious if anyone has toys most pups of any personality will like.

I’ve got lamb skin hard chews, specific for 12 weeks old pup, with an anti-choke holder but don’t want him chewing on one of those for the entire ride.

Preferably a toy that doesn’t involve food as I don’t want to upset his stomach for his first car ride, especially since then he’d need a bath and I’d like to avoid that for a few days to keep stress at a minimum while he settles in.

Any ideas?

My puppy did so well the first 2 months we had him, we were seeing real progress and we had such a good time with trainers.

Recently he turned 17weeks and he developed such a strong separation anxiety that I cant leave him in his crate during the day anymore, my partner and I cant really leave in front of him, im really struggling at work to leave him on his own too…

And I know the deal of rewarding quiet time, giving him something to do, making sure he exercise.. But im lost and fried.

Its been a few days of him crazy coming at me for bitting, crazy running around the sofa scratching, crazy humping my colleagues and crazy barking.

Nothing changed, everything is supposedly as calm and as controlled as we ever had it so I am….fried. We went to the vet and he is really healthy and yeah we dont understand why he cant settle no more.

I know theyre supposed to go through fear stages and adolescence but I wasnt expecting it to get suddenly this hard…

I have a 4month mini dachsund that I got a couple weeks ago. I've given him carrots, snuffle mats, cardboard boxes, paper towel tubes, slow feeders, kongs, bully sticks, and a variety of toys that give him different sensations (crinkle toys, puppy chew toys, tennis balls). I even do 15min of desensitization videos and have him sit outside with me to listen to outside noises. Is there anything that you give your puppy that further their enrichment?

I cant take him out for his walk for another month before his rabies/last bordetella shot (per the vet) so I want to make sure he's getting all the enrichment he needs.