Blog

Hi!! I recently adopted an 8 month old puppy! We've had him for 3 months now and I was struggling in the beginning but he has become the best boy, he is so so smart, does incredibly well when I train him, he has learned so many tricks, does good on lead, everything! But I can not for the life of me fully potty train him…

I've done all the tips and tricks, we take him outside as soon as he wakes up. We go on a walk, eat/training session, then another quick pee and then he will usually sleep through the morning, wake up at lunch time, another pee, then I have lunch, he has some play then he has lunch and another training session, another pee and he will sleep or be settled most of the afternoon, then comes the bad part, he will wake up all excited at about 5pm, but we usually wait for my dad to come back home, which is usually at about 8pm, for his last walk of the day. In these few hours, he will ask to go potty like 10 to 15 times (he goes over to the backdoor), I try redirecting him or ignoring him, sometimes I feel like he just wants to go to the backyard, but as soon as he is out of sight from me he will pee, and if I take him outside he does in fact pee, even if it's for 2 seconds, he does a pee. But obviously he doesn't have to pee, I kid you not there have been times where we come back inside from a pee and he will ask to go back out 1 minute later!!

Some people have told me that this is just cause he is a tiny guy and can't hold his bladder still, but he holds it well through the night and if we crate him through the day, so I don't understand where this behaviour comes from, it feels like when he's bored and doesn't know what to do, he pees.

I try to keep him on a schedule and give him lots of praise whenever he pees outside and in the timings I want (less praise when he pees outside of that timing), when I take him to the backyard I have a designated spot where he goes, I wait for 2 minutes, and if nothing gets done we come back in, and whenever we go to potty I don't play or even speak much outside of saying "go potty". I don't know what I might be doing wrong or if maybe he really can't control his bladder still and I'm worrying over nothing.

If you have any tips or anyhting please let me know!! this is so frustrating, I feel like if I could fully rely on him to not pee inside I'd be so much calmer and looser with him, not constantly needing to check on him or have him be around him, I feel like it's taking over my everyday constantly looking at this pup to check his not peeing…

We are bringing our dorgi pup home on Sunday and I’m getting nervous! We have had dogs before but they were rescues and older when we got them, so never done the puppy trenches before.

Main questions / worries are:

We co-sleep most nights with our toddler. We plan to have pup in a crate in the bedroom but our toddler wakes quite a bit and I’m worried he’ll wake her a lot or she’ll wake him etc – ?

How do I make sure pup gets enough sleep if toddler is around making noise and playing etc? Should I put pup in a different room to give her a break? Thanks!

For some reason between the hours of 7-9am after my puppy has had his breakfast he refuses to nap even after he’s peed and pooped. Usually in the morning I would let him nap for an hour (because he only naps for an hour in the morning) and then we would go on a walk. I can’t do that now without him being overtired and biting me on our walks. I’ve tried using sniffing enrichment like finding his kibble for his breakfast but he just cries a lot in his crate so after 10-15min I let him out into his playpen but he still won’t nap. Should I just allow him to be awake for 2hrs then he’ll nap later?

Any help appreciated. We have a 16 week old puppy. She will sleep in her crate but wakes up 3-4 times a night since we got her 6 weeks ago. She does a wee when she wakes up, we bring her out and then straight back to the crate. She is walked 3 times a day and enjoys playing with my son. She has a bedtime routine but Im worried that us going down to her at night is now a habit for her. I thought maybe by now she would be a bit more settled. My neighbours let us know when they hear the dog whine and their autistic son reacts very badly when the dog cries for a long time so I don't think crying it out is going to work. I am starting to get really narky because of the broken sleep. Any tips helpful.

Attached your puppies best sleeping position!

How do you manage to teach your puppy to behave while walking on a leash. He is quite behaved but he crosses over and walks all over the place? And I tend to trip over him.

Any advice?

So my dog hides every time I play video games. Today i picked up my controller and she instantly walked out of my room. I'm not sure if its because im being loud or what but I think she is scared. Ig the question is how do I get her to understand im not gonna hurt her and that she is safe to stay in my room with me?