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Are there other ways, besides play, to build a bond and trust with your dog?

I already know play is a big part of it, but are there other things you can add on top of play?

Hi! My partner and I rehomed a lurcher puppy a week ago. He's 13 weeks now, he had to be taken away alongside his litter for welfare reasons, they were malnourished, full of fleas and worms, that's all we know. He was taken away roughly when he was 6 weeks. He was with the Scottish SPCA alongside his litter mates until we adopted him. He is also the "runt of the litter", he's half the size of his siblings now. A throwaway comment from the rescue was that despite his size he was the one to "bully" his siblings, I assume as a coping skill for being so smol.

I had an adult rescue lurcher before but this is a whole other thing.

He really struggles to settle and sleep during the day and as a result he gets more and more nightmareish as the afternoon and evening goes on.

He sleeps in his crate in our bedroom overnight, door open, usually after he falls asleep on one of us and then we put him there.

However, when he's overstimulated he bites HARD. I mean he latches onto your skin and flesh and will NOT let go.

The usual advice of freeze, stop giving attention, redirect works with his biting when he's not overtired but does absolutely nothing when he gets in this state, if anything he just bites harder.

I work from home full time so we want make more of an ironclad routine for naps during the day to improve his sleep and hope behavior will follow. In the meantime though I was hoping someone here could give us some advice – we welcome suggestions for calming him for napping (once he's too tired giving him kongs and chews does nothing, he just continues when he's done with them).

We have tried closing him in his crate a few nights ago, this being after he slept through the night in it a few times. We were met with increasingly panicked howls for just shy of 10 minutes before we gave in. Maybe we made a mistake trying but we didn't know how to calm him, or maybe we should have persevered?

But also, how do we keep our sanity and safety when he gets so hardcore with his bites? It is genuinely extremely painful and happens pretty much every night. 🥲 He is also growing quite rapidly and we worried these chomps going to become dangerous.

Help!

Hi quick intro – first ever time getting a dog i’m 22 living in a family of 4 with my mum not working -thought it was a good time since she’s not working to get a dog

So now onto the dog——— ..7.5weeks old male beagle that is really energetic during the day, it has a few naps scattered about but for the most part it’s really hyper. how can we get it to nap more? ..We have round teething to be a problem it keeps biting my socks and i can feel its teeth any help with that? ..few accidents here and there but for the most part my mums been pretty good at training it outside. Anything we can be doing better? ..Night times are okay had 3 nights with it first one was a struggle but last two have been okay we put it in the crate for 8:30 it wakes around 11ish to go toilet which i take outside and the around 1am where it’s normally me going into the kitchen letting him know i’m there then he dozes off to bed till around 5 where my mum will wake him up and take him out. Don’t mind this routine so hopefully this lasts. anything i should be doing differently at night?

But more importantly hoping it doesn’t drain my mum out as she’s already showed a few signs of cracking and it’s only been 3 days, what should be done to make life a bit easier?

tl;dr: My ex says that my dog thinks I abandoned her. Is this realistic?

Longer version: I went through a messy divorce with an abusive person. Luckily never had human children together but we shared a fur baby. We agreed to share custody, traveling with her between Texas and Florida every few months. After 4 years of this I decided that it was getting to be too hard on her to not only make the journey back and forth but to be uprooted from her comfort zone as well. She should have stayed with me permanently since I am more stable, more responsible, have other dogs, etc. but there was no way my ex was ever going to agree to that. So last year I made the incredibly gut wrenching decision to let her stay with him permanently.

In theory I was going to go visit her every so often, but I wasn't sure if that would just be more confusing for her, seeing me for a week or so in an airbnb or something and then I leave again. I know for sure it would be heartbreaking for me to see her for such a short time and then have to leave again.

My ex, still abusive (people don't change) has sent me text messages asking why I haven't come to see her and telling me that she thinks I abandoned her. I know he is just being shitty, but I am genuinely curious how she, as a dog, might be experiencing my absence. At the end of the day I want to do what is best for her, even if it is what is hardest for me (which is why I stopped making her do custody transfers in the first place), but I genuinely don't know how her precious little doggy mind works.

Any advice?

For some reason my 1 year old border collie walks so well until she does a poo. As soon as she does one she starts running about, kangaroo jumping and dangling of her lead.

Anyone know why she does this?

It makes me laugh but I wish she'd calm down.

Before anyone says, I do agree it’s about the quality of the training session not how long.. but I was curious what other people do? I try to get in 3-5 short sessions a day it just depends. For context I have a 16 weeks old puppy.

Sometimes I feel like I could be doing more? It’s just feels like there is SO much to teach her so I know to important to prioritize and spread it out where it makes sense for the both of us. But then you have different stages of learning too like acquisition then generalization 😭🤧