Blog

As the title says, we've got a year and a half year old, 9 pound female Schnoodle who is being a wild thing at night, and we'd love any suggestions to help distract her or burn her energy. We understand that she's still in the puppy stage and she may get calmer as time goes on, but some immediate help would be great and we also don't want to assume that she'll magically get better.

To start, here's some background info.

My partner and I adopted her about 7 months ago, and we have made some decent training progress including:

• Reducing her fear of other people (she's not perfect, but she can at least walk by people on the sidewalk without getting upset anymore).
• Getting her 99% potty trained (we're averaging an accident about once every month or two now, but we're chalking that up to her small bladder and human error of us not getting her out in time).
• Teaching the commands for "Touch," "Drop It," and "Hold." She's stubborn so they don't work 100% of the time, but it's something. "Sit" and "stay" are still a work in progress.
• Getting her to stop eating our carpet. (Big win, those days were miserable).

One of the more challenging behaviors is that she obsessively tries to eat things (small pieces of plastic, cigarettes, fabric etc). So we have to be very vigilant with her to keep her from consuming things, since she isn't content to just chew them. She also hates other dogs, so no puppy friends for her unfortunately.

Here's a sample day to show what we do to take care of her and try and provide enrichment:

• I wake up early and give her 3/4ths of her breakfast in her foraging mat. It takes her maybe 5 minutes to eat it.
• I take her out for a 15 minute walk around our apartment complex. It's the same route 99% of the time, and I give her time to sniff around. During this walk (and the other two daily walks) we use the "Drop it" command while getting her to stop eating random things.
• After the walk my partner and I play with her / engage with her a bit as we get ready for work. She'll usually play with her toys during this time. My partner works in-person and I work from home.
• Once my partner leaves, I give her the remaining 1/4th of her breakfast in one of two different food balls (I try to mix them up for variety).
• During this time I will often put her on top of my work desk so she can look out the window and be near to me.
• During work hours I still give her attention, but I deliberately don't play with her since I'm working. To her credit, she does a pretty good job of sleeping and occupying herself.
• Around noon I take her out for a 20-40 minute walk (depending on the time available). There are 3 or 4 different routes we take, and I mix it up. Unless I'm in a rush, she gets lots of time to sniff things.
• When we get home she usually rests for the duration of my work day, but if she is restless I will give her some treats in a sliding puzzle she has, or sometimes give her a non-hide salmon stick that keeps her busy for 20-30 minutes.
• Immediately after work I will often play with her for 5-10 minutes and sometimes use this time to brush her teeth too.
• My partner gets home and gives our dog lots of love for about 10-20 minutes while we prepare dinner.
• We put her in her crate for dinner (because we have no room for a dinner table and have to eat on the couch, and we can't keep her stubborn butt from trying to get our food). This lasts for 20-30 minutes.
• Immediately after our dinner we give her 3/4ths of her dinner (with some supplemental oil per the vet's instructions) in her food bowl.
• We then go on a 20-30 minute walk or go to the puppy park. For the walk it's almost always a different route than what she had at noon, and once again we have about 3 to 4 different options we rotate through.
• When we get home, we either give her the remaining 1/4th of her dinner in one of the food balls OR my partner will wrap the food up in a towel for her to dig out. The latter takes her about 15 minutes to achieve.
• At this point, both of us just want to relax. I meet with friends online sitting at my desk, and my partner wants to read on the couch.
• Our dog is often VERY awake at this point, to our dismay. She will start going places she shouldn't go (like under a small end table where she will try and chew on things) or will excitedly leap and jump at my partner's face while she's sitting on the couch. She'll stop for a moment if I get up and tell her to stop / grab her, but then immediately start again as soon as I sit down. This is especially a problem because my partner gets severe migraines and has bad neck pain, so our dog's "play" can be quite agonizing. We have no room for a standalone chair to save my partner unless we sell the couch.
• During this time we sometimes try to distract her with a hollow kong bone with a little dog peanut butter OR a lick mat of frozen peanut butter. This helps for maybe 30 minutes, but then the anarchy resumes.
• She doesn't have a lot of plushy toys because she surgically tears apart their stitching and tries to eat their insides, and she has limited interest in tough rubber toys. She usually ignores the ones she does have during this time.
• Eventually we get ready for bed (usually letting her hang out with us during the process), and then she goes into her crate. She does a good job in her crate and doesn't cry or fuss, which is nice. She gets about 8 hours of sleep (or at least time in the crate when she can sleep).
• Then the process resumes.

Any help would be appreciated. I'll try to provide any additional information as requested. Thank you!

I have a 8 month old pitbull boxer mix that I have been fostering for over a month.He had kennel cough when we got him and is all cleared up other than that he’s been a perfect dog except…he goes to the bathroom in the house.He goes an excessive amount both poop and pee when he goes out 6x a day.I’m not joking I’m stressed two of the six times he goes out is for an hour and every time he’s outside he poops and pee.I don’t understand almost every time I’m not in the same room or turned around he does it.I know people would say kennel him I was thinking it could be separation anxiety but when I tell you he goes whenever I am turned around or leave the room for a second I mean it.I could go pee real quick and I’ll walk in the living room and they’ll be a big pile of poop and a puddle of pee.I could walk in the kitchen and walk back out and it’s covered in poop and pee.I’m super stressed because I already take him out a lot and kenneling him every time I walk to the kitchen or turn around is super annoying.What could cause these accidents?I’ve only caught him in the act once I have taken him to the vet twice and other than a cleared up kennel cough he was fine.

My now 7 month old husky puppy loves to lick my face and even nip a bit when she gets super excited. Don’t get me wrong it is so freaking cute but I have TMJ and a very sensitive face and can’t have her doing that as it causes me a lot of pain. I love her and she’s very smart so I know there’s gotta be a way to knock that habit but I haven’t the foggiest idea on how to go about that. Anyone got any advice?

We are moving into a sigh carpeted apartment with 3 large dogs. We have a game plan as far as potty breaks every 2-3 hours to start with, but is there any additional steps I can take to prevent accidents? Also, if they do potty, what is the best method for removal? Please help!!!

This past July, we adopted a 1.5 year old rescue. She’s adapted pretty well to our home, routine and so forth. But she will not come upstairs and avoids it as much as possible.

Just to be clear, my dog is not afraid of stairs. She will go up and down our basement steps no problem and the steps to our front door. She will even come upstairs in the morning to get my attention if I were to wake up just a little late for our morning walk – she just won’t stay any longer than she has to. At night she sleeps on the floor in my office on the first floor.

The biggest problem with all of this is that she wakes up and barks in the middle of the night randomly, like she’s frightened of something. She will always calm down if I sit with her for a few minutes. It seems that’s all she wants during these bouts of barking. But I can tell by the way she stares at me as I walk back up that she’s nervous, like I’m leaving her or something.

I’m just sort of at a loss of what to do. On one hand it’s not incredibly disruptive or negative to our lives, she’s more independent (or tries to be) than my previous dog which I kind of appreciate. I just want her to know the whole house is hers and not just the first floor and it saddens me a bit that she won’t even come into our bedroom. I feel like she would be less anxious at night if she just came into our bedroom.

How can I show her that it’s ok to be upstairs? And that our bedroom is a safe place and not to be avoided?

Hopefully safe for the dogs as well.

My 6 month old puppy tries to chew or eat everything she can get. I try my hardest to keep things out of reach or to not leave them down but it’s always things I’m not thinking about. She was eating my eyedrops last week and i freaked out. She loves plastic. Yesterday she ate a bottle cap and a lightbulb (plastic bulb) while I was putting my tree up. This behavior really worries me. Our other dog never did this and she’s my second dog so I don’t know how to teach her not to. Google hasn’t been super helpful so I figured other dog owners might be. I always tell her no and to drop it (she responds well to this!) and I take it away. She won’t stop finding things and trying to eat them.