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Hi all, first time poster here and feeling a little desperate. I have a 4 year old Havanese who is potty trained. About a month ago, he had an overnight accident on the rug in my kitchen, which rarely happens – but okay – no big deal, I cleaned it up with enzyme cleaner and figured he just drank too much water. Then, he had the same accident the next night, and the one after that. I didn’t catch them til after, so the rug was really soaked and I ended up tossing it because it was old anyway. Bought a new rug – had an accident right on it. Removed that rug, and he continued to have nightly accidents on the hardwood where the rug was. All was promptly cleaned with enzyme cleaner.

I noticed he was drinking a lot more water too, so I brought him to the vet. They did two rounds of urine and took blood, and the only thing they mentioned was that the urine was very, very dilute, but nothing else seemed out of the ordinary. Then, one day about 10 days ago… he just stopped having accidents. His water intake returned to normal. Just all of a sudden. The doctor said that was a good sign, and to just continue to monitor.

Well, yesterday I brought the rug back, and you guessed it – he had an accident on it over night. Tonight I placed pee pee pads on the same spot, and I literally just got up for a drink of water and noticed he peed on the hardwood next to the rug, without signaling he needed to go out.

I’m at a loss at this point. I’m not convinced it’s a medical issue, so it has to be something to do with that spot, even though I clean it like crazy. I’ve read the wiki page, but any recommendations or ideas are welcomed and appreciated!

Hiiii mom of an adorable and spunky 15 weeks old puppy over here~ just curious at what age did you find your puppy can free roam and just relax next to you?

Hi, I am hoping someone has had a similar experience and can give me some advice. We have an eight year-old Labradoodle who is more on the lab lazy side and very mellow. We adopted a rescue puppy and we have had him now for two months, he is currently four months old and he is a mix of several breeds with the top breeds being Chihuahua, Pomeranian and poodle. I did all the research. I introduced him in all the ways that I thought were good. We have kept them separated and done introduction with leashes and small spurts. Our older dog enjoys him through his pen, gives him kisses and wags his tail, however, when the puppy is out and tries to play with our dog, I feel our dog is aggressively lunging and barking at him where my husband feels like he's playing. There is a large size difference as our Labradoodle is 64 pounds and the puppy is 8 pounds. The puppy however, doesn't seem to be responding to our Labradoodles cues of back off. The puppy has way too much energy for him and I don't know how to blend this and make it work so they both can be together in the house at the same time. I would love some tips on how I can help bond them. We have walked them outside together and our labradoodle is much less territorial with him outside than inside. I think he's guarding me and letting that puppy know that I'm his. I have started looking into dog trainers to see how I can help break this pattern. I would love to hear what has worked for you!

Hey everyone, looking for some advice. I have a 4-month-old Labrador who has recently started trying to hump anything he can get his paws on. I’m not sure if he’s doing it because he’s tired, overstimulated, or if it’s something else entirely. Is this normal behavior for his age? And does anyone have tips on how to discourage it or manage it? Any advice would be really appreciated!

My puppy is a 16 week old samoyed, so i understand that shes in her teething phase. But i’ve been doing everything i can to minimize the biting since i got her at 7 weeks old and there has been no improvements at all. Things ive tried:

• reverse time out
• turning my back and ignoring
• yelping
• redirecting with toys
• turning the biting into a training session with treats

As soon as i return from reverse time out, biting resumes. I’d be going in and out of the room 10+ times and nothing changes.

Turning my back and ignoring her only allows her to lunge at my back or hips.

Yelping does nothing at all.

Redirecting with toys works only 50% of the time. I either have to keep wiggling the toy in her face nonstop, or she’ll drop it and go for my hands/ankles.

Treats work until she finishes it all, then the biting resumes.

What else can i try?

Hi all, I have a Brittany spaniel mix with a high prey drive and plan to install a chain link fence (only option currently).

Any critiques or additional input on things to help?

I'm limited to 5' tall fence.

Using 2 3/8" terminal posts, 1 7/8" line posts light industrial instead of residential.

Dug 36" and will use wet concrete to set (high early strength due to lower temps).

Top and bottom rails to reduce digging under and 1 5/8" sizing for more strength/durability, secured with line rail clamps, end rail clamps, and corner clamps instead of traditional rail ends.

DIY 1 5/8" rail gates 5'x5' Unsure whether to do 2 fork latches or 1 fork latch and 1 drop rod to make the lower part more secure or other options?

9 Gauge fence fabric (I see 2" most commonly, not sure if the smaller size would be better to reduce climbing, would love to know if anyone has experience with this).

fence ties 12" apart.

Steel connections instead of aluminum.

Any additional recommendations?

Should I dig a small trench and lay landscaping bricks etc under the fence line to reduce digging?

Ideas for good gate latches?

Experience with coyote rollers and privacy screens?

Thank you!

My big girl is 10 and she loves to lay on the bed. My bed is pretty high. She still does okay jumping on the bed even though she's big – but I notice the jumps are getting lower. She's needed some help the past week. What can I get her to more easily get on the bed? I'm not sure she would climb a ramp. She definitely has gravity insecurity – but I'm willing to try if that's the only reasonable option.

Hi everyone, I have a 10-month old Australian Shephard mix. He’s honestly a darling, but very reactive to other dogs. He’s managed to make friends in the building, but then barks incessantly at smaller dogs. If they bark back/retaliate in anyway, that’s the start of a fight. There have also been instances where he will snap at a dog if it tries to stop him from barking at another dog. We want to control all this really.

Additionally, as he’s a high energy dog that is reactive, it is tough to board him. Any good boarding institutions we could use/house sitters?

Any recommendations on dog trainers that really listen to the issue, and provide targeted training in the New Jersey area?

Thank you

TL;dr I need to figure out if a basket muzzle is a good, safe option for me dog who has potential to be aggressive towards my toddler.

Before I begin: we have already tried rehoming (we will not send him to a shelter). When trying to rehome, I posted on a local page, gave a lot of info as to why we were rehoming (to make sure he went to the right home), and got reamed for my decision. There were a lot of people making a lot of assumptions so this is lengthy. Needless to say, we have tried EVERYTHING else we can think of. A dog doesn’t deserve to be locked up his entire life, with little interaction, and I will NOT put my toddler at risk.

We have an Australian Shepherd Mix (M, 6 yrs old). We also have a female Australian Shepherd (8 yrs old), and no issues with her. We’ve had them both since pups.

I preface this with- when we got this dog, we had no children, but he has been around children his whole life (for example, I lived with my friend and her family for a couple of years, the kids ranged from 1-6) between family and friends. He has always been good with children. Not overly loving but happy with the attention or indifferent.

He has always been “touchy” and nervous with new people but never aggressive, with the exception of a couple of times people he did not know making him feel cornered. Ex., my brother in law tried to be helpful and let him out of his crate while we weren’t home and the dog freaked out when he tried to reach his hand in, but that is his safe space so we didn’t worry much about it. Over the years, he has needed less and less time to warm up to new people but is always on alert with someone he doesn’t know well.

He is terrible with most other dogs (especially males). We had to rehome a dog because after years of attempts to train them to get along, then attempting separation, it didn’t work out and got dangerous (the other dog is with a family member and doing great).

Anyways, since we have had this dog we have attempted training after training to get him to be less “sensitive”. We have NEVER left my toddler alone with the dog. 99% of their interactions have been with us literally on top of them both. Since my toddler has been born we have emphasized being gentle, no grabbing, hitting, etc. He is a toddler though so there has been occasional roughness (nothing crazy just like a rough grab or something like that). But we have always supervised, redirected toddler, praised the dog for not reacting. Any time the dog has even hinted at discomfort we have moved the toddler away from him and/or put the dog in his safe space. They have a crate only when we leave the house and they have our gated dining room set up for them the rest of the time. My toddler is not/has never been allowed in their “safe spaces”.

A few months back, I was in the kitchen, as were dog and toddler. The toddler was running in circles around the kitchen (not paying any attention to the dog), the dog was laying there, acting calm and normal. Out of nowhere, as the toddler ran past, the dog tried to nip him in the face. I was watching the reaction, it looked so calculated for him to act calm, wait for the right moment, and attempt to bite him.

I KNOW Aussies are herders. But for one, he has never exhibited this behavior before (towards a human). Two, this is exactly the behavior he exhibited towards our male dog we used to have before eventually escalating to full on attack. Three, nipping ankles is one thing, the face of a 1.5 year old is not something I am okay with.

After this happened, we have almost 100% kept them separated. We now have a newborn so we are even less capable of being on top of them throughout the house. We still let them interact but myself or husband are sitting with them, ready to throw ourselves between them. We have baby gates to keep them separate, but my toddler is at the age that we cannot keep him locked in our living room all day. Toddler is going from room to room, doing his thing. He also demands pretty much all of our attention and supervision. So our dog is almost 100% stuck in the dining room during the day. We let him out during nap and after the toddler goes to bed, but that’s such a small amount of time that we have to interact with him. Plus, we’re in the dark depths of parenting young children now, those few times the toddler and baby are sleeping we are trying to catch up.

The dog’s quality of life is terrible. I feel awful. We try to get him out and play with him, but it’s hard. We can’t give anymore of ourselves to anything with a 2 year old and newborn. If you have children, you know how demanding they are.

I have been heavily considering a basket muzzle. And letting the dog out much more often. It would still be supervised interactions, but possibly I wouldn’t have to be literally on top of the dog and toddler when they interact? I am not willing to risk my child’s safety. I’m afraid there’s still a chance for something to happen. Rehoming is only an option if we send him to a shelter which we don’t want to do. He isn’t “cute” and needs a family with either older children or no children who can give him the attention he needs. We are hoping at some point someone will take him but we have to figure something out in the meantime.