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Hi, I have a 1.5 year old hound mix and he is extremely food motivated and a huge sniffer. When we walk, his head is probably down on the ground sniffing 70% of the time. He’s been to the vet recently and is a healthy 65 pounds, nothing wrong with him physically.

He is smart and does loose leash walking pretty well, and he knows both the drop it and leave it command. But he is stubborn. If he smells or sees something rewarding he immediately lunges for it and will put it in his mouth. If it’s food or cat/bird 💩 (disgusting, I know), he eats it immediately and I usually don’t have time to tell him leave it.

My dog also picks up random trash like plastic but doesn’t typically eat it, and I’m able to tell him drop it. Our area has a lot of food scraps and trash though, so a minute later he will trade it for something else.

I got so fed up that I ordered a basket muzzle for him per some other advice I’ve read, but it just got here today and it is intimidating. Do I muzzle him for the entire walk, and whenever he is off leash? Or should I put the muzzle on after he tries to eat something? I don’t want him to fear the muzzle so I will introduce it slowly, but I’m also wondering if this is a last resort option or if I should try something else. I just want to be able to walk him without constantly worrying about what he’s grabbing.

Other things I’ve tried: – giving him a ball/stick to hold during our walks. He abandons it once he finds something better. – carrying high value treats on my walks – this does help as he would rather have a treat, but if I stop giving him treats he goes back to his ways. Also doesn’t help with off leash walks.

Any advice is much appreciated!!

Me and my husband adopted a neutered 26 week old Black Mouth Cur Mix over two weeks ago. We were told that he has some reinforced bad behaviors like jumping and pulling on his leash which are ok as they are trainable behaviors.

He was such a good boy on his first day at our place. On the second day, he learned potty training and sit. We also took him out for an hour walk in the morning, dog park for an hour in the afternoon, and another hour walk at night and potty breaks in between. During the night walk, he showed unacceptable behaviors like pulling and biting his leash. Oh, and he started to use our clothes (limbs area) like his personal tug of war toys inside the house and outside during walks. The next day we switched to a metal leash and it worked out great. At first. He now jumps up and down to grab the leash handle, and when he can't, he proceeds to bite our jackets, particularly on the wrists when he can't get the leash. It seems that he starts to bite our jackets once we get close to the house. Whether it's a 5 or 20 or 45 minute walk. I realized we took him to the dog park too soon, and that we were walking him too much. I feel the need to overcompensate because we don't have a fenced backyard for him to run around in and I know the breed needs a lot. We've changed to shorter walks but more often and have stopped going to the dog park to play with other dogs. He now gets more sleep but the limbs and leash biting didn't stop. We also tried to go "awww" or "ouch", we have tried to redirect him to his toys or chews but it seems that we have reinforced it more. We tried not pulling and immediately leaving his room but we can see on the camera that he just goes to play with his toys. We would go back to the room after a few minutes but he'd go right back to playing tug with other clothes. It's been over two weeks and nothing has changed. He did learn potty training, sit, paw, and down pretty quickly. I'm currently working on leave it and off. Because of the fast learning, I'm sure that the bad behavior is a learned fun exciting game.

Returning him isn't an option. He is currently enrolled in the MSPCA level 1 training and had gone to one class. We're trying not to spend a lot of money on professional training but we do have a 4 year old Morkie who can't stand hyperactive dogs and a sweet 1 year old cat. Their safety and comfort are our priority. We're doing slow introductions so we keep the puppy in his own room with a crate, but have taken many walks with the Morkie and have been alone at the dog park. During walks, the puppy tries to initiate play with the Morkie and gets frustrated when he can't so he bites the leash and our jacket. He's only seen and sniffed the cat behind his gate and no signs of hunting behavior so far. I want the puppy's negative behaviors to stop before we can be comfortable in giving him more access to other rooms and unsupervised interactions with the resident cat and dog.

I'm hoping people can give me advice from their own experiences. I'm not sure if I should do board and train for him. Maybe a private trainer, but they all cost thousands with no guarantee.

Please help. What has worked for you?

So I got a 3 month old lab puppy. I have a couple of concerns regarding him that I’d like some guidance on.

He inhales his food and acts like he has never eaten a day in his life. I’m worried he’ll make himself sick. He does this with water as well. I give him small amounts of water throughout the day to try to address that. Do I need to do that with the food as well?

Also, training is difficult. Puppy attention span is killing me. I’m not sure when to reward. Is a quick glance at me something to reward when training or does he need to fully look at me?

I am open to ideas on potty training. It’s like he’s made it his mission to pee on every rug I own. I celebrate and give lots of love when he pees or poops outside but is that enough? I haven’t punished him but do I need to when he goes inside? I am also crate training and he gets fed in the crate. I went to the gym for an hour today and at first he was crying and trying to dig out but when I looked 20 minutes later, he was fast asleep. I think that’s going well but idk about the other aspects.

I’m new to all this. Any advise is appreciated.

Our 18 month old Great Pyrenees/Golden/Poodle mix Teddy is such a good boy, and we are ready to transition him from sleeping in his crate at night to sleeping in our bedroom.

He actually really likes his crate, however we have a very small house, and his crate is enormous, and having it in our small family room is just taking up a huge amount of space. There is truly no other place to put it in our house ; it wouldn’t even fit in our bedroom. We never intended for him to sleep in his crate this long, but we and he just got into the habit, and now he’s pretty attached to it.

Can anyone offer any recommendations for how to ease him out of the crate and get him comfortable sleeping in our bedroom at night? He doesn’t have a favorite blanket or any particular “comfort” toys that might help. There is also no bed in his crate right now; he prefers the bare floor.

I’d also love to hear success stories from other people who have successfully made this transition with their own dogs.

Thanks!

Hi all, first time poster and about to be new puppy owner here, but confused over crate types and sizes.

For home we envisioned a fairly large crate where our miniature cockapoo/spoodle could move around a bit rather than just kind of sitting facing forward in a small crate on a bed. But I dont think this kind of bigger crate is practical to take in the car for moving the dog around.

Do you typically use two crates and get them used to both? Or is the smaller crate at home fine and its just somewhere to lay? We also got him a nice beg bed we could put in the room he'd stay while we're at work but it wouldnt fit in a small crate, will it be confusing to have a crate with a small bed/blankets inside and a larger bed elsewhere?

Basically, we're a bit confused how it all works and cant find these kinds of details anywhere. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

My 1 year old (next week) dachshund is naturally very timid and shy. We got her at 8 weeks from a good breeder, she’s never had any trauma or bad experiences. She also falls under the category some dachshunds share of “hates walks” and will only walk towards the house, not away from it. After months of consistency and carrying her to the destination and having her walk back, she started walking the last 200 ish feet away from the house. I felt like I could have cried I was so proud. Then after about 3 weeks of that going so well, she stopped and completely reverted to refusing to walk away from the house at all. I know it’s a fear response, maybe she’s thinking “what if we don’t go home? I’d rather be home”. I know she understands the concept of a walk and how to walk, she just doesn’t want to. Since it’s been about 2 or so weeks of her reverting in progress, I’ve just started going to the front yard or a non crowded park and just sitting with her for about 5-10 mins, feeding her treats and petting her. She will shake and quiver intermittently but has been accepting treats – sometimes when she’s nervous or doesn’t wanna be somewhere she won’t even do that so been considering that a small win. I don’t know what to do to get her more comfortable. This new idea I’ve got of the sitting and treating is new so I know I need to give that time, I just want her to be able to relax out and about more. I’m not looking for her to be coming with me to breweries or markets or anything like that, I just want our outings not to stress her out. She’s great in the car and great inside the house, just even in the yard if she hears a bang somewhere or someone talking nearby she runs to try to go inside. Anyone have any similar experience or guidance? I’m not sure anxiety meds would be an answer since she isn’t anxious all the time, just outside of the house or car. Am I doing the right thing trying to teach her to be neutral? Am I on the right track even though she currently shakes or should I somehow scale it back to where she doesn’t shake (if possible)? Thanks in advance