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First time poster, month long lurker! I got my pup a month ago from a rescue. She was listed as a beagle but is a little mutt that I think includes lab, beagle/hound, and maybe some terrier but could be anything else too as the rescue didn’t have much info. She just turned 17 weeks and is such a sweet angel. But she recently has taken to refusing to nap!! I literally can see the redness in her eyes from exhaustion. She gets so tired and overstimulated and does not know how to regulate herself so ends up going into puppy attack mode and will literally drop a toy to attack me. Yesterday I had friends over and she nibbled at them but seemingly only is chomping down hard on me 🙂 (she broke skin a few times and my arms are lined with bruises lol.)

I just need to know is this normal teething behavior? She’s lost a couple teeth and has new adult ones growing in so I know she’s prob so uncomfortable. But the nap refusal is killlling me because she becomes so unpredictable and honestly a little scary!!! She’s thankfully on the smaller side (haven’t weighed her this week but is getting close to 18 pounds probably) but I obviously do not want to be accidentally training her to be aggressive. I’ve tried lick mats, kongs, peanut butter, long sniffy walks, frozen teething treats, sitting outside, training session, treats, physically holding her, but the past few days she’s been awake for like 5 hours at a time before she finallllly chills out enough to sleep. I take her out to potty at least 1x an hour and she’s really good with letting me know when to go out so it’s (typically) not that. Yes I am crate training her but she also seemingly has isolation distress and will bark nonstop when she’s crated to the point that she gets herself all riled up again and we start from zero 🥲

She finally just fell asleep after a marathon 4 hour session but I know the second I move she will wake up and want my attention 😌 I love her to pieces and just need to know that she’s not exhibiting some concerning behavior!!

We currently have a 5 month old Rottweiler and are currently looking at a 1.5 year old German shepherd to bring home. We are having cold feet because everything says you shouldn’t bring a second puppy home before ours is old enough, but it doesn’t say anything about an older dog. We think an older dog could benefit our puppy as he continues his training and we also want a second dog at some point regardless. The gsd we’re looking at already has some training and was very well mannered around us on the meet. We brought our Rottweiler with to do a meet and greet and they did great. We are just looking for some guidance on the situation as our trainer didn’t necessarily tell us it was a bad idea either. We are wanting to do as much due diligence as possible for both our puppy and the other dog to make sure our decision is right.

I am around 125lbs and rescued a GSD/APBT mix as a very tiny puppy. Embark predicts that my pup will be 71lbs fully grown, but I’ve heard mixed feedback on the accuracy of their weight prediction. Even so, he is 18 weeks now clocking in at 30lbs, and I’m already having some difficulty getting him under control on the leash. He is not very engaged with me once we are outside, or even inside for that matter. We have briefly touched on some leash training basics, like rewarding him for checking in with me outside and impulse control. When he pulls me too hard, I stop until he looks back at me, then keep walking forward. He gets the idea at some point and stops pulling so much, but he starts pulling hard again eventually (I assume once he is tired, so I should probably end our walk at that point). If you have any tips on how to move forward they would be greatly appreciated!

I am around 125lbs and rescued a GSD/APBT mix as a very tiny puppy. Embark predicts that my pup will be 71lbs fully grown, but I’ve heard mixed feedback on the accuracy of their weight prediction. Even so, he is 18 weeks now clocking in at 30lbs, and I’m already having some difficulty getting him under control on the leash. He is not very engaged with me once we are outside, or even inside for that matter. We have briefly touched on some leash training basics, like rewarding him for checking in with me outside and impulse control. When he pulls me too hard, I stop until he looks back at me, then keep walking forward. He gets the idea at some point and stops pulling so much, but he starts pulling hard again eventually (I assume once he is tired, so I should probably end our walk at that point). If you have any tips on how to move forward they would be greatly appreciated!

Would love to hear from people who decided to not crate train their puppy. We have a Bernadoodle puppy who is 13 weeks and from the start we had a crate available to her which she uses to bring toys in and will sometimes nap in but she prefers not to sleep in there. At night the crate is available to her as well as her fluffy bed. Sometimes she’ll sleep in the crate, sometimes in her bed, sometimes just on the floor. We’ve noticed she really just prefers to sleep on the hardwood floor rather than any bed when she’s having her sleep, which has been fine by us because she sleeps really well when we put her to bed and she knows lights off, dark room equals bedtime. I’m just worried I’ve made a mistake by not crate training her for every sleep. She doesn’t seem to have separation anxiety which is good. Sometimes she will whine if I’ve gone downstairs for too long and she doesn’t know where I am but if I’m actually leaving her alone in the house I’ll leave her in a playpen with her bed, toys and some puppy pads in case. I’ve only left her for 20 minutes at a time so far but she’s done well. I’ll be increasing this gradually and my hope is that eventually when she’s old enough maybe after a year or something that I can just leave her in the house or outside where she has access to shade and her crate if she wants and she’ll be fine. Anyone else choose not to crate train and it’s going ok?

I acquired, or bought a puppy maltipoo for some cash. what are things I must ask the seller before I finalize the purchase ?

As of recently my dog has been terrified of walking in the wood floor. It is totally a mental thing as she has gone back and forth with this behavior in the past. This time is different, absolutely refuses to walk on the wood floor. We have tile, carpet, and wood. The tile and the carpet are perfectly fine. Any ideas of what we could do to help her?

I just adopted a 2.5 year old Australian Shepherd 2 weeks ago. She is the sweetest and most gentle dog but she just lays around and sleeps all day in her crate. I take her for long walks in the morning and early evening but beyond that, she doesn't do anything. She's never had toys or treats until now and when I try to get her to play with a toy she looks confused and uninterested. She also gets scared of the squeaker on toys. I want her to have some mental stimulation but she's just not that motivated and is fearful of a lot of basic things. The one thing I got her to chew were these turkey tendon chews but they dont last long and only do so much. She comes from a breeder who I don't think took good care of her. When I brought her home, she had an earinfection in both ears and fleas. She felt really dirty and the breeder said she never had treats or toys so didn't know what those were. It seems like she was just used for breeding and slept outside in a kennel her whole life… they didn't keep her because she was producing oversized puppies. I'm trying to ease her into the home and so far have been seeing small improvements with her getting more used to the home and routine, but I can't seem to get her to play at all. Even with other dogs, she just runs away… Any advice here? Has anyone successfully taught their dog how to play?

We currently have a 5 month old Rottweiler and are currently looking at a 1.5 year old German shepherd to bring home. We are having cold feet because everything says you shouldn’t bring a second puppy home before ours is old enough, but it doesn’t say anything about an older dog. We think an older dog could benefit our puppy as he continues his training and we also want a second dog at some point regardless. The gsd we’re looking at already has some training and was very well mannered around us on the meet. We brought our Rottweiler with to do a meet and greet and they did great. We are just looking for some guidance on the situation as our trainer didn’t necessarily tell us it was a bad idea either. We are wanting to do as much due diligence as possible for both our puppy and the other dog to make sure our decision is right.

I realize there is some individuality in there, but I'm speaking generally.