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Our pitty mix came to us at 3 months old, and had been crate trained by his foster family. He is AMAZING about the crate at night, even signals to us that it’s time for bed with my husband and I stay up later than normal playing video games. And he used to be SO GOOD in the crate during the day.

For context, when he was five months old, he broke his tibia and had to spend about 12 weeks on activity restrictions. He was crated/house leashed for the first two weeks because he needed VERY little movement in order to heal. He was also on a couple sedatives. Now he’s been fully cleared from meds and activity restrictions since November 1, and he hates his crate during the day now. He whines, howls, and over the last two weeks, has started throwing his body around in the crate, to the point where he turned it a full 90 degrees while we were gone. He was peeing in his crate after less than four hours (when my sister would stop by to let him out on her lunch break), when he can usually go 6-7 hours. Most recently (and destructively), he was pulling his crate cover through the bars, and we found three bars on the crate that had been chewed to the point of bending.

We’re at a loss, because our house is too small to designate a playpen space for him, but I work 10-hour days, and my husband is in a hybrid position (2 days remote, 3 days in-office), so we need him to be able to at least TOLERATE the crate for a few hours at a time, until he can be checked on/walked at lunchtime. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions? He currently has a Large-size crate from petco (EveryYay), and he about 45-50 pounds.

My partner and I have had our little bundle of joy (part time demon) for two weeks. Shes 10 weeks now and has been adjusting to her crate and letting us know when she needs to go out to potty. My partner is going away for work next week and I’ll be mostly on my own for 7 days (I live with my sister who works from home and can offer her some care during the day). I’m mostly anxious about finding time for myself as I work a fairly stressful full time job and also need to balance puppy care.

Any advice is appreciated!

Hey team, I’m currently onboarding a 13-week-old Shih Tzu × Maltese cross into the household ecosystem, and I’m looking for some high-impact insights from the r/dogs community to streamline his development.

He’s started going to the toilet outside sometimes, but we’re still having timing issues and the occasional “operational leakage” (aka accidents). I’m trying to tighten up our potty-training workflow, so any best-practice methods are welcome.

A couple things I’d love input on: • ⏱️ How long can a 13-week-old realistically be “solo”? I go to the gym and want to make sure I’m not pushing any boundaries. • 🐾 He stays in a playpen, not a bed or crate — does that change the recommended solo-time metrics? • 🚽 Any strategies to reduce the miscues between when he seems like he needs to go vs when he actually does?

Any frameworks, anecdotal data, or tactical insights would be massively appreciated. Trying to build him a best-in-class puppy onboarding journey. 🙏🐶

Wife and I have a newborn and a 30 lb dog. Our biggest car is a RAV4. Has anyone seen a dog seat cover that covers only the middle seat and one adjacent seat in the back row but not the third seat? We'd like to leave that space empty for the baby carseat for extra safety precautions.

Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone, I have a (possibly medical) question. I’ve had my toy poodle since October 1st, and house-training was going pretty well. But for about two weeks now, she has been peeing in the apartment very often and suddenly even in her crate. She’s currently 18 weeks old.

Today, for example, she took a nap until 5:30 pm. Right afterwards I took her outside, and she peed twice. Nothing exciting happened in the apartment, but after about 10 minutes she suddenly peed on the floor again — quite a lot. I immediately took her back outside, and there she peed a large amount again.

By then it was already around 6:50 pm. I gave her some cuddles and then, as usual, guided her into her crate with a treat for bedtime. And again, she suddenly peed a lot in the crate.

I’m planning to call the vet tomorrow because I’m really worried. Has anyone experienced something like this before? I’m hoping it’s just a phase, but I’m afraid it might be something health-related.

I take her outside about 12–14 times a day, and she always pees outside and gets lots of praise. Any accidents in the apartment are cleaned up quietly without scolding.

Is there something I can use to get the dried bulky stick/saliva combo out of my pup's arm furs? Will giving her a knee deep (hers, not mine) soak be the answer or is there another way?

Hello, I tell you that they gave me a puppy when she was 45 days old, today she is 3 months old and I currently have a 3-year-old dog, and I teach the new puppy not to pee inside, and I can't achieve it, my adult dog doesn't eat anything off the floor and doesn't pee at all, he's a real gentleman, but I don't understand why the puppy doesn't copy my dog's attitudes, I'm getting frustrated because I don't want to return it.