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I have an 8 week old husky mutt puppy, we were out in the yard (no fence) when a large lab came rushing him. The lab was friendly thankfully, but my puppy ran away squealing and scared. I picked him up and got out of the situation. I’m worried this created a life long fear, or am I overthinking it?

My puppy is only on day 4 after spay and I thought she went to get water and instead ran up and down all our stairs. Then I had to yell and chase her and she ran before coming when called. Oh and she jumped up on the coach, I even have stairs there. Her incision looks fine, no redness, no opening. But what should I look for?

I’m trying to get an idea of what my little guy might be full grown. I’m not 100% certain of his breed however, I do know he has chihuahua, pug, some terrier, and possibly shitzu. (I’ve ordered the embark DNA kit and I’m so excited to find out what he is!!)

He is currently exactly 10 weeks and weighs 870g or .87kg or roughly 1.9 lbs.

If you could Please let me know your toy/small breed puppy weights at 8-10 weeks and what they currently weigh or what their adult weight is that would be awesome!!

Hi!

My roommate was fostering a puppy and I ended up falling in love with him, and decided to adopt him. He is now 6 months old, and I feel like I’ve fallen behind a lot on his training because I keep getting stuck on one thing: he knows his name, but he will not listen or come to me for the most part. He is insanely treat motivated, however of course easily distracted, and I have no idea what to do.

If you were to start training a puppy almost from scratch at 6 months old, what would be your best advice? He knows sit, paw, wait and occasionally lay down. How do I make him listen to me all the time? And how can I better work with him to train him? TIA!!

Hey, all! I need some help with my Shiba puppy, Kurama. She is 9 weeks old.

She’s been with us for one week, and this is our first time having a Shiba puppy. She is a sweetheart and lovely. But I think we may be doing something wrong.

During the first 3 days, we were amazed at how quickly she seemed to understand peeing and pooping on the pee pad, and also asking to go outside. We always give her treats when she does her business outside, because in the future we’d like her to go only outside.

But over the last 4 days, she has definitely started showing more of her personality 😅

Her biting has increased, and whenever she bites us, we redirect her to toys. She usually switches to them pretty quickly, which is great. But she has also started showing frustration when we try to dry her paws, ears, or head.

She now also barks when we’re serving her food, and sometimes when she hears noises outside (people, deliveries, etc.).

She wants to be with us all the time. We’ve been practicing leaving her alone for short periods (even though it’s hard because she’s so adorable), and she usually cries for about 10–15 minutes and then stops.

She also growls a few times a day, and we’re wondering if maybe we’re overstimulating her?

We love playing with her a lot — she’ll fetch the ball a million times and also loves playing chase with us.

At night she sleeps from around 10pm to 6am, but during the day she only takes short naps, usually no longer than 40 minutes.

Because of the frequent zoomies and overall intensity, we’re wondering if she may actually be overtired and not sleeping enough.

What we’d really love help with:

1) What are the most important commands to teach with food training?

Right now she already:

• responds to her name • knows sit 

What should we focus on next?

2) How can we reduce barking?

Mostly:

• when we’re preparing/serving food • when she hears noises outside (street sounds, mail/post delivery, etc.) 

For food barking, we’ve been trying to stop preparing/serving when she barks, and only continue once she stops. We also ask for a sit before putting the bowl down. It seems to be helping a bit, but we’re still a little worried.

3) How can we help her use the pee pad more consistently again?

I think she may now be a little confused between:

• going outside • using the pee pad 

Sometimes she pees away from the pad, and for poop she often goes close to the bathroom area but not exactly where we want.

We both work from home, so we do have some flexibility, but not unlimited flexibility. Some days we have 4–5 hours of meetings, and during those times we can’t always take her outside. So ideally, we’d like her to be able to use the pee pad during those situations.

4) How can we reduce growling and help her tolerate handling better?

Especially when we need to:

• dry her paws • dry her ears • dry her head • generally handle her after walks 

She complains, tries to escape, and seems very annoyed.

5) How can we reduce biting?

This is one of our biggest concerns.

We do redirect to toys, which works sometimes, but we’d love more advice on how to handle this better.

6) How can we reduce her extreme excitement when she wakes up?

When she wakes up, she starts:

• biting the crate • scratching around like crazy • getting super wild 

When we open the crate and pick her up, she starts biting us a lot, but also licking us at the same time. We understand this may be affection/excitement, but she gets so worked up in the morning that she sometimes forgets to pee right away — and then if she does go, it feels like she’s doing it in a frantic/anxious state.

7) How can we reduce distractions outside?

When we take her out to pee/poop, she gets distracted by:

• sticks • rocks • cat poop • random things on the ground 

Sometimes we spend 25 minutes outside in the morning, and she still doesn’t go — then comes back inside and suddenly remembers and does it at home.

Or… is all of this just normal puppy behavior and we simply need more patience?

I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos, and they often make it seem like if you just teach something once or twice, puppies will learn it quickly 😅

But I know real life is probably not that simple, which is why I wanted to ask here.

Thank you so much for any advice.

No matter what, she’s honestly a great puppy. She doesn’t cry that much, she’s generally very good, and while she does bite, it’s not constant. She also gets zoomies pretty often, which is why we suspect she may not be sleeping enough.

Also, if anyone has tips for helping her become a little less attached to us, that would be amazing. She seems to have major FOMO and really doesn’t want to sleep if it means missing out on being with us.

It’s not his normal bark. It’s like a single, low-effort “woof” under his breath when we’re on walks, usually right when we pause at a corner or I stop to tie my shoe. Sometimes he does it in the house too, like when he’s playing and then suddenly freezes for half a second and does one little woof toward the hallway. He isn’t going nuts, no hackles up, no full-on alarm barking… just this quick little sound like he’s testing the mic.

The reason I’m even posting is because it feels so specific. It started maybe a couple weeks ago? Same food, same schedule, nothing dramatic changed. He’ll do it and then act totally normal again—sniffing grass, wagging, trying to get me to keep moving. But once in a while he’ll do that woof and then stare for an extra beat like he heard something I didn’t 😌

I’m not really looking to reinvent our whole routine or try random stuff—I just want to know what’s best for my pet. Is this kind of “single woof” usually attention-seeking/communication (like “hey let’s go”), or is it more of an early warning sign that something is bothering him (pain/discomfort/hearing weirdness)? Has anyone had a dog start doing this out of nowhere?

He’s an adult dog, generally pretty steady temperament-wise. No coughing or gagging sounds with it, and his breathing seems normal after walks. If your dog did something similar, what did it end up being? 🙂

I just put my dog to sleep on Wednesday, after 13+ years. It has gotten me thinking about future adoptions. I plan on waiting several months, but who knows.

How long did you wait until you got another dog, after losing yours?

Also, have you ever adopted two dogs at the same time (or near the same time)? How did that go?

I’m not sure if this is a behavior problem, because I have three large Newfoundland dogs and they are generally very well behaved. However, I refuse to eat in front of them because they crowd me, get into my space, try to counter surf, and I worry about tripping over them. So when I eat, I put them in another room behind a gate and move out of sight. The issue is that they start barking as soon as I disappear. When I step back into view, they stop, but as soon as I leave again, they start barking all over. They only do this when I’m eating. It almost feels like a controlling situation, and it’s really annoying. At this point, the only way I deal with it is by putting on headphones and walking away, but I don’t know how to actually get it to stop. Any advice? :,)

We have a 2 year old dachshund who absolutely loves squeaky toys. Problem is she destroys every toy we get her. We tried a Kong squeaky toy that was supposed to be “extra durable”; she had it no longer squeaking in 3 days. Has anyone had better luck with a longer lasting squeaky toy? What’s the best one you’ve found?

We’ve ruled out any medical issues. The vet said it’s just a behavioral issue. She’s been doing this for years but since we moved to a bigger apartment, it’s gotten more frequent. She’s peeing on the floor or her bed at least once a day. Maybe she likes the attention? Even though it’s negative? We’ve stopped allowing her on our furniture. We don’t know how to train this out of her. She’s 5 years old and we take her outside to pee every 1-2 hours like a puppy to avoid the indoor peeing but she still pees inside. We even tried doggie diapers. We play with her. Take her on walks. To the dog park. To day care. She has so many toys. We now have a yard and she can play in the yard. She has more space we lived in a studio previously in a complex with no yard. Things should be better. We can’t be doing fun things 24/7. As soon as we aren’t doing something fun she pees out of spite. Please help. Any ideas?