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I have an 11 week old lab puppy who really struggles to play by himself. I have tried ignoring his whining and barking at me to play with him, but then he just goes and rings the bell to go outside because he knows I will get up and take him. How do I get him to play by himself and not need my attention every waking second? It’s truly exhausting and I feel like I get absolutely nothing done since I’ve gotten him

I don't know if this is the right sub to discuss this but I wanted to know how to navigate this situation:

So there are a few farms behind the residential area I live in. I'm planning to start going on runs in the morning on the roads that are bordering those fields as the roads there are wide enough and aren't frequented by vehicles.

I've seen dogs roaming in packs there and I will admit it, I am scared to take those roads for running. There's also a cricket academy there which I want to visit.

I decided to gain their trust today by feeding a couple of dogs that I found sitting by the roadside. As I walked on that road, one of the dogs already started moving towards me, his tail wasn't wagging and he seemed to be getting territorial, that prompted me to take out the glucose biscuit packet from my pocket and I crouched down to open the packet, the other doggo who was just chilling also heard the sound of the packet(duh) and started trotting towards me. As I got up, the first one flinched as if I was going to hit him, I didn't look at him or the other doggo and just walked away from there.

I plan to feed them tomorrow as well, but these were of a small group, the packs that roam here are usually of 8-10 dogs and they're used to roaming in fields. Walking/running alone on this route seems like a nightmare to me. Please advise. 🥲

I adopted a female spayed Indie dog. She sleeps with me in the bed and it has been well over a month. Since the past week, she randomly started to pee on the bed. She also peed on the sofa twice. I work from home and spend the whole day pretty much with her. I take her out around 4-5 times a day for pee/poop. She probably gets around 30-40 mins of walk just from this. I also play a lot of fetch with her indoors. Pls help me out as this is getting out of hand now and idk what to do.

Our sweet rottie/lab mix Gunter whos 10, is now getting anxious on the linoleum floors. he walks JUST fine on carpets or outside. We trimmed his hairs between his paws, but we are THIS close to putting runner rugs everywhere for him. is there anything we can do? poor guy.

One of my dogs just passed, and I have her collar and I’m getting her ashes and a paw print back. I’m putting that stuff in my china cabinet next to my childhood dog’s ashes. I also took my other dog to Lowe’s to get a snake plant and I named it after the dog I had to say goodbye to.

Hey All!

We’ll be bringing home an 8 week puppy soon and we plan to do crate training to support potty training.

However, our bedroom is on the second floor of our house and it’s a decent walk downstairs and out to the backyard. We are not going to use puppy pads. Therefore, I am currently considering two options:

1) Crate goes in our bedroom near the bed. I’ve read that puppies this young are still missing their mothers and that the proximity to their new humans is important for them feeling safe. In this scenario I‘d plan to carry the puppy from the crate immediately outside for potty breaks, but am worried the distance traveled might result in accidents.

2) Crate goes on the first floor near the door to the backyard. This means the puppy would be alone at night. However, this would substantially reduce the distance from crate to yard and make accidents less likely.

Does anyone have opinions on which approach would be better or has anyone gone through something similar? We want to make sure we are supporting our puppy’s emotional needs while also helping train the physical. Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I’m just looking for some advice or encouragement because I’m struggling a bit mentally with potty training my new puppy.

I brought home my 8-week-old golden retriever five days ago, and honestly, she’s been amazing. She loves her crate, naps well, and sleeps through the night from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. without any issues. She’s such a sweetheart and basically perfect — except for me overthinking the potty training part.

She hasn’t had any accidents in two days, which is great, but I think I’m going way too overboard. She naps for about two hours, then is awake for around an hour and a half. During her awake time, I’m taking her outside constantly. I’ve read on here that you’re supposed to take puppies out after naps, after play, and after food or water — which basically ends up meaning I’m taking her out every 20 minutes. (Because I don’t understand – if she’s not doing any of those activities when she’s awake what else is she supposed to be doing?) Most of the time she doesn’t even have to pee, and I feel like I’m exhausting myself trying to prevent any accident from happening.

I’m also scared to leave her alone when she’s awake. I stay in her playpen with her because I’m worried she’ll pee if I’m not watching. If she even starts to lie down/sit, I panic and take her outside “just in case.” Then she just looks at me for 5 minutes, doesn’t pee, and I end up bringing her back in — only to try again a few minutes later (I try the putting her in a crate for 5 minutes and then rebring her out.) It’s like I’m stuck in this constant loop, and I think it’s going to wear me down eventually. I’m also too nervous to have people come over in case it messes up her schedule and she has an accident.

I think I’m doing it out of fear — I really want her to be potty trained, and I’m terrified that a few accidents a day will undo all of our progress. But I’ve also heard that taking her out too often might actually slow things down since she never learns to “hold it.”

So I guess my questions are: • Am I going overboard and making this harder on both of us? • Or should I have this level of intensity in the early days? • Could taking her out so frequently hurt her bladder training? • And how do I give her (and myself) a little breathing room without risking setbacks?

Thank you for reading all of this. I really do love her so much — she’s such a happy, sweet puppy — I’m just struggling to find the balance between being responsible and being obsessive. Reading through other posts here has really helped me already, so thank you for that too. ❤️

We have the usual training treats and while he’ll eat them and do what we ask when there are treats involved we just found out our hound mix puppy LOVES romaine & red leaf lettuce.
This boy would sell his soul to the devil for a leaf of romaine.
We didn’t intend to give it to him. My son dropped a piece when getting greens out of the mini fridge for our rabbit and now any time that mini fridge gets opened there’s a hound dog sitting nicely waiting for his treat.
So weird.

Hello everyone, long-time lurker here!

My lovely doggo is a 10m.o. female Pharaoh Hound mix. We've already been in the trenches with her but things are improving. I thought I'd have a harder time handling her as a teenager, but it's been fine (although I attribute it to us mostly getting used to each other more)

EXCEPT … one thing. She started to pee inside again. To explain our set up, our pup during the day mostly stays in "her" room. This room is attached to an internal courtyard where she does most of her business throughout the day. Since I work during the day, this gives her the freedom to be outside, play, do her business outside, whilst also giving her shelter and some sense of autonomy. We crate her only at night because that's when it most makes sense, and she's learnt to accept the crate and now is going into it fairly easily at night.

She used to use her room to chill, and of course once she needs to do her business we trained her to do it in the courtyard, which again, she has easy access to.

Since it started raining and we shifted from summer to autumn, this has triggered a chain of my pup endlessly choosing to piss in her room instead of the courtyard. Some days she doesn't do this, but on most days this month she is pissing inside her room at least once and sometimes up to 5 times a day. Most days are not rainy, and the weather is nice, so it's not like its uncomfortable for her too pee outside. The rain however has triggered her to automatically piss inside. I am not sure if I accidentally encouraged this behaviour somehow by reacting the first time she did this and now she subconsciously does it as a way to get a reaction out of me.

Has anyone been through this reversal? Any advice on also getting her to stop pissing inside the house altogether (only in streets)? I feel like this is what I'm worst at handling because the dogs I've had as a child never ended up getting trained to piss in the streets because they always had access to a courtyard or terrace.

I have a 9 month and 13 month old mini schnauzer. We have a big fenced in area for them to go to the bathroom and to play. We physically carry both in and sit there while they go to the bathroom. (We also discard poop every single time they do it, so none is ever left in the play pen, it’s instantly bagged and thrown away). But they will it stop eating everything in sight, grass, weeds, anything that’s in the playpen. They are never left unsupervised. While I grab something out of one’s mouth the other is behind me eating something else. It is non stop and driving us crazy. Then they go to the bathroom inside and get it everywhere. They act as if they are scavengers starving outside fending for their lives. Yet have food and treats inside. First dogs we’ve ever owned. Any advice to nip this in the butt??