Blog

We adopted a six month old puppy to add to our family. We adopted our last dog over five years ago from the same rescue, but he was a couple months younger, so all of his training came from scratch. She is mostly potty trained and crate trained. We’re trying to learn her tells for going to the bathroom so whenever she goes to the back door we take her out, but she’s getting to the point where she just likes being outside, despite the snow that we have, so I’m struggling with wanting to take her out whenever she walks to the door versus when she actually has to go to the bathroom. We’re also still trying to learn her poop schedule so even if she peed five minutes ago and goes to the door, I don’t want to ignore it and risk her pooping in the house. Related (?): she’s obsessed with going upstairs when we all typically spend our time in the basement. We started closing the door at the top of the stairs so she can’t go up there by herself, but sometimes she’ll run to the top of the stairs and just sit there. Not sure if this is related to the bathroom/going to the door thing, as she’s also obsessed with going into the back room that we close off with a door. Any experience with breaking habits like these? We’ve been doing training and giving her food in the basement, but she knows her bag of food is upstairs. Or maybe this is truly a bathroom thing haha.

Exactly what title says.

7 month old husky pup looses her fluffin mind about 3.

She still needs enforced naps. As ever tethered or inside her playpen she will NOT sleep.

I work from home and have an older dog. She gets specific crate time from 9-1 everyday. Everything else is a roulette to see what works. But from 3-5 she’s got to be somewhere I don’t have to directly supervise her for work reasons.

But I can set my watch by the 3 crazies. Some days it’s so bad I have to put her in her crate and let her yowl it out before she crashes. Other times her playpen is sufficient to chill her out. But if left to her own devices it just keeps ramping up until everyone is agitated with her (including the older dog).

I’m just curious what everyone else experiences.

My Aussie puppy is 12 weeks old. She wakes up from a nap and is calm for about 15 minutes. After this she starts biting and barking more and more.

ChatGPT is telling me to start the wind down after 10-15 minutes and try and get her into her crate and falling asleep before half an hour.

She resists these naps with barking but falls asleep after a few minutes.

This feels like very short awake periods and it seems like most people are doing 1hr awake or more. Is this too short? She naps for about an hour +/- 30 mins.

This cadence of naps is exhausting but better than baby shark bites and then horrible enforced naps.

I have a 3 month old German Shepherd puppy and when i’m out people will always pet her without asking even if she’s sitting in my cart while I push her around. I am currently pretty strict on her socialization being only off leash and with people I know because I want her to be people neutral, German Shepherds tend to be very reactive without proper training.

I’ve tried to be nice about it but honestly it’s starting to really upset me because it’s so often where i’m at. I am a little ashamed to admit I slapped away a ladies hand rather harshly when she tried to pet my puppy while I was walking around the mall.

Am I being too protective? How do I cope with this, help! Should I get a harness that says do not pet or is that too much?

I recently got a 10 week old golden retriever and she’s absolutely perfect in every way except she is sooooo lazy and not food or toy motivated. She responds well to praise but I’m looking for something more high reward. Any tips for training a puppy like this?

My girl is almost year old and we decided to try it out, by taking a single overnight trip at our families lake house. It was…stressful to say the least. She could not settle down, she was running around just looking for something to destroy, chew or steal. All behaviors that at home she doesn’t really do anymore. We brought with us her favorite toys and chews, her bed she sleeps in every day…We had to essentially tether her to us/something to get her to settle down and take a nap and even then she got whiney and would cry before falling asleep. she got plenty of time at the lake and out in the yard to have fun so we figured she’d be pooped, but man it was total over stimulation I think. How are we supposed to travel with her if all she does is destroy everything? How can we take her to an Airbnb? I feel sad the only way she can be trusted is to be tied to something, I would like her to be able to roam around and do stuff. I know I know it’s the first time and she’s still very young (also to consider her adolescence is now in full throttle and she’s regressed quite a bit) I’m just feeling a bit exasperated and scared this will never work out. I would opt to force a nap by leaving her in a room alone with the door closed (which we do at home and it works beautifully) but I’m nearly positive she’ll just destroy something in that room! How do those who travel with their dogs do it? Did you just wait for the dog to get older and mature?

I rescued a ~5 month old Australian Sheppard, Australian cattle dog, dachshund mix a month ago. She was 11lbs when I got her and now she’s 13lbs. She’s never eaten nearly as much as the dog food packages say. She has an open bowl of kibble in her crate 24/7. She gets like 2 wet food meals a day. I used to only fill her kong with wet food, but she stopped eating her kibble, so I started mixing the wet food into her kibble. She eats some kibble from her bowl in her crate, but never finishes it. She also has a snuffle ball filled that she used to LOVE but now avoids. I don’t want her to only eat wet food, so I think I’m gonna start soaking her kibble in broth. Should I consider switching to a different food puzzle?

The vet made a comment that she looks like the perfect weight a couple weeks ago. She looks a tiny bit skinnier now, but seems a bit taller, she still has a bit of a puppy belly though it’s just not as big. I just have no clue how to get her to eat the amount recommended and she’s growing slowly, but since we have only an estimated DOB and such a strange mix (no one knows how big she’ll get but the shelter estimates less than 20lbs) I’m so confused about if I’m doing anything wrong!! I constantly feel guilty and like I’m failing her. Does that feeling ever end? I’ve never had a puppy before. I feel like she’s a little behind the curve on training bc she was a rescue, so I always feel like I’ve wronged her by not being better about that. I am working w a professional trainer though so I have guidance. She also started basic obedience training a couple weeks ago, so she’s been eating a lot more treats, idk if that would impact her eating so much though

Also she had Giardia when I adopted her but she’s been treated and is fine now. She has to return to the vet for another shot soon, so I’ll double check she’s at a healthy weight again then, but I’m so scared the vet is going to think I’m starving her

I know 2lbs weight gain for a small breed is significant, but I am super concerned bc she doesn’t eat as much as packages say. She probably eats like 1/2-2/3 the portions recommended

I have nowhere else to put this, but I just wanted a little celebration for a small step forward. TL;DR puppy asked for help retrieving a resource guarding trigger item multiple times!

Cypress first started showing resource guarding in December. I think this is partially genetic and partially a result of my husband and I pulling stuff out of her mouth without teaching drop it/leave it/etc. (stupid). After several OCD spirals I bought the book Mine! and started loosely following the protocol, (meaning I didn't "set up" training sessions, because I wanted it to be as applicable to real life as possible. Her resource guarding has never been severe, it's just you have to be actively messing with her/the item to get a reaction.)

Today was the first day of working with her on guarding lick mats. I gave her a licky mat this morning with peanut butter and had some treats on hand. The first treat she got stiff, grumbly, & whale-eyed, but gradually she began to understand the "game" we were playing and that she was getting extra snacks and she eased up.

I put her down for her afternoon nap, and when she woke up I gave her another licky mat. She was ~a little~ apprehensive at first, but significantly better than the run this morning. She was still working on the mat when I ran out of treats, so I went to go sit down. While she was licking, she pushed the mat under the dishwasher a bit so she couldn't reach it. When she realized it was out of reach, she barked a few times and looked at me to come get it. No issue with me handling it at all! And this happened a few more times!

It's nice to have a little bit of trust back. That's all

I adopted a dog from the humane society 8 months ago. She’s currently 10 months old. She is a large breed, Doberman mix. She currently weighs between 45-60 lbs. I’m struggling with her and I do not know what to do anymore.

I know she is high energy. We spend hours outside in the backyard and go for walks. She goes to daycare multiple times a week which is located on a farm where she runs and plays all day. I’ll feed her food in puzzles to stimulate her. I’m doing everything I can to get her energy out but she still tears around the house barks out the window, barks at me, jumps, doesn’t listen and all that.

I’m starting with a professional trainer soon however I’m honestly embarrassed to take her to the group training as all she will do is pull me off balance, bark and jump and I won’t be able to control her.

I feel like I’ve failed her. She was in puppy training when she was younger and I kept up with training afterwards but now nothing I do will work. I genuinely want to return her to the humane society (I never actually would but I dread waking up and having to deal with her behaviours). And I would if I wasn’t in love with her. All I want to do is cry. I just want a well behaved dog and I don’t know what to do. Again I feel like I’ve failed completely and will be stuck in this forever.

I truly love her more than anything which makes this all worse