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Not really looking for advice – maybe just a baby vent about a baby. Lol My puppy is 5 1/2 months old. She’s a poodle/chihuahua/bichon/lhasa apso/dachsund + 5 other assorted breeds (no joke – rescue did dna but for some reason I haven’t been able to get the 2nd half of the results but I keep trying). She’s adorable. She’s sweet. She has a wonderful personality.

I know how hard puppies are but I think I’d forgotten HOW hard 😂. I never intended to adopt a puppy but we lost two of our dogs this year (they were 17 & 15 years old) and the remaining 15 year old and I were just lonely. I saw her picture when looking at older dogs to foster and fell in love and submitted an adoption app without even thinking. It was kind of meant to be – she had a meet & greet already the next day that didn’t work out because their older chihuahua hated her. They brought her by that same evening and our 15 year old was fine with her overall. Not enthralled but tolerating her. So she got adopted. She was about 3 1/2 months old when we adopted her. She was rescued with her siblings w/o mom at an early age. So I think they may have been bottle fed.

Potty training was going ok. Other than one accident at the very beginning – she sleeps through the night fine not needing to go out except for a few nights early on with some GI issues. They didn’t really give me enough of whatever food they were feeding them to do a great transition. So she sleeps from 10:30-just before 7 most nights. Like a dream in the puppy world.

During the day? This dog pees a LOT in quantity and times. I had her checked by the vet to make sure it was just her as a puppy and no issues and all tests were fine. She learned to use a wifi bell no joke seconds after I installed it. It took a little longer to connect it to actual potting. For her it was more about going outside. One time I ignored her because we had literally just been outside and so she rang it 5 times 😂.

The bigger issue is that we still have tons of accidents. I know some are normal at this age of course. But it’s just exhausting. Sometimes she will poop and then ring the bell. It’s like human come see what I did and clean it up please. And easily pees in the house 4-5 times a day and pees outside more than that. I haven’t been able to get a real handle on an actual “schedule” for her yet. Our only other dog we’ve had since he was a puppy at 8 weeks came to us potty trained.

I’ve done some initial crate training but to be honest not in earnest. I have a pen too but also haven’t been diligent about using it. I work from home. It’s probably somewhat laziness on my part – I will admit to that. I work from home and because I’m working I’m sure I miss signals. Random some mornings since it’s been nice I’ve been leaving the back door open (our yard is enclosed fully) and will sit out with the dogs and coffee. Sometimes she’ll come back inside and ring the bell to go out 😂. She’s getting a little better on loose leash training but still a work in progress. She will come when called except when she’s attacking her “brother”. She will sit, turn around, bop her nose to my hand this far. She’s smart and does pick things up pretty quickly. But we will also go outside, she’ll potty, then come back inside and sometimes potty again. So crating her if we go outside if she doesn’t potty is something of a challenge since I guess I really don’t know if she actually still has to potty MORE.

We do have a trainer that has come to the house 3x with another three sessions to go – one is this afternoon.

Again not really looking for advice although certainly open to it with the potty training. I know part or much of the issue is ME lol. So just whining mostly because with other dogs my boys were still here and now it’s just me. And I’m so tired of cleaning my floors. I know all in all I have it pretty good when it comes to this puppy but we also have a long ways to go.

I do enjoy this subreddit as it’s helpful to not feel alone and see issues/challenges others are having.

Our german shepherd is 6 months old. We've had him from he was 11 weeks. In the house he's awesome, still has that crazy puppy energy but hes been improving everyday. Fully crate trained, fully house trained, knows commands focus, sit, lie down, stay, wait, get your ball/toy, go to bed, paw and solid recall in the house, in the garden its about 50/50. When were out of the house he's like a coiled spring, reactive to other dogs and even his own reflection, it doesn't appear to be agression (no growling/snarling/no teeth baring/shoulder hackles occasionally raise but not along rest of back or rump) and when were in a dog heavy area he does start to loose interest after 15/20 mins, if its not a dog heavy area he will go off at every one. We are waiting to hear back from a trainer/veterinary behaviour specialist that our vet referred us to, but that could be awhile. Most trainers local to us that have open slots use shock collars or prong collars which we are personally against as is our vet thankfully, so we dont have a lot of other resources available to us. Anyone have any advice in how to help in the mean time.

Hello dog lovers! I am wondering if anybody else with an anxious, hyper-vigilant dog in public spaces has ever tried to decrease their stimulation by having them wear an eye mask to cover their eyes? I’m wanting to try a few things before meds. TIA!

TLDR: Old dog is exhibiting new destructive/anxious behaviors in the last 2 months.

We've had our beagle/pug mix since he was 12 weeks old. He's had a great life with constant companionship from our family and our other dogs that he's outlived. In the last couple of years he's slowed down some, and he's almost completely deaf now so he doesn't bark much anymore.

He's nosy and loves food, but he never had any interest in chewing anything non-food other than tissues (all wastebaskets are hidden from him). We used to crate him and our first rescue dog, but stopped crating when we adopted our second dog who had major anxiety over crates. The second rescue died 2 years ago, and we never went back to crating. No problems ensued.

Until the last couple of months, when our youngest child moved out. Now the dog has to keep my husband in his sight at all times. If he's left alone, he'll pull the placemats off the dining table, unroll the toilet paper and chew on it, grab socks out of the laundry, and yesterday he tore apart the computer paper (which has been in the same place his whole life), ripped up a manual, and gnawed on my eyeglasses case for a while before bringing it to my husband.

I think he's bored and anxious and needs more company. We give him treat puzzles, which are fine for about 90 seconds until he's finished. It's not always feasible to take him for a walk (we have a fenced yard but he's lost interest in being out there since his ears and nose are kind of useless). We've started taking him to daycare (sometimes overnight) a couple of times a week, which he likes and gives us a break, but the next day we are right back where we started.

I don't want to medicate. Getting another dog for companionship is off the table. I think we should bring back the crate for when we leave the house to keep him away from temptation. What else can I do to help an old, deaf, anxious, still hyper alert dog have a happier life?

Hi fellow dog owners. I am hoping there are vets on this thread that may be able to shed some light here.

My dog is going in for dental surgery tomorrow. And today is a holiday so the vet clinic is closed for me to be able to ask a question.

The vet performing the surgery is a specialist and does not belong to the clinic I take my dog to. She gave me special instructions via an email on the meds I should give him the night before and the morning of.

My clinic filled those prescriptions and as most prescriptions, there was instructions on the bottle. The dose and instructions conflict with what the specialist told me to do.

What would you do in my case? I want to just ignore the instructions the clinic gave and go with what the specialist instructed me to do in her written email to me. I was also planning on informing the clinic techs once I arrive in the morning on exactly what I did and that I did not follow their advice.

The thing is, I’m scared and I don’t want to poison my dog. I trust the instruction of the specialist however her dose recommendation was mg/kg and NOT an exact dose. The clinic gave me exact dose amounts.

The medication is question is trazadone and gabapentin. My dog is a 3kg toy poodle, he’s tiny and therefore I am just scared of over-medicating him. The specialist told me to give 5mg/kg of trazadone and 10mg/kg of gabapentin. The clinic however gave me a 50mg tablet of trazadone and told me to give him half, and gave me 100ml of gabapentin and told me to give him 0.6ml.

I was out on a bike ride earlier and got chased by 6 Maremma Sheepdogs in Italy. It was along a single track with a steep drop on both sides. It was pretty intense and they chased me for a looong time. I pedalled as quickly as I could and yelled a bit – eventually managing to get away with just a scratch from one of them. Afterwards I saw that someone doing the same route in August had been bitten twice by them.

I was totally unprepared for this situation – what should I have done? Other than having a family dog when I was younger I'm really not familiar with dogs or how to behave around them.

Looking for something like an impact crate. Would prefer something outside of the USA as i’m not sure i’d have to pay tariffs or not?

My family is planning a get away for Christmas a few hours away from where I live and its the first time I am not able to bring my dog. I've had her for 2 years (she's 5 and a rescue) and have never felt comfortable leaving her with anyone due to internet horror stories and some special dietary issues. I have decided I can trust my grandpa for feeding and comfort but because he is elderly and we live an extremely cold climate and his limited mobility I at least would like to hire someone to help with walking. I downloaded the Rover and it seems promising one is a little pricey and two im still nervous about her being with strangers.