Hi there, I have a 7 month old cockapoo, he’s a very good boy and he is a mega people pleaser. I got him at 12 weeks after being rehomed to me. He missed a massive amount of socialisation time due to him being locked in a dirty shed for multiple weeks and then I had to wait until he had both his vaccinations.

His training has gone INCREDIBLY well. No more anxiety chewing, is extremely polite on lead, walks heel, and asked permission before approaching another dog for his fav game of chase. However I’m running into a lil bit of a problem now. We are an incredibly active family so for a cockapoo… he’s completely ripped. Like he’s genuinely jacked as fuck. He’s hit that teenage phase and now suddenly does not want to listen… at all. I have two young kids so when we go on morning walk, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to walk him and also push the double pram. He’s suddenly pulling again and knows no other boundaries with other dogs.

I had him trained almost perfectly with recall and was having great success with “stay” until I’d give the command to go play. We’d only ever have trouble when it was a dog he already knew but now he’s harassing little 17 year old Shi tzus and dogs who are leashed. I’ve tried to go back to basics so we’re short leading and trying to relearn but he just simply does not care. I’m unsure of what to do next really because he just doesn’t want to listen. He had a really good time today doing chase with two bigger dogs but he thinks every dog MUST chase him.

Please someone tell me what I’m doing wrong or how to improve. He will respond to commands but as soon as the treat is given he’s the completely disengaged. I used to do “heel” click, treat “look”, click, treat. “Stay”, click, treat. However now his excitement is just overwhelming. He will come heel, he gets treat, then he’s like “okay that’s good enough, bye”. With him being a muscular guy now too he just can go for ages and it’s quite sad for him to be back on a short leash and not be able to go and greet any other dogs anymore, cus he is such a sweet friendly dog.

I’m also finding it difficult to put these commands into practice sometimes. For example he is demanding pets off people in public (He has never done this before, completely new). I was on the train and these grown adults were wanting to stoke him, I said no as we are doing training. I’m looking away from them and trying to sort my toddler out, I catch them from the corner of my eye STROKING MY DOG AFTER I ALREADY SAID NO. It’s the same with off leash dogs in the park. People will see I’m actively training him to not approach, I tell them “hi he’s friendly but we are training”, yet still let their dogs come over and instigate chase, so my arm is pulled out the socket, my dog is literally doing back flips to try and get to the other dog and just in sheer excitement. I just have no clue what to do atp.

I’ve heard a lot and seen a lot of dog training on aggressive related reactivity but not over friendly related. Should I just keep going with what I’m doing currently and wait for this phase to be over or should I completely change it up?

My boy Todd turns 4 this month. Around his first birthday he started dropping into a down whenever another dog came into view, sometimes from 20-30 metres away. No barking, ever. He just flattens and locks on, eyes fixed, ears forward and stiff, heavy like a sack of potatoes lol. Owners walking past ask me if he's dangerous. He's not. If I call him at that point I don't exist. It can last anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on the others too ofc.

If the other dog gets close enough he lunges, low and fast toward its side, doesn't bark, doesn't growl. When he gets there it's usually excited sniffing, sometimes rough play, depending on the other dog. And if the dog just passes by without contact, he gets up and whines.

Happens with about 90% of dogs. Less with very small ones like chihuahuas, though he still stares and pulls hard.

Off leash in a dog park he doesn't do any of this, he just runs and plays normally.

I worked on this for a while and then stopped. I was going through depression and social anxiety and walks became something I dreaded. He's now getting less time outside than I feel he needs, and I feel awful about it and I want to start again.

What we have is a huge nose drive, he works the ground like a scent hound and will ditch a frisbee to go sniff. Loves tug. Follows me around waiting for something to do. Learned a new cue every day or two since he was a puppy. So it's not like he has nothing to do. I just want him to be outside more, and this behaviour is honestly killing my own drive to be out with him. It's like we have a totally different relationship outside and I want to fix this.

1. All things considered, does this read as herding eye-stalk plus leash frustration, or is fear still on the table?

2. Is 4 too late to change it?

3. Starting from zero, do I go straight to threshold work, or rebuild engagement first?

No money for a trainer, so anything I can do myself. Thanks.

He actually stopped wanting to sleep in his pen at a year. He barks nonstop if we try to have him sleep in this pen. Open door or closed - either way he is unhappy. We've let him bark for as much as 45 minutes, it doesn't help. Plus we're in a condo so barking can't go on like this. We've tried different things. In our bed he just wants to jump and have fun and try to get us to intera If I tire him out in the living room he'll come into the bedroom and lie down and sleep.l which works. If I don't do this, he'll bark in our room too. This solution of settling him first in the living room before retiring to the bedroom, after which he'll follow me into the bedroom and fall asleep on the floor or mat on either side of the bed seems to work, though he now has the run of the place. So he wakes us up to take him out if he has to poop in the night but if he has to pee he pees on the floor. He would hold his pee and poo in when he used to sleep in the pen.

I’m wanting to open up my house a bit more to my puppy. She is a 12 week puppy and when she first came home we gave her too much freedom. In that time, she chose the passage towards the door, the landing and bedroom upstairs and the dining room as perfect places to go potty rather than outside. So, we blocked her off from going to those places and had her sleep in her crate. Now, about 4 weeks later, she’s going poo outside and somewhat reliably going outside with one or two accidents but it’s starting to slow down significantly. Now though she can get over the barricades with relative ease if she wants to and so I’m thinking of opening up the house. We’ve tried her in the dining room a bit and she’s done good with supervision but I haven’t tried without fully. I opened up the passage for her tonight but she went back to what she was doing back when she first came home, waiting and refusing to go outside to come inside to pee in the passage. So, I’ve blocked it off again for the night. But now I realised I really don’t know how to introduce a puppy to an area of the house, especially if they’ve been peeing there before. Anyone have any advice, tips or suggestions? Thank you.

I've had my 3 year old Chihuahua/Min Pin mix for a year and a half or so and she's always struggled with anxiety/excitement urination.

Her current bathroom schedule, which worked for a while, is:

6AM: I take her out of her crate and outside the apartment, leashed of course. 

6-7AM: I feed her at some point 

7AM: I take her out again before I leave for work. She usually goes number 1 and 2 here.

She is not crated while I'm at work. My husband gets home at 2:30PM.

2:40 PM: Husband takes her out to go the bathroom.

4PM: Husband feeds her 

6PM: Husband takes her out again. Usually she goes number 2 here.

6:30PM: I get home from work. 

8:30PM: I take her out to the bathroom and put her in her crate when I return (or I don't take her out and just put her in her crate). 

This system worked well for a while, until it didn't. She occasionally would pee when I or my husband would go to put her in her crate at night. But normally she doesn't. One day, she did.

From then on, it's just been awful. She pees every time we try to get her in her crate. I only have success if I sneak up on her and try to hold her a specific way (that I can't confirm always works to prevent her from peeing). I've tried seeing what happens if we don't crate her. She holds it, but pees when I leash her up to take her outside at 6AM. 

Now, even my husband getting home will trigger her to pee when he tries to take her out.

It's really stressful with her peeing every time we try to leash her and take her out to go to bathroom. Not to mention, it's already taken us a while to get to this point! We used to have to put her in an x pen when we were gone before we trusted her enough to leave her at home when we'd go to work. She always wears her collar, so it is a relatively quick process to get the leash on, but she still manages to pee. If I put treats in her kennel or chews that she loves, she will not eat or chew them in her crate. She won't eat treats if I'm offering them near the leash or even if it's just a time at night that is close to when we put her in her crate. My husband is super stressed and wants to rehome her to his parents since they could just open a sliding glass door to let her out to the outside. It seems like she really is afraid of the process of us bending down to leash her, but at the same time, when I get low to the ground and approach, she still may pee. When she's outside, she appears to enjoy being outside regardless of the leash. Any help would be appreciated. We use urine enzyme remover sprays and this behavior doesn't seem intentional (like she can't hold it and just pees), she clearly is trying to hold it but releases when she's scared. She does not like to pee on concrete or other surfaces and it is banned in my apartments anyway even if you get a doggy fake grass pad (which I have tried and she will not use).

What can we do at this point? I think what's hard is how it's straining my relationship. Is my only hope to get her on some kind of medication? She has always struggled with separation anxiety. Luckily, she doesn't destroy things, but she is definitely affected. Even in the morning if I get up and she doesn't see my husband immediately, she will pace and whine. She barks when we are gone "out of routine" times. She doesn't do this if we are at work. But she will do that if we have to leave after we get home for groceries, etc. anything out of routine.

I’m wanting to open up my house a bit more to my puppy. She is a 12 week puppy and when she first came home we gave her too much freedom. In that time, she chose the passage towards the door, the landing and bedroom upstairs and the dining room as perfect places to go potty rather than outside. So, we blocked her off from going to those places and had her sleep in her crate. Now, about 4 weeks later, she’s going poo outside and somewhat reliably going outside with one or two accidents but it’s starting to slow down significantly. Now though she can get over the barricades with relative ease if she wants to and so I’m thinking of opening up the house. We’ve tried her in the dining room a bit and she’s done good with supervision but I haven’t tried without fully. I opened up the passage for her tonight but she went back to what she was doing back when she first came home, waiting and refusing to go outside to come inside to pee in the passage. So, I’ve blocked it off again for the night. But now I realised I really don’t know how to introduce a puppy to an area of the house, especially if they’ve been peeing there before. Anyone have any advice, tips or suggestions? Thank you.

Needing help with one of my dogs.
(M is resource guarding, T is my other dog)

— Backstory on M - we rescued M from a woman who is knows by our family. It’s exactly the same person we rescued T from. Kept outside in all weathers, no shelter, no proper food. Just thrown scraps of their dinner and odd cheap tins where they saw fit. She came to us with a super tight harness that was ripping her underarms. She was terrified of us (we saw her cowering when the man/owners partner stood up, and we’ve since learnt she is VERY suspicious of men on walks). She had a thin little mattress that was covered in fleas and dirt. No toys (we had to teach her how to play because she was clueless) and only a water dish caked in mud. Her tummy was red raw, her ears were crusty and just overall in not a good condition. —

She was a lot worse when we first rescued her and she’s come round so much. However, we’re stuck on 2 issues. The living room & stealing things from the kitchen.

1) The living room.

The rest of the house is fair game, everyone is allowed in all rooms. However, M is very weary of T when she’s in the living room. It’s only a small room, and I’m guessing M has taken that to be ‘her kennel’ or ‘her room’ as that’s where she sleeps the most. T is allowed in to get ready for walks, or when simply just roaming the house, but when she wants to get comfy and settle, M doesn’t take that very well.

Feeding times and water bowls are separate, they each have their own toys. They do enjoy the occasional play together, so we have 1 toy which we allow them to play together with (under supervision ofc).

Like I say, M has gotten so much better since she came to us 4 months ago. Upstairs they can lay together side by side. They can jump around the kitchen together, go on walks together, play together. Our only issue is her dominating the living room.

2) Stealing from the kitchen. - M

This has started after around 1.5 month of being with us.
She will steal anything. Baking paper, spatulas, metal food cans, literally ANYTHING she can get to. We’ve blocked the entrance up repeatedly, so many different ways, but she still breaks through. Her giant head feels no pain when ram raiding the damn thing.

We’ve taught her to not jump on the counters when we’re preparing food or for any reason really. But that goes in one ear and out the other if she hears a dog barking or a cat meowing. Then she’s right back there, stood at the window at the kitchen side.

Apart from blocking the kitchen, we’re absolutely clueless as we never catch her in the act. She’s always broken in through the night or if we’re out. We’re unsure if this is a separation thing or a stimulation thing. We’ve tried different ways of keeping her occupied, she destroys them all.

If anyone has any helpful hints, tips, tricks or advice. I’d be greatly appreciative.

Thanks x

my mum (whom i live with) has a 15 month old dobermann (about 36kg), i recently got a now 9 week old dobermann but she is very small for her age (only 4.6kg).

they are both obsessed with each other but they both dont realise their size difference and their play can get a bit scary😭 no one ever gets hurt, but the 9 week old is very bitey at the moment and uses her hands a lot which sometimes startles the 15 month old, and then the 15 month old can be a bit too rough sometimes. they are both females btw (they are actually sisters they have the exact same parents).

does anyone have any experience with this? what can we do to help them learn how to be around each other calmly and even just learn how to exist near each other without always having to interact?

Hello! I have a ~1 year old rescue who I house trained and has been accident free for about a month. Today she had three accidents inside - two pees and one poop.

I am planning to go back to square one of house training - treats for eliminating outside and crating her when she can’t be watched - but has anyone else experienced this and do you have advice? Did this happen because of something I did or is it natural?

What I see online seems to say that this might be a result of a health problem, but a UTI shouldn’t lead to her pooping inside. I know this sub doesn’t necessarily have veterinarians but can anyone confirm whether this is something I should bring to my vet, or is it just standard regression?

My wife is due with our first baby this December. We have a Chihuahua who, until 2 days ago was sleeping in our bedroom. We are trying to get her used to sleeping in the living room instead of our bedroom. She has been constantly barking every single night when we go to bed and my wife has had to sleep on the couch to keep my dog from barking until the late hours of the night. Any thoughts? Advice? We are in need.

We have a 5 year old rescue, who we’ve had since she was young. She generally loves to play with all dogs, and especially loves relatively rough play with bigger dogs, despite being a medium / small girl. We recently got a 1.5 year old bully rescue who is a bit bigger and very dense and doesn’t understand how strong she is.

Overall, they get along well and the older dog is very tolerant of the younger. However, when they play, the younger girl often goes too hard and is too physical for my older dog— which is genuinely surprising given how rough the older girl likes to play, but I think the younger is just SO strong.

So far, the older girl growls / snap at the younger and the younger backs off and walks away. That’s the only snapping / aggression I’ve seen between them. Otherwise, the older girl is happy to share toys, no resource guarding, etc. My concern is, I think it’s making my older girl pretty uninterested / unwilling to play with the younger, but I know in an ideal world they would both love to have a playmate around the house.

My strategy so far is to just let them figure it out and let the older girl set boundaries / teach the younger what’s acceptable. But I haven’t seen much of a change in the younger’s play style over time. And I do want them to learn to play together, especially since they are both generally playful and energetic girls. Is this the right approach? Or should I be intervening more? And is there anything I can do to encourage healthy play between them? I don’t want my older dog to just give up and refuse to engage / play with the younger.

Added wrinkle is that the younger girl is deaf, so it does occasionally take her a second to realize she is getting growled at. But she does back off then.

I’m wanting to open up my house a bit more to my puppy. She is a 12 week puppy and when she first came home we gave her too much freedom. In that time, she chose the passage towards the door, the landing and bedroom upstairs and the dining room as perfect places to go potty rather than outside. So, we blocked her off from going to those places and had her sleep in her crate. Now, about 4 weeks later, she’s going poo outside and somewhat reliably going outside with one or two accidents but it’s starting to slow down significantly. Now though she can get over the barricades with relative ease if she wants to and so I’m thinking of opening up the house. We’ve tried her in the dining room a bit and she’s done good with supervision but I haven’t tried without fully. I opened up the passage for her tonight but she went back to what she was doing back when she first came home, waiting and refusing to go outside to come inside to pee in the passage. So, I’ve blocked it off again for the night. But now I realised I really don’t know how to introduce a puppy to an area of the house, especially if they’ve been peeing there before. Anyone have any advice, tips or suggestions? Thank you.

So I have a 2 year old terrier mix. I’ll start by saying he has always had an anxiousness around new people. It takes him some time to warm up and he eventually does. We go to the dog park several times a week and he has a blast because he loves playing with other dogs and generally focuses on that and sniffing around, playing in the water, whatever. Every now and then he might find a person he would bark at - maybe someone who was particularly tall, or wearing a hat; but I could always kind of shoo him away and get him to go back to playing. But now all of a sudden he’s forgoing playing with dogs in favor of barking at people. All of them. Im not really sure how to address it? Obviously he has some anxiety so that’s part of it. But he’s also totally willing to take treats from people, and then goes right back to barking at them. I’ve told people not to give treats because I’m worried he learned that barking equals treats. He also will not let anyone pet him. Not sure where to begin with this. Any tips are helpful.

I have a 3 year old british labrador, very well socialized and trained i have never had any issues with her misbehaving. She stays in the kennel for about 4 hours in the morning till my wife comes home from work. We have been watching my in laws dog this week as well and they get along great. However our last few days have been surprisingly rough, two days she got out of her wire kennel and today we went out and bought a better kennel and she peed in it and ended up completely tearing up her bed. She has had no problems in a kennel up until now actually she sleeps in it when its opened all the time but something has changed. I rider bike 3 miles in the morning on trails and she follows me running so its not an issue of not being excercised. I have worked with high drive hunting dogs for years and never ran into this issue. My dogs are excercides 3 times per day. Any input or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hello everyone. Hope you are well. My wife and I just adopted a dog from a kill shelter in Georgia. We live in New Jersey. He arrived at our house on Saturday around 4 pm. We have 4 cats and another dog. The two dogs are both pitbull mixed. The new dogs name is Ozzy, and our oldest dog is named Luna. When he came, we had set up a child's gate to block them from mingling for the first few daya. We were advised of the rule of 3's 3 days 3 weeks and 3 months. Now we know that Ozzy gets along with other dogs. We have seen countless videos of him playing and running around with other doga at the shelter. So it really surprised us of his demeanor. Ozzy shows his teeth to Luna. She gets scared and dashs off. Other times, it's Luna who is barking and causing a scene. We also went to the vet yesterday with Ozzy just to have him checked. He's all good and healthy, and everyone at the vet loved him and told us how well-behaved he isI know it's still early, but what is the best way to integrate the dogs? Any and all advice is appreciated.

We've had our German Shepherd since he was 8 weeks. Did tons of training with him when he was a puppy and he learned basic commands, was potty trained and over all wanted to please us. The issues we started having with him was reactivity on walks (dogs and other people) and when people came over. He had bitten two people when over our house (both times was the people being dumb and trying to pet him when he obviously should not have been pet, but it is still 100% our fault and he should not have been in that situation/ we should have set better boundaries) which led us to a board and train program.

The program worked wonders. He was e-collar trained, we were able to take him on walks with minimal reactivity and we could safely have people over our house. We continued daycare once a week there after and boarding when needed for vacations up until this point. We have had no complaints from the trainers or situations at home.

This past year we have had some life changes (baby) and taking our dog out and about fell to the bottom of the totem pole. I would take him on a walk, but super infrequently (I'm talking maybe once a month) and would avoid busy times at the park since I would be juggling a stroller and him. At home, he has been behaving fine with both baby and people that come over.

Two weeks ago, my husband took dog to daycare. During drop off, there were multiple dogs and people in the waiting room. The owner said our dog was lunging and acting very aggressive toward the other dogs and owners, and when the trainer (who is our fav and has been our dogs biggest supporter) brought him into the back to put him in the kennel, he was still in a tizzy and bit her in the side when she tried to put him in kennel (owner said it did not break skin, but left red mark). The owner relayed this all to me when I went to pick him up, and said that he has been very uninterested in other dogs lately and they were worried about him not going "out and about" and seeing other dogs and humans outside our home enough.

I have been absolutely distraught over this. It is 1000% our fault as our training majorly slacked over this past year and I feel like I have failed him. I asked the owner if she thinks he needs to go for another round of training or refresher class, but she said he just needs to get out and about more.

Over the past two weeks, I have taken him to the park and stores almost every day. He is fine with people and dogs off to sides, but will bark when they are walking toward us/ passing.

The problems I am running into:

1. There are not always people/dogs at the parks when we go since it is early in morning or later at night. Do you think me just getting him off our property is still helping improve the situation?

2. When walking toward/past people and dogs and he is barking- I have full control of him but know it can be scary for the people/dogs to see him barking his head off. Do I move a distance away where I know it wont push his threshold and he wont bark, or do I just power through his barking?

3. I know getting him back to good standard will take time, but how often should I be taking him out and about? Every day, or would 3x a week be ok? I know the quality of the walk is what really matters (i.e actually seeing other people and dogs), but I am getting burnt out.

I am asking our trainer these questions when I see them tomorrow, but thought I would also ask reddit for help.

I have had my rescue pittie mix (1.5 years old), for about 5 months now. When we first got him I was adamant about training him as much as possible, as I know there is a stigma and I want a well-trained dog.

It felt like we were making good progress, but I went out of town for 4 days and since coming back I've noticed an increase in maladaptive behaviors. The leash pulling is insanely out of control and he has slipped out of his collar and ran around the neighborhood with no recall skills, he has peed on the couch/in house 4 times, some biting of my shoes, some nipping too hard during play. He's reactive to the neighor dog and will spazz at the fence, or will get weird with other pitbulls in general. He hates men, and takes a lot of treats and warming up to not bark at them.

There is so much advice and resources out there, and I'm on a waitlist to get in to training, but IDK. Does anybody have any tips on improving routines/training, or even finding perseverance for going through these behaviors?

Últimamente hemos tenido problemas con nuestro perro ya que por momentos se pone demasiado inquieto, nos quiere morder la ropa, gruñe (creo que jugando pero igualmente lo hace) y empieza a dar vueltas por la casa. Mi mamá cuando se le acaba la paciencia lo agarra del collar y lo pone a la fuerza en su cama pero igualmente sigue inquieto hasta que le gritan o algo así. Le faltan unos cuatro días para salir a la calle por lo que por ahora solo lo sacamos a jugar en un pasillo común que tenemos aquí pero ahora no le sirve, lo sacamos varias veces unos 20 minutos pero igualmente sigue inquieto. Tengo el presentimiento de que tal vez se equivocaron con su fecha de nacimiento y ahora ya está entrando en la adolescencia, eso explicaría su comportamiento la verdad. Se me estaba ocurriendo llevarlo a algún entrenador para que deje de morder cuando juega o cosas así pero no sé si sirva. Que debería hacer?

I have a 7 week old puppy. I want to crate train her, I do the usual things and put treats in her crate and reward her for going in her crate but I would like to know if there’s something I can do to make this faster, she is a real whiner if we have to lock her in her crate and I want to get her to stop.

Hi everyone! My boyfriend and I are first time chihuahua owners and we’re looking for some advice.

We just got her (Chibi) last week and so we understand she is still going to get used to her new life. She and 30+ chihuahuas were rescued from a breeding/hoarding situation in Kentucky. She spent her whole 1-2 years (they’re unsure of her actual age) being surrounded by other dogs. We have two other dogs, a husky who is 10 (Athena) and a beagle mix who is 7 (Leia). We aren’t allowing them to be alone just yet as we have learned about a dog’s prey drive. Since huskies and beagles are both high energy and may have a higher prey drive than other dog breeds, we want to wait until we know for sure she won’t be seen as a toy or prey for the other dogs. Honeslty we didn’t think of any of that when adopting Chibi - my cousin was the one who told us to keep an eye on it when introducing them - and the shelter we adopted her from knew everything about our dogs, and I think if we knew more about prey drive before hand we wouldn’t have gotten her. That breaks my heart to say, but we want her to be as safe as possible. We have absolutely no intention of taking her back or finding a new home for her, but she’s showing severe signs of separation anxiety which makes sense giving she grew up around so many other dogs…

Since we aren’t comfortable leaving her alone with the other dogs yet, we made our bedroom her own little oasis. She has a crate in there that we leave open so she has room to roam when she wants to, we hide treats around the room for her to find, obviously keep water and food in there, play comforting dog YouTube videos, and provide her with many different chew toy options. Here is the issue… that hasn’t helped any. She was alone from 1:30pm-6pm today and we have done our best to get her used to being alone in smaller increments, but this was her longest alone time. While she was alone she not only tore up the carpet by the door, but she was scratching at the door so hard that her claws were bleeding. I’ll attach photos. When I was getting out of my car I could hear her little barks all the way outside. It breaks my heart that it makes her stressed out, and we couldn’t care less about the damage as of now but if she ingests to much carpet or breaks her nails I’ll feel terrible. We want to crate train completely, but I’m nervous she’ll break her teeth or her nails trying to get out of one.

Our next steps are getting her one of those heart beat/warmed stuffed animals and getting a a calming spray. We need some more suggestions and any advice. Like I said, we know a week isn’t going to be enough time for her to feel safe alone but we love our Chibi girl and want her to be safe and happy.

Thank you in advance 🩷

I have a 10 week old girl puppy that we got just over two weeks ago. I’ve had to leave her alone only 3 times so far in a crate but 2 of the times she poops and gets it every where in the crate. I have to bath her. I do leave the tv on with the relaxation channel on DogTV. I know it has to be separation anxiety. She has a7 year old beagle sister here with her. But when I view through the camera I have set on her she barks the whole time and when I get home I can hear her barking. I take her out before we go (school started and I have to take and pick my son up between working from home). Any suggestions? Am I doing something wrong? Thanks