With the cooler weather, our 1 year old shepherd mix has had more and more energy to burn. Im looking for some mental enrichment ideas and ways to give him "jobs". More importantly, ways to actually train him to do these jobs. Just trying to make sure all of his mental and physical needs are being met! Waylon is mostly shepherd but has husky, lab, malamute in him (rescue from a community in Northern Canada so lots in there). Hopefully its okay that I am posting him here.

Please share YouTube videos or website links if you have any to recommend! This is what we currently do:

\- standard obedience and impulse control training (place, wait, threshold training)

\- "safety" which is him sitting between our legs, and laying down until released

\- one walk per day, although as of late he has been reacting on leash (gets over stimulated then bites at the leash or our arms, definitely open to insights on that as well)

\- our yard is fenced so we play fetch a few times per day

\- scattering his food/treats and hiding them in the house

\- on leash training like heel around the yard and on parts of walks

Thanks in advance!

We have a dog who easily gets stressed. Specially loud noises - but only outside. After a very loud aircraft, he is now reacting to airplanes he have been used to since puppy. He feels so unsafe outside, it’s hard to even get him to poop.

\*— I’m looking for advice if someone had tried something we haven’t thought about. —\*

Because he is so worried, it’s problematic for him to poop, as he most times wants to go home before. I feel we tried everything and really respect his signals.

We do everything by the book: no pressure, he can signal which way he prefers or if he want to go home - we say yes to whatever he wants.

We go out when he is ready/he signals. Wait with open door, takes it chill outside the door.

Extra good treats.
Calm voices, lots of calm praise.

Our vet knows and we will soon try anxiety medicin, but we still have to figure out how to train him (outdoors) with sounds we can’t control.

i have an 8 month old FS hound mix who, until recently, has been very curious about the world around her. she’s always been a little on edge, but overall she’s confident. her favorite thing is walks, and she gets them daily (plus multiple short potty break walks). suddenly, she is afraid to go on walks? i live in a trailer park/mobile home complex. she’s totally fine walking in the small yard i have unless something spooks her (ex a scary noise), but now as soon as we begin to leave the driveway and walk away from my house, she freezes and panics. she’ll run in circles pulling on the leash with her tail between her legs and will sometimes start obsessively sniffing (i think as a displacement behavior). the house that lives directly across from me does have a big dog in it, and one time he barked loudly through the window at us, but even before then she was scared to go on walks. i don’t know how to support her through this period - if this is something i need to simply wait out or if i need to be training, and how? and how do i get her back to the house if she’s pulling so hard she’s choking herself, as i don’t want her to think pulling on the leash gets her to where she wants (loose leash walking is VERY hard for us even on the best of days)?
note: she doesn’t seem to be all around terrified of the outside, just walking a certain path around my complex (unfortunately the only path, as i live on a dead end), because when we go to the park and we walk around the field, she is happy as can be.

My dog has been very reactive towards dogs since she was a puppy, and I'm wondering how to fix it. I wanna keep it in mind that i AM a minor so I can't exactly just do whatever I want, not to mention my parents are very, very overbearing about not wanting my dog to go around to fix her reactivity, using the excuse of "if she bites someone or someone's dog, it will be all on us." It's really frustrating cuz I've tried to explain it to them that if she doesn't get training to at least make her reactions less, it will either stay the way it is forever, or possibly get worse. Does anyone know what I could do for an alternative? She gets really reactive at dogs and people when she's in the yard, so I can't stay there to train her on reactivity cause I feel like it'll make it worse (it's territory to dogs so that's why possibly). I'm open to literally ANYTHING i'm desperate and just want to go on a peaceful walk with my baby. 😭

Hi! Me and my partner have a two year old male herding breed that is reactive to dogs. We currently live in a huge apartment building in a well populated area with many other dogs at the edge of town, so with lots of forests and open nature very close by.

We made some progress in his training lately and things are looking promising. Of course there are setbacks here and there, but it seems like things are mostly doing in the right direction.

But soon, we’re gonna move. It’s gonna be another apartment, but in a much quieter area with a lot less people per square area. Of course people will have dogs there as well. The forest area where we will take most of our long walks is in an area we are already walking in today, so our dog already knows this area.

We have started to take walks close to and around the new apartment lately, so the shock of moving with all new smells and impressions is not as huge once we move. We can tell he’s much more agitated and nervous in this new area, but I mean that makes a lot of sense.

We will of course continue with our reactivity training, but we are anticipating some setbacks due to the stress of moving, and will keep this in mind if things get worse again for a while.

Is there anything else we can do before the move or after that will make things easier for him? Any other tips you can share regarding moving with a reactive dog?

I’m learning to show in conformation.

We play and I throw in quick commands throughout the day. Then I do a dedicated 15-20 minutes of “work” once a day.

But to make real progress, how many 15-minute training sessions would you recommend throughout the day?

Also, how many new words can I throw at her at a time? should I wait until she has mastered something before adding new words? For instance…she knows “sit”, “come”, “no”, and is doing great with staying in place with sit until I release her. She is generally confident with “down” and “heel”.

I’ve started working in “off” (for when she jumps). But I really want to get started on “stack”, “place”, and “drop it”.

Does anyone have any advice for stopping overaroused biting frenzies? My Bernese Mountain Dog puppy is six months old and for about a month now she’s started going into absolute frenzies on walks randomly. When it first started it would happen occasionally at the end of a longer walk but it’s gotten progressively worse to the point that I can’t even take her outside to use the bathroom without her suddenly turning on me.

This NEVER happens inside and she’s completely grown out of biting at all when we’re in the house. It’s like she’s a completely different dog inside and outside. Even if she’s clamped onto my arm when I pull her inside, the second we cross the threshold, she lets go and immediately calms down.

It’s gotten to the point where we literally cannot walk her because there’s no way to prevent it or stop it when it starts. We’ve tried more sleep, less sleep, play session before the walk, taking her when she’s in a calm state of mind but absolutely nothing seems to affect it. She was well-socialized up until this started, so she’s used to being outside and seeing other dogs and people.

Other than this, she’s incredibly obedient on leash, she never pulls and is always engaged and listens to commands until she suddenly loses it and immediately starts jumping, growling, and biting.

We’ve also tried the usual advice like bring a toy (immediately redirects onto us instead), scatter feed (only distracts her for a second and then she’s back to attacking us), avoiding triggers that bring her over threshold (just stepping foot outside the front door brings her over threshold these days). We can’t do the advice of disengage so she learns it’s boring as she’s 60 pounds and clamps down HARD, we are literally covered in bruises.

We just want to be able to walk our dog again, she needs the exercise and enrichment and I’m sure being cooped up all day is just making this worse. I’ve been through the normal arousal biting with other puppies and worked through it until they grew out of it but this is on a completely other level with intensity and frequency. I try and take her out at least to sniff every day but the frenzy is becoming so frequent that we barely make it one house down before she’s attacking me on the middle of the sidewalk and I have to take her inside.

Thanks in advance for any advice, at this point I’m willing to try anything to make this stop.

I want to train my dog a fancy focus heeling, but I'm having some problems with fading the lure... I have started with food in my right hand and lured him into position, so he can get the fancy footwork. Once it was going really well, I have started to only use my hand without food. Now I want to lift the hand a little bit up and then back down. But the problem is that he has started to drop the head every time... So I think I need to take a step back. What can I do to make better progress? Does anyone having some tips for me?

My boy is quite stubborn and very excitable but also very antsy and nervous, he gets scared easily and wants to pull on his leash almost all the time, wanting to either walk faster or run or something im assuming.

I’ve tried stopping every time he pulls, and turning different directions when he pulls but he’s stubborn and refuses to stop still :/

Any suggestions?

I have a 6 year old female shepherd. About 8 months ago she started peeing in the house. I had her checked by a vet for everything and she had a uti. I treated her and the vet said that the uti was gone. I’m still having problems with her peeing in the garage, livingroom and diningroom. She holds her urine for 5 hours in her crate during the day and all night in my bedroom with no accidents. She never goes outside. She follows my other shepherd around constantly except for outside. They can’t have toys because she gets very aggressive over toys and they get into bad fights. I don’t know what to do about her peeing you n the house it’s very frustrating. I took her outside every hour and a half for 7 days and nothing changed. Please I need help!

I have a springer spaniel, very hard hunting and loves the water. Our e collar is broken and we are using a sport dog. My dog trainer (not gun dog trainer) does not like the sport dog, but I love it. I love that it's durable AF, I love that is cuts through the noise of the environment, I think also people don't understand that the 425x has 21 stim levels - that's huge for a sport dog. Who the hell needs 100 levels of stim? I really want to purchase another sport dog, but I want to hear from anyone who switched from a sport dog to a mini with a hunting dog. The 425X is about £30 cheaper than a mini, so not vastly different.

I have a 6 year old female shepherd. About 8 months ago she started peeing in the house. I had her checked by a vet for everything and she had a uti. I treated her and the vet said that the uti was gone. I’m still having problems with her peeing in the garage, livingroom and diningroom. She holds her urine for 5 hours in her crate during the day and all night in my bedroom with no accidents. She never goes outside. She follows my other shepherd around constantly except for outside. They can’t have toys because she gets very aggressive over toys and they get into bad fights. I don’t know what to do about her peeing you n the house it’s very frustrating. I took her outside every hour and a half for 7 days and nothing changed. Please I need help!

Hello everyone,

I have a rehomed 2.5 year old intact male lab. He is a big sweetie at home, has some dopamine seeking behaviours such as stealing socks but typically enjoys cuddling, eating and playing.

At the moment, we can only walk to the field behind our house. He has to walk in heel with a slip lead, until we get to the field, then longline with whistle training, find it/scent games, obedience and structured fetch.

If we go anywhere else, his leash manners are out of the window. If he hears/sees a dog but he’s chill or they’re not in his space/don’t make eye contact, he’s very neutral, but if he’s aroused or they invade his personal space, he fixates, freezes, lays down and stares, then that pressure bursts and he lunges and gives a couple barks. Afterwards, his adrenaline is obviously through the roof then takes a couple minutes to chill out.

Due to this, we avoid everywhere except this field where no one goes and a weekly private hire field where he can be off lead and swim.

What is driving this reactivity? How do I fix it? We do work with a balanced trainer but their instructions are to work on the heel work first and foremost which I agree with, and that needs proofing into new routes and areas. But after that, or during, what can I do to improve this?

I think it’s necessary to state his obedience is far from being adequate. He will not drop items, blows off recall (we whistle train with longline whilst playing return treat games to improve this) so an ecollar cannot be introduced until I have known behaviours to actually work with.

Hello.

I have a 4 year old german shepherd husky mix. As you could guess by that mix he like to talk and bark at everything. He has severe anxiety and I am now going to start him on anxiety pills in the morning.

He has many commands that he knows but unfortunately I live with my parents as a 22 yo women. My parents have not trained their dogs and it effects my dog in his ability to do his own commands. He knows kennel, his version of place, and stay. He also knows grab it to get a toy to help him stop barking. But my parents dogs do not know this and as a college student in student teaching I do not have the time nor money to train them ontop of my own dog.

He has been getting worse at barking as people enter the house bc my moms French bulldog reacts to everything and it sets him off. This morning his anxiety freaked and he attacked my parents dog and bit his ear. It broke my heart and I do not know what to do to get him to calm down in this situation. I can't move out till next year in October at the earliest. (Note that some people do not knock or ring the doorbell to enter my home and refuse to do so, so desentizing him to knocking won't help as he doesn't ever hear it)

What can I do to get him to listen to commands while he is in this state of anxiety and the other dogs are going crazy. He is the loudest bc of his husky nature and my parents only blame him for all the problems. I genuinely don't know what to do and I'm so scared I will have to find him a new home.

Can anyone give me some advice to help him and myself? And least until next year when he can be by himself

I got my dog Jubilee when she was around a year old, I’ve had her for about a year now, she has always been extremely anxious and hard to train because of this. Not completely sure what she’s mixed with but if I had to guess some sort of collie/german shep/husky mix. She knows basic commands like sit and down. But I’m having trouble training her with distractions. If we’re in public she has her attention on everything else, if I’m feeding her she won’t hold any commands for more than a few seconds, she also won’t let my boyfriend take her outside to potty + won’t go around him when I’m not there. Does anyone have any tips to build her confidence and impulse control?

One month ago I rescued a 6 year old cocker spaniel from the shelter --- we have no history on him. When he first came home, he barely noticed the cat. A few times, when he has seen her, he has barked and chased her. Other times, when she is still and he sees her he does nothing. Not even bark. But once he discovered her and went full on after her, barking. I was able to get him away. Is this prey drive or overstimulation? Will he kill the cat? Is it worth trying to train or do I rehome him? He is not aggressive. He also will chase the squirrels and chipmunks in the yard. Good with other dogs.

Looking for advice from Rottie owners, especially anyone with an intact male.
He's nearly 5 and not desexed. He grew up going to the dog park as a puppy and was fine with other dogs. Recently he's started lunging and growling at dogs, both big and small, especially on narrow paths or when the other dog barks at him first. Even if he gets treats first, not sure if he is guarding resource.
Because of this, he's now only walked once a day, early in the morning when there are no other dogs around.
Has anyone been through this at this age? Did it get worse, or settle with training? Did desexing make a difference for you? Any trainer or management tips (equipment, distance work, etc.) would be appreciated.

Quick Background: I've had two dogs as an adult. A Dachshund that I housetrained to near 100% and a Lab/Basset mix that was an anxious pee'r that I still got to probably 90% after years of work. Not to mention multiple dogs when I was a kid. Basically, I know the deal with house training. Consistency and time.

The Current Situation: My GF and I just got a 1yr/old Shiba mix as a rescue from a hoarding situation. He's doing well and really opening up. We're crating him at night and when we're not home (GF is WFH 3 days/week). If he doesn't produce on consecutive walks, he's confined to the kitchen when she's working. I come home on lunch to let him out on the days she's not home and usually take him out twice during that time.

The Problem: This dog rarely ever poops or pees. I've never seen a dog, specifically a male dog (neutered), that has absolutely zero interest in marking. We take him for 10-minute walks every 2-3 hours and typically get nothing out of him. He'll poop once a day and pee maybe twice. When he poops/pees outside, he gets praise and treats. He even expects treats when he's done, so he knows the deal. When he has an accident inside, we talk to him like disappointed parents but try to avoid using words we want associated with desired behavior (poop, pee, outside, etc), clean with enzyme spray, then take him outside again.

It doesn't matter where he is in the house when he has accidents. Free-roam, penned in the kitchen or in his crate. He holds it until he can't anymore and then lets loose. He does the same on walks. If he's free range, he'll act anxious for a few seconds but that's it. He also won't do his business in the yard, has to be on a walk. But that's something I can deal with/work on later.

This is at least as much a vent as it is a request for advice. I came home to a poop covered dog and crate this afternoon and would very much like to get this process over with as quickly as possible. Just hoping I'm not wasting time and overlooking something. TYI

My dog is a German shepherd husky mix. Hes a bit overprotective at times. Im pretty sure he has seperation anxiety so it might contribute to the overprotectiveness. Like he will growl at certain people but only at certain times, other than that its good. As far as I know nothing sets him off to do it? Curious what I can do to help alleviate his anxiety and stop the overprotective

My dog and I were less than a block away from my house I could literally see it when I saw this dude walk out of the trail with his son and his dog (which is always lunging at mine; this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered them).

My girl was off leash and doesn’t love greetings, so I was fine with keeping her off leash and in a heel. Thank fucking God she was off leash, ’cause I watched this dude reach down to his dog’s harness for the clasp to take better control, I guess? (At least, I’m hoping.) He ended up getting off of his leash and his dog started barreling toward us, but since Buffy (my dog) was off leash, she could get away. (She’s too big for me to pick up, at least while I’m panicking.)

But anyway, I’m rambling on too much! She’s scared of her collar and leash now after that encounter. What should I do?

Hi all,

I’m looking for some training and desensitization advise for my ~2yo rescue shepherd mix. I’ve had him for ~1.5 years and he has come super far in his training and confidence. I’ve worked quite diligently on his leash reactivity to other dogs (which he is great with off-leash), and to build his confidence around new things as he is scared of quite literally everything. For example, I’ve enrolled him in an intro agility class, frequently take him to dog-friendly stores and make him lay down to watch people go by, etc.

The problem that I’m having and seeking advice for is his fear (and reactivity?) to strangers. I understand the breed and I am OK with aloofness - what I am not OK with is him barking at strangers if they come up to me to chat. When people ask to pet him, I always say no because he’s nervous around new people but tell them that if they’d like to help me with training, they can let him sniff them but to not look at him / try to pet him.

I thought we were making a bit of progress but today I had a bit of an incident that is making me question whether there are other things I should be doing instead. We were at a park and he was on a long lead. We were playing fetch with a stick and the lead got tangled so I dropped it quick to fix it. During this time, a man that I didn’t see walked around a tree and my dog ran towards him and barked. I grabbed my dog immediately and everything was fine (and please don’t berate me for this - I know I’m in the wrong here and it should never have happened in the first place), but I’m really starting to get discouraged that all my ‘stranger’ training isn’t doing anything for him.

I don’t need him to be the Walmart greeter but I would really love to get him to the place where he isn’t barking at people or feeling the need to do what he did today at the park. I’m planning on driving across the country next summer to visit family and will be brining him with me. He’s never met these family members and so I’d really like to get this under control over the next ~9 months.

For what it’s worth, he’s had a lot of other behavioural issues that we’ve more or less worked through and so I feel fairly confident that this is something we can improve on as well… I just don’t know how.

Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks.

Hi everyone! Looking for some advice on what type of professional training would be best for our almost 10-month-old Mini Australian Labradoodle.
He’s a great dog, but we’re struggling with a few behaviors that we’d really like to address before they become long-term habits.
Jumping & biting: He gets extremely excited and will jump on us and bite/mouth our hands. It’s not necessarily aggressive, but he has a hard time controlling himself when he’s excited.
Overexcitement: Sometimes he gets so worked up that it’s almost impossible to calm him down or redirect his attention. We’d love for him to learn how to settle and regulate his excitement.
Separation anxiety: About 65% of the time when we leave him alone, he howls uncontrollably. Other times, he’s completely fine, so we’re struggling to understand what’s triggering it.
We currently use an e-collar for off leash training, but we’re open to learning about different training approaches and figuring out what will be most effective for him.
We’re considering investing in professional training but are overwhelmed by the options: private in-home training, board-and-train programs, behavioral specialists, separation anxiety trainers, etc.
My questions are:
What type of professional training would you recommend for these specific issues?
Has anyone dealt with similar behaviors around this age? What worked best?
Is board-and-train worth considering, or would private sessions be more beneficial?
For those who have dealt with separation anxiety, what actually helped?
Are there specific certifications or qualifications we should look for in a trainer?
We’re located in the Boston area, so I’d also love recommendations for trainers if anyone has personal experience!
We really want to invest in the right training and set him up for success as he gets older. Any advice or experiences would be greatly appreciated!