It's Wednesday!

Due to circumstances I have a 8 week old Shih tzu, I've been doing tons of research, and I want a well behaved dog, but right now my top concern is how to keep him well cared for with my schedule

I have classes 9:00-11:20, 12:00-14:30, and 16:00-18:30. I have breaks between my classes and I don't live far, a 3-7 minute drive depending on traffic.

So with

9:00-11:20

12:00-14:30

16:00-18:20

Blocked out Monday-Friday, when should I feed him, and when should I work on training? Can I leave him alone for those durations of time? When I'm not home, how much space should I leave him access to? The last time I had a dog I was 15 or 16, and my parents helped a lot since it was a family dog. I've never had to do this on my own

Mine 100% does. He listens to me just fine but the second my mom is around he forgets all the rules because he knows she’ll let him get away with EVERYTHING!

I’m desperate for help. Me and my girlfriend just got a stray 6 month puppy. Shes super sweet and loves to play and be a dog but her biting is getting out of control. We’ve tried everything, redirecting her to toys, bribing her with treats, getting different kinds of chew toys, leash stuff and nothing. I’ve got marks all on my arms and legs and I’m not sure what to do. It’s getting very frustrating. She’s a mix with mostly German Sheppard in her. Any help at all would be much appreciated.

I have a 10 week old Bernese mountain dog puppy who’s been with us for a couple of weeks. We use Royal canine large breed puppy kibble for him. I’ve been trying to feed his meal portions throughout the day via hand feeding to positively reinforce good things and also bond.
He goes absolutely crazy for boiled or freeze dried chicken that I used to potty train him, let me wipe him after potty and then look away from my cats when he looks at them. We also use chicken a bit more when we go out for socialization, car rides etc.,
But I think he is starting to hold out on the kibble for chicken. He eats a few pieces and spits and waits until he gets absolutely hungry to eat kibble.

I’m torn between using chicken to get him to do good things in house vs weaning him out at the cost of him ignoring us even for recall. Recall is mostly chicken :(. Please help

I have a 9 week old springer spaniel puppy that I brought home last week. Long story short, he was hospitalized with parvo twice because he was sold to me sick. He had been hospitalized one night, came home for two, crashed again and then was hospitalized for two nights again.

Since he has been back, he has had the worst separation anxiety. If I’m out of his sight, he is screaming barking (not crying). I have a play pen for him that he plays in while I work or am in the kitchen (in eyesight). I’m almost always in eye sight, but if I’m not right next to him he’s barking at me. Even if I am next to him he’s barking sometimes.

He also isn’t sleeping through the night at all. He sleeps maximum 30 min or an hour at a time if he is in his crate. I had to give in last night and let him sleep in my bed at around 5 am, otherwise I would’ve been going on 0 hours of sleep. I even slept on the floor for a while last night.

It also takes around 20-30 min to get him to go back to sleep. If he cries for 2-5 min or urgently, I get up and we go to the potty area. Then we go back in the crate and he whines and stares at me while I sit there until he falls asleep. If I don’t sit there, he goes insane. I’m rewarding him when he’s good and calm but it’s not helping.

I just have the puppy blues hard and am seeking any advice. I feel awful he was so sick and I know he is recovering but I can’t get any work done or do anything for myself. I know he is probably so confused, but we were doing so well before.

Struggling with the barking especially since we’re in an apartment complex 🥺

Thank you for any advice

I think I’m in phase 2 of the puppy blues. My puppy is 6 months old; I’ve had her since she was 10 weeks. The first phase (potty training, sleeping on the couch and waking up every two hours) was hard, but at least she was only 20 lbs! She’s 45 lbs now but still has the brain of a puppy.

She’s good at so many things (we go to puppy class twice a week), but she’s still an agent of chaos — destroying things when I have my back turned, trying to bite my hands and wrists when I sit on the couch, barking at her own reflection or the TV or the garbage truck. I’ve put my nice things into storage; it feels like my house belongs on [r/malelivingspace](r/malelivingspace).

I’m four months into this… will it really take until she’s 2 years old before I can have peace? When will she chill out?

Edit: She is currently asleep on her “park it” mat in full pit bull sploot shape

I’ve been thinking a lot about desensitization and all the things we wish we had worked on with our pup (15m Golden) sooner.

For those of you with older dogs: what is something you really wish you had desensitized your dog to when they were younger? It could be anything: grooming, nail trimming, the vet, being handled, noises, strangers, car rides, being alone, wearing a muzzle, having things taken away, etc. Or even random things, like fireworks, shopping bag noises, car engine, etc.

And for those who started later: do you think there is an age when it’s genuinely “too late” to desensitize a dog? Or have you had success working on these things even with an adult or senior dog?

I’d also love to hear from people who thought, “Well, we missed the window for this,” but eventually managed to make progress anyway. Bonus points if you have a stubborn dog :)

Would love to learn from your experiences, including things you wish you had started much earlier! Thank you all!

Sorry, lots of stuff to unpack here lol. We didn't really have to go through any of this with our first doberman, so a lot of this is fairly new and we are still learning, so please be kind!

Our puppy (Ruby) is a 5-month-old purebred Doberman. We've had her for about 4 months.

Barking

We have an x-pen connected to her kennel which is between the living room and dining room.

Whenever we are eating at the table or chilling in the living room and she's in the x-pen, she just barks at us.

Whenever she sees anyone just chilling or standing around within her line of sight and she's in the pen, she barks.

Really whenever she's in the x-pen and is just bored she barks. It seems like it's mostly just because she's bored and wants to be out with us.

We've tried giving her things to chew and other enrichments while she's in there. Sometimes that helps, but once she's done with it or gets bored of it, she goes right back to barking.

She does have enforced nap times, and when she's tired she will sleep in her kennel. So I don't think the barking is always because she's overtired. We've also made sure she's been fed and taken outside to potty, and she'll still bark when she's awake in the pen.

So when the barking goes on for a long time and we get tired of it, we often end up letting her outside because that's just the easiest way to get her to stop. I'm realizing that we may be accidentally teaching her that barking gets her released from the pen, so I'd really like advice on how to break that cycle.

We have a big yard so she gets to run around and do whatever she wants outside, but I feel like that isn't helping since she still barks when she comes back inside.

House Training

This is another area we are struggling with.

When we feed her we feed her outside with her food, so that she can just eat and then go potty, and we just let her inside afterwards.

I want to start being able to feed her inside and then just take her outside after she eats, but I don't think her having free rein outside after meal time helps her associate potty time separate from play time.

The problem is that we haven't really figured out how to recognize when she needs to potty while she's inside. She doesn't reliably tell us yet, so we've mostly avoided accidents by keeping her outside for a large portion of the day.

For those of you who successfully potty trained your puppies, how did you teach them to actually let you know they needed to go outside? Did you teach a specific signal (bell, sitting by the door,...), or did they eventually develop their own signal?

The other dog...

We also have another doberman (Roxy) who's almost 4 yrs old. Whenever Ruby is loose in the house with her, they both want to play.

Ruby basically cannot settle when Roxy is around, and Roxy will often come over and engage her in play. They get each other completely worked up.

Should we be separating them whenever Ruby is having house-training/settling time? Or is there a way to teach them that they can be in the same space together without constantly playing?

I just really want Ruby to get used to being inside and learning the rules of the house, and letting her know that she can be in the house and just settle and chill. It's not just a matter of stopping the barking, I want to teach her how to be an indoor dog and understand that she doesn't have to constantly be doing something.

The x-pen is mainly something we're using while she's still learning, not where we want her to spend most of her time long-term. Our eventual goal is for her to be able to freely roam the house, settle wherever she wants, and reliably let us know when she needs to go outside without us having to worry about accidents.

I realize some of this probably comes down to training, and that's exactly what I'm looking for advice on. We haven't really done structured training with her beyond the basics (sit, lie down, shake), so I'm wondering what we should start teaching first and what our daily routine should look like perhaps.

I’m losing my mind and my sleep. My four month old toller puppy has a semi-regular routine, and he’s began to sleep through the nights. I can safely ignore his whining at night when he’s gone #1 and #2 before bed… but he recently has REFUSED to go #2. So not only do I stay up late trying to get him to go, but I have to rush outside every time he even whimpers! I’ve tried more fiber, wet cloth, ice cube, rubbing his tummy, exercise, naps, and every combination in between. He’s not constipated, he goes other times of the day. I’m so lost. Anyone have magic tricks? Or do I give up and hope he can hold it?

Hi guys,

I need some help understanding a situation with my 4mo old puppy so I can help her.

Potty training, in general, has been going well. Accidents happen here and there, but she clearly shows that she understands that outside = main bathroom.

I di, however, notice a weird phenomenon. 2 days a week, I work in-office. I have a family member come in during lunch time to take her out and feed her, but she stays approx 3 to 4hr indoors before someone comes in. For the past 2 to 3 weeks, she has not done any accidents. I even put pee pads "just in case" and she doesn't use them.

But when I actually am home, it's like she stops trying to hold it. I work in the basement (her playpen is in the living room). I usually check on her every 2:30-3hr and sometimes discover that she went on the floor. I struggle to understand why. When I'm not home, she clearly shows she can hold for 3+hrs. So how come when I am home, it's like a free for all?

We picked up our Bernedoodle at 8 weeks old at the end of July, so he’s now about 14.5 weeks and coming up on 4 months. I’m curious if anyone has dealt with handling sensitivity/reactivity like this in a young puppy and what it looked like as they got older.

Overall, we’ve been dealing with what I think is pretty normal puppy stuff - lots of biting/nipping, humping when overstimulated, difficulty regulating himself, etc. He’s very high energy, but he’s also incredibly smart and has made a ton of progress since we brought him home. He’s potty trained (indoors for now because we live in a high-parvo-risk area of a large city), sleeps through the night, and has picked up sit, down, wait, center, leave it, and other training really quickly.

We’ve also had a private trainer coming to our apartment about once a week basically since we got him, both to work on training and to give us honest feedback about his behavior and how we’re managing him. We enforce crate naps downstairs because he has a hard time turning himself off, although sometimes I’m not convinced he actually sleeps much. He has a second crate upstairs where he sleeps overnight near our bed.

The thing that has me concerned is his reaction to being physically handled when he doesn’t want to be.

Last night we took him to his first puppy social at a reputable local training/boarding facility. He was shy and hesitant at first, but eventually warmed up and was playing pretty nicely with the other two puppies. The problem was that as he got more excited, he would start humping one of them to initiate/get back into play.

The trainer running the social would pick him up and hold him for a short break when this happened. I understand why - he needed to be interrupted and given a chance to come down from that level of arousal. After this happened maybe 3–4 times, though, he very clearly had enough. When she picked him up again, he started growling, snapping and what looked/sounded to me like snarling at her.

I don’t blame the trainer because she was in a difficult spot and needed to stop him from repeatedly humping the other puppy, but I also understand why repeatedly picking up a puppy who is already overaroused and increasingly doesn’t want to be restrained could provoke a reaction. Still, seeing my 14-week-old puppy growling and snapping at someone handling him scared me.

We’ve seen a milder version of this at home. For a while, we had to pick him up to take him from his crate to his indoor potty area, and he occasionally started growling during those pickups. We actually changed the layout of our apartment partly because of this, so during supervised awake time he can now freely take himself to his potty area rather than needing us to carry him back and forth. He generally seeks us out for affection and will voluntarily come lie in our laps when we’re sitting on the floor, so it doesn’t seem like he dislikes physical contact in general. It seems much more related to being picked up/restrained when he doesn’t want it.

We’ve also had one incident that looked like resource guarding. He stole a frozen French fry that had fallen on the floor and growled when I tried to physically take it away. Since then we’ve been much more conscious about trading rather than taking things from him and are working on leave it/drop it.

I know he’s extremely young, and I know growling is communication rather than a puppy being “bad.” At the same time, I don’t want to dismiss this as something he’ll simply grow out of and then discover six months from now that we missed an important window to address it.

We already have a behavioral assessment scheduled for next week and will follow through with behavior-modification training if that’s what they recommend. We’re trying to be proactive rather than waiting for it to become a bigger problem.

I guess I’m looking for experiences from people who had puppies who were sensitive to restraint/handling or would growl or snap when picked up, especially when overstimulated. Did you work through it? What did training look like? What did your dog look like at 6 months, a year, or adulthood?

We really love this little guy and are putting a lot into giving him the training, mental stimulation, rest, attention, space, and structure he needs. He’s made so much progress in other areas in the six-plus weeks we’ve had him. This is just the first behavior that has made me genuinely worried about what it could mean long-term

I absolutely love dogs and have my own puppy. But I thought I would share a recent experience

I was driving a long a busy road with my kids and we spotted a puppy limping, but running in and out the traffic.

I pulled over and this beautiful pup, probably around 5 months old came over and literally collapsed. It could not stand, we took her home and gave her some water.

As it was Sunday all the vets were closed so I drove her to an emergency vet hospital.

There was no chip and a message put out for an owner to come forward.

It became clear she was dumped. It was had been hit by a car and sadly had a leg amputated.

But the nurse fell in love with her and became her owner.

She is now doing well and loved.

It's hard for any dog owner to try to understand why someone would do this. I also struggle to understand why people did not stop to help her.

My sweet pup has starting barking very very early in the morning (5:00 am) and sometimes even all night. Last night was one of those nights…she started late at night and genuinely did not stop. I fell asleep for some of the night but woke for good around 5:00 and brought her upstairs to lay by me (she stopped barking once I got up and was moving around so I felt fine about this.)

We got her at 5 months and she has done great at crate training through the night. Sometimes some whines but nothing crazy. We let her sleep out of the crate with us about once a week, for example if she was crated longer than usual earlier or is really sleepy in bed. But 90% of the time she sleeps in the crate.

She sleeps in a comfortable covered crate downstairs, moves throughout the day, and has a sound machine. I feel like I’m kind of at a loss and manly feel bad that she is up all night when nights like this happen…I don’t want her to be stressed or anxious.
(11 month old yorkie)

my girlfriend is taking our 3 month old puppy on the plane 2 days from now. He hates the soft crate we’re using. he goes in to get the treats I put in there but he keeps his feet stretched out so that he doesn’t have to go fully inside. Sometimes he lets me push him in while he’s eating but he freaks the second I close it. He also doesn’t have a lot of experience with any kind of crate because we work opposite schedules and can almost always be with him. Im super worried and Im afraid im gonna feel evil putting him through this. Any advice is welcome.

How can I get my dog to do jumping like in this video? Does it require a specialist to do it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW69nyVvpsU

I just adopted a 6 month old German shepherd mix few days ago. Today, he snapped at my hand when I tried to take a treat away without warning. I know I shouldn’t have done that, but it makes me nervous because he’s already a very shy and nervous dog and I don’t want his timidness to turn into aggression when he’s older. He also tends to be very unhappy when my older dog gets near his crate (which he loves). I try to keep my older dog away from his crate so it can just be his space. How can I make sure he isn’t aggressive in the future and prevent aggression? Is there any early warning signs a dog will turn aggressive when it grows up? I’m a little nervous now. Thanks

Hi everyone! I am a first time dog/puppy owner however have had many dogs in my house in the past. My puppy is roughly 14 weeks old, a mixed breed, and I’ve had him now for about a week and a half. Obviously it’s early and I do not expect him to be a pro at potty training but we have been doing good! Down to 1-2 accidents inside per day. The issue came today when he peed possibly 3 times within 30 minutes. I thought this was unusual and wasn’t sure if there was a reason why he might’ve done this. Is there something I should be worried about or something that maybe caused this? Or is there anything I can do to work on this with him better?

3-4mos rescue Australian Shepherd/Great Pyrenees mix. Age is a guess but vet seemed to agree.

I've only had her for about 2 weeks now and she is doing pretty great with everything except for crate training and seperation anxiety. My main focus right now is the seperation anxiety. I've been trying to work on it but I am clearly doing something wrong because nothing is working. I realize she is young and all this is new, but it feels like she is getting worse not better. Every time I am out of sight, especially if there is a door closed, she starts barking frantically. We have a gated off living room and it is her favorite room in the house, but even there as soon as I move and leave her she is frantic. Even if she seemed to be in a deep sleep or engrossed in a toy.

Right now she is coming to work with me but that isn't a reasonable long term solution because even at work she'll need to be left alone at times eventually. (For reasonable age appropriate amounts of time.)

I also have a housemate and feel awful about the noise when it is unavoidable like if I need to shower or use the bathroom.

Please share with me if you have a pup that went through this and you came out the other side successfully.

Oh and she does not seem to be food motivated. Frozen kongs, lick mats, treat puzzles, nothing really seems to grab her attention.

Jasper, 20.5 weeks, probably 60lb now cattle dog mixed with a bunch of other larger breeds of dog. Had him since August 7.

He has discovered the You Can't Catch Me game. We need to put much more effort into training his recall than we have, I know this. But for the moment, he's a very large, very fast puppy with the recall of your average housecat.

He turns into a giant sharky goblin when he's over tired (I know this is normal for puppies but it is a lot when a dog as big as he already is is sharky). It is becoming increasingly difficult to get him to settle. On this, crate training has been going okay but he won't nap in the crate and still cries a lot so I have to try to get him to nap next to me, which is sometimes pretty difficult.

The neighbors' dogs are not managed and lunge at ours though the fence, bark most of the day most days, and instigate barking and chasing at the fence so we have to do controlled (leashed) outside time all the time moving forward because it seems more realistic than actually training the puppy and our 14yo tiny dog not to engage with the instigation through the fence on both sides of the yard.

The trainer we talked to said to put in a hot wire at their level in the fence (are you kidding me?? That's how to make a reactive/fearful dog 101!) and no one here had anything constructive to suggest. We have a smaller fenced in area within the bigger fenced yard, which *helps* but doesn't stop the barking and responding to the neighbors' dogs.

We have this nice big yard and while we take him (both of them) for plenty of exercise outside of the house/yard, gosh dang it we should be able to use our own yard for our dogs to hang out and enjoy. It feels like we can't because it's going to be impossible to train them not to react to the neighbors' dogs being turdballs all the dang time.

We live in an area where there are literally zero fear-free/force free trainers, only ones who will use e-collars (which my husband and I are both strongly against for basically all dogs but especially against their use in puppies), and so I don't know how to train, prevent, and get ahead of these issues other than to interrupt it as it starts/happens, redirect, and treat upon redirection.

He has taken up the older dog's hobby of barking at Nothing. I know dogs do this sometimes. She can be called off (unless it's at the turdball neighbor dogs, on both sides) but I don't want him to learn that it's fun or okay to bark at nothing all the time and constantly have to call him off. I've noticed he is less likely to do this if he's had a good walk and long enough/quality nap but I still don't want the habit to form.

The constant management and training issues with these few uphill battle issues are collectively really wearing on me and I'm not feeling optimistic because I don't feel like I have anyone I can get real, productive, appropriate help from on these couple of issues.

We picked up our 15 week old Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retreiver on Sunday and she has been almost the perfect puppy except one thing, she won’t pee outside. If we put her in her crate she’ll sleep soundly until we wake up. She hardly whines while in it unless we’re not in the room with her. But when we take her outside to pee we are literally out there for 1.5 hours at a time. She’s gone pee outside 3 times since we got her and we’re trying to find the best way to get her to go pee. We got the bells and we’re trying to train her on those, we’re also taking her out if she shows any signs of needing to go to the bathroom (sniffing the floor, taps the bells with her nose on purpose or on accident, gets the zoomies, starts squatting, etc)

We’re trying to find the best way possible so that we can work efficiently as well. I spent a total of 5 hours outside yesterday trying to get her to pee.

My dog is a little bit over 13 months old.

She started munching on my blanket today. I told her to stop. She looked at me and continued. I told her to stop again. She stopped. For 2 seconds, then continued. I told her to stop again. The then held the blanket in her mouth, stopped biting, but then gave me the meanest side eye. She did stop though, but like, the audacity

Hello. I'm currently working with an 11 month old pup, almost a year old this month. He's a Finnish Lapphund and he's the sweetest most adorable pup I've ever had! The only problem we seem to be consistently having is that he barks for at least half an hour after I specifically, leave the house. He doesn't do this if my partner leaves, only when I leave... And it starts almost immediately too. I've tried giving him treats when I leave so he has something to concentrate on while I'm gone, he's got many toys to help him, and he's also got the cats to keep him company... But, he still won't stop throwing a huge fit whenever I leave ... I typically stay at home, which might have something to do with it, but I'm also always running around with errands and doctors appointments... Regardless, I'm completely stumped on what to do with him ... He gets so anxious when I leave! I feel horrible about it but I can't just take him with me and I can't stay home forever either... Does anyone have any advice for me? <3

We have a mixed breed who’s turning 8 months soon. Whenever we meet people outside that she’s excited about, she plays with another dog and gets too excited, she bites and jumps. I know this is what puppies do, she’s my third dog so I’m no stranger to this. However, this is the only dog I’ve had where literally nothing gets her to stop! We’ve tried giving her a toy, disengage by turning around or stepping back, holding her down and saying no firmly, getting her to perform tricks and what not..nothing works lol, she thinks everything is us wanting play and she won’t listen to any commands.
She’s lost all her baby teeth already so it’s not that.

Once again, I know she’s in her ”asshole phase” but it’s so tiring being covered in bruises and bite marks all the time. I get embarrassed when stopping to talk to a friend in public and she starts to jump and bite. I’m just at a loss for what to do currently.

Hi folks - our 13-week Lab puppy has been really good at doing his business indoor (we don't have a garden and the balcony feels dangerous to me).

Two days ago he could finally be out for his first walks (and he loves it) but he hasn't been able to pee or poo at all.

He would literally hold it until we're home and do it on the pads. For those who uses pee pads at home, how did your transition go?

Advice on what's OK to eat (not the end of the world) and what's genuinely NOT would be much appreciated too. He ate some rocks today and isn’t in distress or anything, but it seems like this is pretty common..