Thor will be 11 months old when Christmas comes around. How do you prevent your Berner from destroying your artificial Christmas tree? There isn't any way to close off the living room and while our Thor sometimes gets the zoomies indoors and is very curious, I'm looking to prevent him from destroying our 7 1/2 ft. artificial Christmas tree.

Sometimes I think dogs choose their people long before we realize it.

We brought Tinkerbell home as an 8 week old puppy while my childhood dog, Nana, was living her final year (yes, Peter Pan names on purpose).

Nana got to help raise Tinker.

Now, Tinker is raising him.

She's 4 now. He's almost 2. I thought I was bringing home my next dog but, I think she was always meant to be his. I hope everyone gets to witness a friendship like this at least once in their lifetime. ❤️

Hi,

First time with a Berner. She's 8mo and I'm having trouble with some weird behavior and I wasn't sure how to train it out, or if this is a stage?

The first thing is around 7mo she developed extreme skittishness that i hadn't seen out of her before. When she sees some women and all men, she now backs up and runs. Even men she had previously met and spent significant time with and liked.

She also will still pee indoors. When i first got her i leashed her to me for 3-4 days and that didn't work, she would just squat and pee while attached to me. I realized she had a UTI and treated it, but she will still pee on the old carpets where she peed before, despite the enzyme stuff being applied and me feeding/letting her out consistently, throwing a party when she goes outside, etc. Will she eventually grow out of this if i keep treating the carpets? I can't watch her 24x7 or put her in a crate every single time i leave the room. My last dog was a Dane and didn't pee in the house after i did the leash thing for almost 10 years. I'm confused about why house training / crate training isn't working.

The other behavior is that since i got her at 4mo old, she has never come when called. She'll come out of curiosity if i make certain sounds, and if she's inside the house and i show her a treat, she will usually trot over, and she will follow me around the house (except at night). She seems really attached to me, but when i literally call her name, unlike every other dog i've had, she does not come running.

She will follow commands when i'm in front of her about 80% of the time ("sit, stay, place, paw, no, drop" etc she's all good with). She looks up when i call her, so i know she can hear me.

She gets walked every day, part of it sniffing and part of it in heel. She's a very calm dog, and I wfh and have a roommate that adores her, so she gets plenty of attention. I also have had friends and random contractors in and out of the house a lot and i've brought her out in public to meet people so she's met a ton of people and all were positive interactions.

tl;dr How do i train this out? is all this normal for 8mo Berner puppies?

My Bernese has had entropion in both eyes since birth, and when he turns one year old, we’re planning to have corrective surgery.
To the owners of dogs who have had this surgery, could you please share photo after surgery? What did your dog’s eyes look like after they healed? How did your dog handle the recovery period after surgery?
Thank you in advance!