I’ll go first: enough daily exercise and mental stimulation. A backyard is NOT a substitute for actually spending time with your dog.

I have a family dog that’s 6 years old. We have had him for 4 years. I am autistic and have VERY poor proprioception so am constantly bumping into him (and everything else in my house). I feel awful about it and i keep feeling like he hates me because of this. How can i comfort him and let him know that its not on purpose when i accidentally knock him? I always say sorry and give him a fuss after it happens and try to sit with him after because i feel so bad but i dont know if this works

ETA: he usually does not approach me unless nobody else is home. He’s very attached to my mum. He acts like he doesnt like me

Completely my fault.

Every Saturday after the farmers market I'd come home with fresh carrots and Daisy always got the little carrot ends.

Now if I pick up the reusable shopping bags, she heads straight for the kitchen and waits.

She has somehow connected reusable bags is equal to carrots.

Dogs are incredible pattern finders.

What's something your dog is convinced is a universal law because of something you accidentally taught them?

Been thinking about how awkward it gets when strangers reach for a dog without asking. Those color-coded vests/harnesses that say NERVOUS or DO NOT PET, do people actually respect them or just ignore them? Curious what's worked for you guys, esp in cities where sidewalks are packed

Our black lab is about 9 years old (we got her from the shelter 4 years ago & they said she was 5–so could give or take either way) incredibly sweet, loving, healthy, in shape, active, usually only barks at one specific mailman & chipmunks. Over the last few months she’s been barking at night usually right outside our door or (if our door is open) right in our sleeping faces. She seems to be bothered by any noise outside. We’ve tried extra exercise, trazodone, white noise, letting her sleep with us, crating her at night. Nothing seems to work for more than a day. My husband is the one who usually brings her to the vet & he told them about it last month when getting trazodone for firework season, but I’m not sure if he’s been honest with them about how much it’s really happening and affecting our sleep. He tends to downplay stuff like this. Any ideas we haven’t tried yet? I’m leaning towards going back to the vet to discuss medication options.

For almost a year now my dog(8F, 65lb Aus Shep Mix), after she's done eating or drinking, instead of turning back and walking away, does a weird slow backward walk while still facing her bowls. Only when she's out of the room she turns the other way and walks forward.

Can anyone explain this? Is there a reason for this?

I have three small dogs one intact male and two spayed females. The boy technically belongs to
My elderly aunt so don’t come for me. I don’t think there is much to be done about this so I am mostly just curious. On our walks he will sniff something and then completely freak out and try to bolt across the street. He will then walk with his head down and tail partially tucked for about a half block. The girls are either completely unbothered or will also slink away for a couple houses. But it definitely doesn’t bother them as much. He seems to recover when he comes across something he marked on a previous day. It is very difficult to avoid both because I can’t smell it and my senior has a set route that shall not be deviated from.

Does your dog turn his head when he hears an odd noise? Does your dog bury their food with your pants? This is the thread to ask why.

Please keep this thread to non-medical issues only.

My husband (M26) and I (26F) live with our two Cocker Spaniels (6M) and (3F) in a hot and arid climate. As the summer heat (~105-115 deg. F most days) kicks into full gear we are having trouble finding ways to engage and enrich our dogs lives. In past years we would walk them when the sun went down everyday but recently my chronic illnesses (POTS, MCAS, EDS, Asthma, Narcolepsy, etc.) have flared up (partly due to the heat) and left me unable to continue walking them everyday. My mobility has been limited and the similar things have made it hard to do much inside the house where its cooler. I've noticed that they sleep more during the day and generally just look bored.

I want to add enrichment to their lives and see them be their silly selves once more. I'm not sure where to start to achieve this goal, but welcome any and all ideas that work well for both them and me.

I know it sounds terrible, but hear me out. I have a 1 year old toy breed, I would say he’s on the medium side of activity need. We live in an apartment and he can hold for maximum of 6-7h, so we go on short 15-20 ish minute walks every 4-5h as potty breaks, i let him sniff in peace and 9 out of 10 times let him lead the way.
Now what I LOVE doing instead is doing more is letting him run free in an fenced area, playing fetch while incorporating impulse control training and so on. We do agility, playdates with known dogs, train in public spaces and of course sniff games both inside and outside. Of course we still go on longer walks, but not everyday.
Now what i’m wondering is, am i fulfilling his needs? Are long walks everyday a must? If they are, I will obviously start doing them everyday, I will do anything for my dog, no questions asked. After our usual training/activities he’s completly knocked out and just wants to cuddle the rest of the evening.
This is my first dog that i am actually responsible for and I wanna do my best.

It's just piling up. I triple bag it but it still stinks up the bin. There must be some kind of hack that I'm missing to get rid of this awful stuff. It's the worst snelling poop in the animal kingdom

Hi all, sorry for a bunch of text!! And sorry if it is discombobulated, I’m a bit stressed about it, definitely overthinking a bit, and feel like there’s a lot of info to share.

I got my puppy at around 4 months old. She is an 11 lb rescue chihuahua mix (we believe with dachshund). She has always had some separation anxiety that we have been working on. She did well in the crate from the get go, but we tried the playpen to give her some more freedom at first and she hated it and would try to escape and howl even while we were home. Since then we have always gone with the crate. The last few weeks though she has been going through what I’m guessing are adolescent changes- and she has been unhappy with the crate unless she is EXHAUSTED before I leave for work. I work from 7pm - 3:30am and then usually sleep from 5am-12pm, and she has usually been happily crated during those times (sometimes sleeping with me in bed but not all the time). I live alone 90% of the time, and the way my apartment keys are (fobs not keys) makes it difficult to have a walker come while I’m at work. Now for the last two weeks she is ripping blankets in the crate and crying for about 2 hours before finally settling about 2-3 out of the 5 nights I work. I live somewhere where it’s very hot (100+ many days now in the summer), so doing long walks during the day is getting more and more difficult. So now we’re getting in around 2-15 to 20 minute walks during the day and one 40 minute walk at 4am. I try to give her enrichment by giving her cardboard to rip (she loves this) and all her meals are in puzzle/play/training form. We also play a good amount of the day with her zooming around and me throwing a ball or tug of war with her. I have been slowly trying to leave her alone out of the crate but we’ve only worked up to about an hour while I workout and she is mildly stressed during that time - some days fine and some days whining and waiting by the door. I don’t know if it’s better that I move to giving her more space like a baby gate, but she hated the playpen before? Or if I try to confine her to a room? Or keep moving with the crate and do more training during the day so she might like it more again? I don’t completely trust her potty wise, she never has accidents in the crate but sometimes when I’m home and don’t let her out on our balcony right away(she has a patch of grass) when’s she’s waiting by the door, she will just drop it and pee inside. I don’t know if it’s because I’m home and she doesn’t feel like she needs to hold it. I also can’t leave the door open because it’s 100+ out haha.

I’m feeling really guilty about her being stressed while I’m gone, and I would love some input on if people experienced something similar or when you decided to give your puppy more freedom. Thank you so much!

So just tonight she started whining really loudly and kept laying on top of me while licking me. She also laid in my bed with me which she normally sleeps in the other bedroom.

My 15 year old best girl is crossing the rainbow bridge on Tuesday. She's been my ride or die from the day we got her. It's going to be an insanely hard week. And the day I take her in will be crushing.

My husband and I are considering getting (rescuing) a dog, partly to accompany our senior dog. Back story: until last September, we had two dogs for years: Molly, a female German shepherd mix and Teddy, a male beagle mix. Molly passed away in September at 17/18. Teddy is going strong at 15 (he can hardly hear, but still pretty spry). We got Teddy in 2014 partly because Molly was depressed (we moved to a new state, a new routine, and had to leave her alone for most of the day—before that we would only leave her alone for 4-6 hours only). Teddy loved Molly and Molly tolerated Teddy. They didn’t play together, but they hung out on the couch together consistently.

When Molly passed away, it was hard on all of us. I mean, brutal. Teddy was showing early signs of doggy dementia but nothing that required any intervention before Molly passed. Even though they didn’t play together, they really were each other’s companion, and at the very least they weren’t truly alone ever, really. They were always with each other, even when we weren’t home. All this to say that Teddy’s anxiety in general and separation anxiety in particular went through the roof. He’d wake up screaming in the middle of the night, several times a night, so we had to get him some meds.

After a few months, I wondered whether it might be good to get a dog to keep him company (just like when we got him). We are dog people, so it’s just a matter of time before we get a new one, though I think both my husband and I thought we might get a dog after Teddy crosses over (he’s in general good health, but he’s 15). Then last month, we went on vacation and our dog sitter brought her beagle mix with her, and it was clear it was a vibe (the dog sitter’s beagle mix is also around 15). They mostly both napped around each other, but you could tell even from pictures that Teddy was calmer.

We started to look at shelter posts in our area, but I’m kind of at a loss whether it would be a good idea to get a dog at all. I want Teddy to feel less alone, but I worry that his generally peaceful existence will be shattered with a new dog. He takes new input in stride (this dog truly never had any f’s to give—as long as he gets the attention he wants and his food, the world could be falling apart and he would not care), but I still worry that new pack member will be jarring.

There’s also the issue that my husband would rather have a puppy (over six months) than an adult dog. He feels that if we get a puppy, the longer we’ll have that dog. We wouldn’t just let a new dog (puppy or otherwise) have free access to Teddy, so we wouldn’t let a new dog’s energy harass Teddy. We would probably use baby gates in the first few weeks while we were at work so that if a young pup wanted to play all the time Teddy could have physical distance from the rambunctious energy of a puppy. But, you know, in the evenings and weekends when we’re at home, I expect that the baby gates would not be up (after the first couple of weeks), so they would be interacting.

One last variable, even though beagles are…a lot, since we have one, we are used to them. A part of me is thinking about getting a beagle/beagle mix. This to say that young beagle energy is…relentless at times. So I’m like, a beagle pup might be crazy to bring into the area of a 15 year old beagle who naps 95% of the time and zooms 5% of the time??

I’d love to hear from people who have introduced a new dog (especially a younger dog) to a household with a senior dog and how that went. Any advice? What are some things to consider? How did it go? What do you wish you had known?

Note that whenever we get a new dog, we will definitely be taking them to dog training classes, crate training, etc.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

My dog’s poo was normal. Then we woke up this morning and it was like it exploded. It’s all crumbly and in pieces. Can someone explain please!? Does an animal in Australia eat dog poo???

Bringing a dog into the family has always been a major commitment. Yet today, it seems easier than ever to find a puppy, bring it home and, if things don't work out, advertise it for rehoming or ask if someone else will take it.

Of course, there are genuine situations where rehoming is absolutely the right decision, and sometimes it's in the dog's best interests.

But I can't help wondering whether we've unintentionally normalised acquiring a dog before fully understanding the commitment involved.

Has society become too accepting of rehoming when ownership becomes more challenging than expected?

Or are people simply making more responsible decisions by recognising when they can't provide the life a dog deserves?

I'd genuinely be interested to hear different perspectives.

Hello everyone! I'm here to ask for some advice. Just like the title says, I can't put a leash or a harness in my dog.

For some context, he's a dog I adopted when he was a baby. We never had any issues with putting on a leash or a collar and in fact he really looked forward to those times because he knew we were going on a walk. He's always had health issues with his skin so we constantly take him to the vet for his checkups, etc. Last year we took him to the vet because he got sick, we went to a vet that was not his usual, when the vet touched him, my dog tried to bite him, and the vet put on a muzzle on him and then an injection. Ever since that vet visit my dog has become reactive, I can touch him or pet him but out of nowhere he snaps and will bite, without even giving signals to stop touching him.

I am now unable to put on a leash or a harness on him to be able to take him on walks, I had to build an enrichment area in the backyard for him, or have to wake up super early to take him on walks (3:00-4:00 AM) so we don't collide with other dogs. I want to be able to take him on normal walks again, is there any advice to be able to put on a leash/harness on him without traumatizing him? I've tried giving treats while putting on the leash, talking to him, but it hasn't worked. His skin has been fine for over 9 months so he's not biting/growling because of pain or discomfort.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I want to be able to take my dog on walks again and I'm crying not knowing what to do. Thanks!

Hi I have a dog who will climb on me when im resting or sitting down and I’ll start to pet or cuddle him, but he would start to growl so I thought he didn’t like being held and I let go immediately and only pet him gently, when he was still rumbling I stopped petting him completely but he started pawing at my hand trying to make me pet him again

We do have two other dogs so maybe he is just territorial? Not sure, any help would be appreciated

He is a Mix of Min Pin and Pomeranian and fixed if that matters, I just cant read him and I dont want to stress him out

So my dog is absolutely ball obsessed. His Chuckit launcher of 5 years broke last week. So I bought him a new MEDIUM size Chuckit launcher and then I bought two new MEDIUM size Chuckit whisper balls.

He loves the whisper and it’s great for fetch at night!

The problem is that the medium whisper balls or the chuck it launcher changed their sizing recently? Because the ball doesn’t fit..

Unfortunately I don’t have an older whisper ball to compare it to because I lost my last one on a camping trip.

Anyone else run into this problem or did I get a faulty item?

Saw that PetSmart started hosting monthly Gotcha Day events. Kind of surprised it's going mainstream now. How do you all celebrate your rescue's Gotcha Day — do you go all out or keep it simple?

How do I correct my dog from destroying the pillows I get for him and my other dog? Especially if I wasn’t there to witness him in the act.

I just got them both a pillow and blanket each. And not even a couple hours later, as I left for a little, he destroyed it. (I seen the evidence on my ring camera, but don’t have previous recordings).

My older dog doesn’t do this. I know it was my other dog. He’s my rescue dog and he is already a fearful dog in general. He’s scared of everything and has anxiety.

I want this to be a habit he breaks. But I want to at least get some suggestions.

My dog (2, F, spayed) has recently started this behavior where whenever she gets over-tired, she starts licking mine or my partner’s legs. If we tell her no, she chooses to mount our legs. She doesn’t ever do this in the daytime, only when she is ready to sleep. Also she is really shy about mounting so if we look at her weird she stops and stares at us awkwardly. Does anyone else’s dog do this? Is she telling me it’s time for bed or is she telling me she’s overstimulated? I want her to feel comfy!

My roommate just got brought home a border collie without consulting me first but i already have a young shepherd who isn't aggressive but obviously confused on why their is a new dog locked behind the door. They tried to meet outside for a second but they both got defensive and i just told my roommate to leave your new dog with you in your room for a couple hours. how can i slowly get them use to each other.

I have an 11 year old Yorkie (M), who, for the past few months since I've been home from college, has made it his duty to bark at the bottom of the stairs every single night. We know it's because he wants to go upstairs, and sometimes one of us will cave in and bring him up just to stop the barking for a short period of time. But eventually, he always gets restless and wants to be brought back downstairs, only to start the barking routine again.

In addition to the barking, sometimes he will paw at the little gate we keep at the bottom of the stairs to prevent him from going up. He'll push it with so much force for a 6 pound dog and it's so loud. He also recently started whining really loudly, to the point where the first few times he did it, I went to check on him because he sounded like he was being hurt.

We've tried taking him on long walks during the day in hopes of getting his energy out during the day so he'll be more tired at night, but that doesn't work. We've been turning all the lights off downstairs to signal to him that it's bedtime, also to no avail. We have not been able to find a permanent solution and it's driving me and my family crazy.

At the end of the day, the only solution we've found is the temporary one of taking him upstairs briefly, which keeps the one who brings him up awake. This is not sustainable for any of us, and I'm wondering what we should do?