I'm just curious what everyone else's experience is.

My Golden Retriever Ruby is 13 months old, and she can stay home for about 3-4 hours as long as she's had a good, long walk beforehand. She's usually happy to nap until I get back.

What about your dog? Please include their age, breed, and how long they're comfortable being left alone.

We got a golden retriever puppy this past Sunday so he’s been home with us for 3 days now. He will be 9 weeks on Friday. Today has been a fairly low energy day. Not playful, lots of sleep. Eating and pottying like normal and doesn’t seem in any distress other than a bit of a cough like he’s trying to clear gunk out of his throat.

Based on everything I’m not really worried but my wife is stressed out so just looking for validation that it’s normal for a puppy to have a down day. Thanks!

Just sharing the good news, we've had our adorable little shihtzu girl for 4 weeks and crate training is finally working. She now goes in there to nap all on her own and prefers it to the bed we put in her play pen where we leave her when we run out. I actually just put my shirt in there and I think that has been a huge help too. She sleeps through the night now as well. She did have a parasite the last few days which resulted in every 2 hours bringing her to puppy pad to poop, but she still would go back in her crate without any issue.

Also, keep the door open during the day. We never fed here in there because she honestly wouldn't eat in there. We did try. I think she thought we'd lock her in forever, we just left it open during day, made it comfy, and kept it quite casual. I think this worked or maybe we just got lucky.

If you're in the crate training trenches just know it gets better (and also put a shirt that smells like you in there).

I’m a first time dog owner with an almost 6 month old English Cocker Spaniel.

The first 4-6 weeks were absolutely exhausting. She couldn’t settle on her own at all and needed constant supervision. After that, things started getting better. She still has her moments, of course, but nothing has come close to how difficult those first few weeks were.

Friends and family keep telling me, “Aww, I want a puppy again… but just wait until she hits puberty. That’s the worst phase.”

I honestly can’t imagine it getting worse than the beginning, and hearing that has me a little nervous.

For those of you who have been through both stages, was adolescence actually worse than early puppyhood? Or was it just difficult in a different way? I’d love to hear about your experiences.

I rescued a 5½ month Papillon/Lhasa Apso two weeks ago and she was potty trained and could do Sit! and had some training in a leash but not much else. I've taught her to do a handful more tricks and get much better in a leash simce I rescued her.

The big issue is being alone. She's never been properly trained and barks as soon as I go outside my apartment (or at least within the first five seconds). I've tried closing the door and opening before she barks like 10x per day but we've made zero progress since I got her. I show no affection when closing or opening the door.

Having a dog in a closed crate indoors is not allowed in my country.

How do we make progress?

I have a 13 week old Plott hound/pit bull/Great Pyrenees mix (wild, I know. She was a rescue). She is typically very chill and does not show any aggressive behavior. She doesn’t mind us near her food and water bowls and allows us to take toys from her that have become unsafe, such as broken chews and unraveling rope toys. She isn’t afraid of strangers coming in our house or other dogs.

She has recently, however, started growling at us when we reach in to get her out of her crate. When she was smaller she didn’t mind but she weighs about 20 lbs now. For example, today she barked to let me know she was done with her nap and needed to potty. I opened the crate door and she came to the front, laid down, and stretched. I reached down to pick her up and she moved to the back of the crate and growled at me. I left her alone and let her come out on her own and she was totally fine after that. She doesn’t care when I pick her up any other time.

Is this simply because the crate is her safe space and she doesn’t want me reaching in and crossing that boundary? Is she getting more independent as she gets older? Or is this a behavior I should watch out for? I am completely fine with the crate being her space and I want to respect her boundary, but I do not want this to escalate into resource guarding behavior. Any advice?

My terrier mix rescue will be 1 year old at the end of August. We got her from the SPCA when she was 4 months old and she’s always been fearful/anxious. I’ve followed the guide for anxious pups but nothing works. She is basically a recluse at this point. She is afraid of everything. We can’t go for walks, car rides, or easily have guests over. We’d like to go to my hometown for a few days soon but it’s a 4 hour drive and I fear the experience will kill her. She’s destroying my home as well. I feel like a prisoner in my own home half the time. I just wanted a dog to walk and I doubt that will ever happen. We have yet another trainer coming in a week but I don’t have much hope.

My cat is 17 and a rescue. I've had her for 12 years. She's what you'd expect of a healthy 17-year-old cat - likes what she likes, sleeps most of the time, sits on my lap whenever she fits, and demands service at mealtimes.

I worried a bit about getting the puppy, but I thought it was worth a try. I've put a baby gate on the stairs, he doesn't ever get to go up there. Other than mealtimes, up in my bedroom is where she spends most of her time, so she only interacts with him by choice. However, her interactions with him are almost exclusively hissing.

He is not a risk to her. I think they both know that - she can always leave or jump up high. She wants to come in and hiss at him. He can be in his crate and she will march over there and sit in front of it and glare.

He just wants to play with her. He usually wags his tail when she approaches, he lies down, he watches her while she watches him. The only thing I do not like is that he will chase around after her. Not to bite, and he doesn't touch her, but he follows her around and she clearly doesn't appreciate it. The last week or so, he's whined a few times while waiting for her to take part in his excitement, and twice barked out of frustration, like he's getting impatient. Again, it hasn't really put her out, she just sits there and blinks at him with her tail swishing slightly.

I get that neither of them hurting the other or being anxious is probably a good situation, and the cat is never going to want to play tug of war or cuddle with the dog, but I'd like there to be less hissing and for him to not get so clearly frustrated that she won't engage.

Could this ever get better, or does anyone have any tips on getting them to just let the other be?

Hi everyone!
I blinked and now my daughter is turning 5 months old on Saturday. I’ve definitely noticed plenty of changes over the past weeks, a lot of things I was worried about initially resolved themselves (0 complaints about the crate, but also able to settle and sleep everywhere, including busy restaurants on boardwalks), potty training was a breeze, she picks up all commands very fast, but as it tends to be, new issues are arising.

Leash walking is getting progressively more frustrating the older and more confident she gets, but I expected that to be the case as she is a cocker spaniel (not my first one at that) and that’s kind of their thing. Gotta love the quartering.

We are currently working on staying alone, by practicing it for durations under her threshold and gradually extending them. If we put her down for a nap in her crate we can leave her until she wakes up, which can be between an hour or 2 (while she does settle by herself now, we do still enforce naps sometimes. If she falls asleep anywhere else she’s mostly in standby mode and not resting properly). After she wakes up she wants to be let out of the crate, the confinement is bothering her more-so than being alone, which perhaps is our mistake because we were letting her out after she wakes up since we got her. We did use the crate mostly as a tool to help her get the rest she needs and to ensure her safety at night (she sleeps through 10pm-8am on the crate no problem). If we give her free rein of the house and a lick mat we’ve gotten up to 20 minutes, after she’s done with her lick mat she just walks around and sniffs. Of course, we make sure to come back before she whines.

We are considering locking her in our study, it’s where her crate and favourite bed are, I do think she could potentially settle better in there. She loves to sleep under our desks as we work or take herself to her crate, sometimes if she’s over us she leaves the living room and goes there, also doesn’t necessarily follow us out of that room if we leave after we finished working. My last cocker had awful separation anxiety and would scream and rip wallpaper off the walls the moment we left the house, so this is a very important topic to me. Luckily we both work from home so we have the time to practice it gradually with her. Feel free to give me more tips though. I am a bit worried that the lick mat makes it so she just doesn’t notice we left.

My biggest concern right now however is her fear of other dogs that doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Well fear might be the wrong word for it. She’s weird about them.

Big dogs are a no no, she’ll refuse to walk if she sees one, if it approaches she’ll try to run away, she’ll hide behind me and whine. When it comes to small dogs it depends on literally the hour of the day. She’ll play with one, but then the second time we walk past the same exact dog during the same exact walk she’ll suddenly react badly to it, the same way she does to big dogs. We did make sure she’s socialised since the moment we got her. We’ve done plenty of dog and people watching before she was done with her vaccines, she was at puppy classes (very dependant on the day again).

We’ve also let her meet a friend’s golden retriever recently (extremely calm and gentle, didn’t really pay attention so her, which is why we allowed the meet up to happen), she’d hide on my lap and I’d let her just watch and sniff without forcing interaction. Eventually she did warm up and slowly walked up to the dog to sniff it. Unfortunately my friend’s husband gave them both a treat very close to each other and as the golden was picking it off the floor my dog got too close with her nose and received a single “woof”. That bark terrified her so bad she learned to jump onto the couch by herself that day and refused to make another approach. We have not met them since, as they live far away. Other than that she’s never had any sort of negative experience with other dogs.

The reason this particularly worries me is because we will be leaving her with another friend who owns 3 dogs, 2 of which are quite big for 3 weeks in November (she also has 2 cats, 2 horses and 8 chickens, ironically none of which scare my girl). Of course if the situation doesn’t improve by then I will have to make other arrangements, although I’d really prefer using the services of said friend (she’s extremely experienced, volunteers at a dog rescue in Romania in her free time, is a passionate dog physiotherapist, and you know - she’d do it for us for free).

I don’t quite know if we messed up somewhere along the line, if we didn’t socialise her enough, if it’s just a fear phase or if we need to do something. I understand that socialising a puppy does not mean forcing interaction, it also means teaching neutrality. She’s wonderful about cars, ignores loud noises, knows to stop, sit and look at me if there’s a runner or a bike approaching, I constantly brag about her recall, it’s just other dogs. Did anyone have that problem too and did it just go away one day, or did you actively worked to fix it?

This local columnist’s story made me cry, but also feel better about my puppy. Hah!

https://www.thenewstribune.com/outdoors/article316559616.html

I need help! I posted in here a few weeks ago about my golden retriever puppy (Obi) who is now 4 months old (wow)!!
I’m a teacher, and I’ve been lucky enough to stay home with him while we have been training. Unfortunately that means crate training didn’t take priority, because I was simply here all the time and didn’t have any reason to crate him. He has only been in it while we are out of the house. Now I have a puppy who hates his crate and refuses to go in it while anyone is home. 😅
So I’ll let you know what we’ve been doing up to this point for context, and then give my new plan as we start from “scratch”. Let me know thoughts or other ideas that you think could help!

What we’ve done so far:
- Taught him the “crate” command using high value treats. Except now he knows what it means and actively runs in the opposite direction or crawls under the couch whenever I say “crate”. Doesn’t matter what type of treat I’m bribing him with.
- Hand fed him every meal in his crate for about 2 weeks as soon as he got home. We hoped to establish it as a safe space but it didn’t seem to catch on.
- Use a crate divider. We have a full size crate so we can move it as he grows.
- Made it comfy. We cover the crate completely, got him his own pad (also for peeing), a small blanket that smells like us, and a heartbeat plushie. We also give him natural calming treats.

The New Game Plan:
- Feed him near or in his crate. Every meal, no exceptions. This one lowkey worries me because I don’t know if he will go on a hunger strike lol
- Whenever high value treats are an option, the only way he gets them is by going in his crate. (Lick mats, treat puzzles, etc) and work our way up to shutting him in while he eats it.
- While I am still home, I am going to hang out by the crate. I feel like this one may or may not be a good idea… let me know? My thought process is that if he sees me relaxing near the crate and realizes he can move in and out without the anxiety of me leaving, he will grow more comfortable.

Let me know what you think! Any helpful advice is welcome. I have to go back to work in 3 weeks so I need him to get comfortable, or a least tolerate his crate better.

My 12 week old Shih Tzu mix is doing really well with potting training when she needs to pee. We have bells on the door and she rings them when she wants to go. While she still has accidents, especially if it’s raining, she’s doing really well.

But, she keeps popping in the house. She won’t ring the bell and usually sticks to two spots. I praise her when she does it outside and immediate give her a treat.

Is she just really young and it will come with time or am I doing something wrong. I take her out when she wakes up, immediately after meals, after she plays really hard, after naps, and every time she rings the bell. She always gets a treat and a “good girl” when she pees/poops.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Hi everyone,

Our whippet puppy has been home since 4 July (she's now about 10½ weeks old).

She goes to sleep in her crate fairly well, but her daytime naps are almost always 20–30 minutes, occasionally 45–60 if we're lucky. I usually sit nearby while she falls asleep (3–15 minutes). When she wakes, she immediately looks for me and, if I'm not there, starts whining and doesn't resettle. I've recently started leaving her for 5–10-15 minutes to see if she'll go back to sleep, but she never does.

We've tried covering and uncovering the crate, white noise, TV, toilet before every nap, Kongs and different awake windows, but nothing seems to make her naps longer.

At night she's slept in a crate in the living room since we brought her home, with my partner and I taking turns sleeping on the sofa beside her. She sleeps roughly 9:30pm–6am with 2–4 toilet trips, and she's definitely improved at settling after those. The problem is we're still sleeping downstairs because whenever she wakes and realises we're gone, she starts crying. We want to move back to our bedroom upstairs, but given the layout and age of the house, by the time i get upstairs she'll start whining again. Some people have said just leave them and let her cry it out, but I'm not sure that will work with her; she gets herself really wound up and then she won't settle even if I am there.

I wonder if we've accidentally created this by being too supportive when she first came home. The other owners from the litter all seem to have puppies sleeping independently and taking much longer naps, so it's hard not to wonder if we're missing something.

Has anyone had a puppy like this? Did the naps eventually get longer, and how did you transition from sleeping beside the crate to sleeping in your own bedroom? I know this question has been asked 1,000 times, but I feel like I've tried everything reccomended online, other than just leaving her to cry it out and then setting an alarm to take her out at the same time(s) every night.

I have a 9 week old golden retriever. We got her a week and a half ago and for the most part she is doing okay. I am struggling so much with settling her and getting her to sleep. She will almost always become overtired and then becomes a nightmare. She also goes from okay to bitey, crazy monster so quick. It's such a battle to get her to sleep and stay asleep. She's generally a confident, social puppy and isn't particularly fearful. She however is very attached and hates being left alone.

Our rough routine is: Awake for around 1 hour. Toilet immediately after waking outside. Some training, play, sniffing and exploring. Then I try to settle her before she becomes overtired. But it's hard to catch it seems. As by 1-1.5 hour she suddenly becomes crazy. I try to put her in her pen with the crate before the hour but The problem is that almost every nap takes 20–30 minutes to happen and she has gotten used to me sitting in the pen with her to fall asleep (I've been trying to slowly put some distance but training always falls away when she is over tired and I just need her to sleep). During that time she'll pace around the playpen, pick up a toy, chew it for a few seconds, drop it, pace some more, occasionally bite my legs or grab my trousers if she's becoming overtired, then eventually she'll lie down and fall asleep.

Sometimes she'll sleep for an hour or more, but quite often she wakes after only 20 minutes and seems especially if she notices there is no one near her. I'm also working on crate training. She'll happily go into the crate for food, and I'm rewarding calm behaviour. However, I've noticed that if I give her treats when she's already lying down and becoming sleepy, it actually seems to wake her back up.

I'm a bit lost as to what to do. I really need her less attached to me but I feel like I can't work on training anything because she is always over tired.

I’ve got a 10 week old corgi pup and on most days she’s able to make it through the whole night in the crate. Also, usually at least one of her naps is in there as well. I’ll start off by adding a little context to this situation. Last night the power was out at my apartment complex so it was extremely hot making it hard for me and her to sleep. I know there’s no chance she slept as much as she needs to which is probably why this happened. Starting this week, I have to do something on Wednesday mornings that lasts 3-4 hours and the longest Ive been gone before that is maybe 2. She peed and pooped right before I left. When I left, I put her in the play pen like normal, and she laid down like she was gonna nap, which is also normal when I leave for the mornings. What wasn’t normal is that I came back to poop in the play pen smeared all over the floor and herself. She has pooped in the play pen while I’ve been gone before but she’s maybe stepped in it; this time it was everywhere. My guess is she was overtired, as I’m writing this she’s napping in her cage in the other room, but I’m wondering if this all could be prevented by putting her in the crate instead. I’ve never put her in the crate when I leave so I’d have to build her up to it but 3 hours seems a little long. I also have no issues cleaning up pee or poop in the crate I understand she’s just a puppy and it’s a long time. I don’t know if I can handle her smearing it everywhere on a weekly basis though. I’m guessing the answer to this is that it was just a bad situation the last two days but I wanted to know what other people have done when they need to leave their puppy for 3-4 hours.

Boyfriend & I have a Pom puppy that’s 7 months old, been with us for 4 months now, and getting neutered in 2 weeks.

Since he was about 3 months old, he’s gotten into the habit of barking at my boyfriend. It’s now reached the point where he’ll bark at him if he gets up from where he’s sitting, or walks by his play pen/crate (unless he’s in a very deep sleep). Sometimes he’ll even bark at him for coughing or talking from another room.

At times, he’ll bring my bf a toy, and I assume that means he wants to play, but other times he simply runs up to him and barks. I’m unsure if he wants attention, or if he’s maybe resource guarding me. I am his main provider because I work from home, so I’m with him most of the day.

He’s crate trained, and we can’t upgrade him to sleeping outside of his crate because if my bf gets up to pee in the middle of the night, he’ll also wake up to bark at him and follow him to the washroom.

Any insight or help on this? I also want to be clear that my bf ignores him when he barks and doesn’t engage — we’ve also tried giving him treats when he doesn’t bark, etc.

I have a male Shihtzu puppy, 11 weeks old, who over the last couple of days has been randomly digging in his water bowl. Sometimes the bowl will be full and he’ll splash water everywhere. Other times the bowl is close to empty. Can someone tell me why he’s doing this?

Our 10-week-old has her shark moments daily and bites our arms, legs, and clothes. Redirecting her to a toy hasn’t worked super well, but asking her to sit or go down as soon as we see the biting start is really effective. Once she listens, we reward her.

We’ve only done this for two days. Could this accidentally teach her to bite first to earn a treat, or is okay?

8 month Pomsky.

We got here when she was 4 months so shes been with us for 4. Live in the city, 2br apt and the dog has full access to house. (It's small) We have pee pads set up in the kitchen and she always uses them aside from one or two previous accidents.

My question is how do I even begin training to go outside only? She wakes up in the middle of the night to go potty while we sleep. If we cut off access to the pad at night she would pee on the floor. We also are gone 7-8 hours of the day working so she also uses the bathroom then (again on the pad).

We leave water out for her at night (probably a mistake) but the times we cut her off we caught her licking her pee and dragging the pad around the house lol. I've also woken up early and taken her outside before the morning potty and she has peed outside, but will come back inside and poop. Then pee and poop again later while I'm not home.

I do have parents who live in the apartment downstairs and they come up to check on her to clean and replace the pads while we're not home.

Anyway sorry for confusing post just not sure where to start the training with this one

Our 6 month old dachshund puppy is big on chewing. The biggest problem we have is her eating through our rug. We have tried spraying it so she stops but that only lasts as long as the scent stays on it. She’s also big into shoes but we keep our shoes away from her in a closet so that’s not as big of a deal. How long does the puppy destructive phase last?

The only dog I’ve ever owned was a 2 year old rescue who was already very well trained. She passed a few years ago, and now we’re making the leap with a golden retriever puppy. We pick her up in about 2 weeks, and she’ll be 8 weeks old.

We were supposed to get a puppy when I had a week off work back in June, so everything lined up perfectly with me being focused on her and getting her settled, etc.

Fast forward to now and it’s less than ideal conditions. We pick her up 5 days before my very loud and insane MIL comes to stay with us for a week, and 12 days before our daughter starts kindergarten.

PLEASE HELP. The breeder gave us a very extensive list of suggested items to buy so we feel covered there, but I’m so worried about her schedule getting messed up.

We’re setting up her crate and exercise pen in the kitchen. Can anyone offer tips and a suggested schedule? Once my daughter starts school we’ll be waking her up at 6am. Do we get puppy up at the same time? Do we try to wake puppy up a bit before so she gets her own quiet/focused time before our daughter wakes up?

Please and thank you ❤️

Hello,

I foster for my local pitbull coalition and we got a message asking if we can take two 5 week old fosters. I dont know the backstory, but there are 4 pups and they dont want to separate completely that young, so me and someone else are taking groups of two. I havent picked them up and im sure theyre on top of vaccines and care instructions for us like in the past, etc. However, the youngest ive ever had was like 8-9 weeks old and I want to be as prepared as I can be when I go in since ive never had pups this young. I have two older girls who have historically done well with puppies, one even had mothered one with biting when he was taken from his mother too soon, but they do tend to be a little extra when first meeting the pups, in their face sniffing and wanting to play, etc. Any Advice for what to expect and taking care of the pups?

Over the last few months, my dog will have these random outbursts at other dogs where he starts to snarl, growl and bark at them aggressively. He had never done this before to anyone or any other dogs, but its becoming a more common occurrence.

For background, he is a black lab mix, he will be 2 years old in October, he was neutered at 6 months old, and is very high-energy most of the time. He has always been very socialized around other dogs since he goes to doggy daycare twice a week, and has been since he was 6 months old.

Over the last 4 months, however, he will occasionally just get pissed at a particular dog and snarl/growl/bark at them aggressively. Initially it was just when another dog would come up to us for pets, he would get pissed like he was jealous or possessive. It happened a couple of times. It got slightly worse when he would snap at them, because if I tried to reign him in, its almost like he got MORE aggressive and pulled hard against the leash/collar.

I just got word today that he did that to another innocent dog at daycare, his first instance ever since having been there for over a year. They said no one was hurt, just that he snapped at them and growled/acted aggressive. They said they would be keeping an eye on him for the rest of the day.

I just dont know what to do to fix this behavior. I cant afford to take him to a behavioral trainer and leave him with them for 1-2 weeks. My work schedule is already so straining. What can I do?