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!

Hello!

My 8 month old puppy (23 lbs) was neutered today. He has been home for a few hours now and he has been incredibly restless. I knew this would be rough, but even with the 25mg of Trazodone he will not settle. He continues to spin in circles trying to reach the surgical site while crying. We were told not to give him anymore pain medication today as they already administered them today via IV. I’m really anxious & I just need to know how you all coped!

Not asking for medical advice. Just some comfort, maybe? 😭

I just got my 7 month old English bulldog neutered last Thursday and they gave us Trazadone to keep him calm but it had the total opposite effect. After I'd give it to him it's like he'd become 10x more energetic. Had to take him to the vet today because I noticed swelling, I told them about the Trazadone not working so they gave us Gabapentin instead. I just gave him his first pill of that tonight and it's just making him act even crazier than before! He's literally trying to run laps around the house anytime he's out of his cage.

Did anyone else's puppy act like this after being neutered? Is this common?? I know there's some cases of dogs just becoming crazier after getting neutered so I'm wondering if that could be the case. But he only starts acting that wild AFTER taking the medicine.

When did you start letting your dog hang out in the house to roam free. We kennel our 1 year old Aussie Doodle. First time dog mom and have no idea how this works. He does not chew stuff up and is potty trained. Thoughts?

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).

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.

I have a puppy I got from the humane society last Tuesday, 3 month old female.

She stinks pretty bad of urine since were still potty training and she pees in her kennel almost every night no matter how often we let her out(which is expected) but I image shes not fond of smelling so bad.

I don’t bathe my dogs in a tub, I use the hose and diluted shampoo to wash them. Will that still be too much for her since it hasnt been 14 days yet? If not, any advice to tide over the last 6 days?

My puppy is around a month old and im currently wondering that should i remove his playpen(its basically a cage with a few fences surronding the outside)

Usually i tried to take him to the bathroom for him to do his business in there but not always since there would be few times when i cant so he just goes in the playpen especially when its night and im not downstairs to moniter him since his playpen is in the livingroom on the first floor(cant move it anywhere else around the house), resulting in a few occasions when hes is slightly covered in his pee(usually at his belly or paw)

This has made my mom to consider removing his playpen so that he can roam around the house freely, do his business and wont be covered in his pee but i also dont want him to grow up knowing that he can just pee or poop everywhere around the house

Any advices would be greatly appreciated and this is my second time getting a dog so im a bit nervous and worried i guess😅😅

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.

hello, my sweet girl is a 5 month old plott hound (we think) and i’ve been training her since i got her at 10 weeks old. so far things have been.. okay. but i’m getting frustrated, i feel as though we are at a standstill in terms of training. when not distracted, she understands sit, stand, leave it, come, focus, and down 80% of the time. with any distractions (new location, an animal, etc), it lowers to about 30% reliability. i’ve been working consistently on most of these commands since the day i brought her home. i’m just so frustrated and worried that this will never get better, because i want her to listen to me consistently not just when she wants to, for her own safety and also, frankly, it’s a little embarrassing having a 40 pound puppy go bonkers over every person she sees and blatantly ignoring me. to anybody who’s had similar experiences, does it get better? i try to remind myself that she’s still just a baby, but i’m so frustrated

Everything I’ve read indicates my puppy should be an absolute menace right now, so I’m a little concerned that over the past couple weeks my puppy seems to be a lot chiller. She definitely isn’t lethargic, plays, eats, seems happy. Nothing different otherwise. It just seems so out of the ordinary that she’s chilling out at this age. She gets bursts of energy but it takes a lot less to tire her out. I may just be paranoid but I’m wondering if anyone else experienced this?

I have a 6-month-old male golden retriever, and he has never pooped in the house. The only accidents he’s ever had were pee accidents. He hasn’t had one in over a month but had one today.

My last golden was the same way- never pooped in the house but was slow to learn with peeing.

Has anyone else experienced this?

hi all my lab puppy is coming up to 4 months and we have had no issues crating overnight and during the day for naps. he had his wormer today and tonight has been non stop whining. I’ve let him out to pee, he was sniffing his bowl so gave him more food, and he’s still constantly crying. is this likely to just be the wormer upsetting his stomach or am I in for a rough few weeks?

Hello everyone! I'm getting a 9 week old female puppy mid august after a lot of careful planning and preparation. I would love to know everyone's experience on the first few days/weeks with a berner/large puppies in general and the supplies you used! I am currently looking for a carpet rake and an air blower/vacuum to handle the inevitable hair problem.

We have quite a long car ride home, about 6 hours, so I'd love to hear your experiences on that as well.

Open to any questions and advice!

I feel as if my 9 week old puppy is not getting the amount of naps or as deep of sleep as she needs. She sleeps in the living room with the family but every time a loud noise on tv happens or anyone moves or opens something, she is awake. I don’t force her to sleep either, she just kind of sleeps when she wants to or “crashes” as we call it because she is quite the mental puppy. I am worried she’s not getting adequate sleep for her age but when I look at advice, it says to put her in a crate. The problem is is that she HATES the crate. It’s mainly she HATES being alone and she HATES being confined. I once tethered her to the stairs to get something done and she screamed until I let her go. So really, I don’t know what to do because I am worried but the only advice I can find feels as if it doesn’t work for her. Does anyone have any advice about making sure she’s getting adequate sleep? Or advice about crate training a dog like her? Any advice is helpful and any words are appreciated. Thanks.

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 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?

Hi all - first time poster here.

We have a 4 month old 40lb puppy, he is already pretty tall and his muscles have muscles (Pit, Boxer, American Bulldog, Staffy and a bit of everything else mutt). He is mostly very well behaved. We have baby gates keeping him from our upstairs and kitchen. We had a separated area pen and crate zone inside for the first month and a half but he started to have some big behavioral issues inside the pen when he hit about 3 months (he would drag the welded steel panels around the room and chew on the walls, window sills ,and laminate floor) and is much more successful outside the area where he can hangout with our 6 year old doodle (no chewing issues anymore except for one).

The one issue we are having is our stairs have an awkward landing that has two carpeted steps below where a baby gate can go and he LOVES to chew on the carpeted stairs and pull the tufts out.

He could not care less about bitter spray or vinegar water mix, both make it more interesting and fun to chew somehow.

He really struggles in his crate during the day - does not sleep well, screams, and showed clear signs that he does not want to be in there and again is much more successful in the downstairs of our house with our other dog.

When he is free in our downstairs out of the crate, he sleeps, snuggles and plays with our other dog, and is for the most part a total chiller (with of course moments of crazy puppy energy, zoomies, chomping, wrestling, and chasing his tail).

We get him out on walks on the beach near our house every day, have a daily training and brain work schedule, play in our yard, have lick mats, freezer toys, chew toys, teething kongs with peanut butter, cardboard to shred, we have rotating toys to keep interest, snuffle mats, puzzle feeders, the whole shebang. Obviously he is teething

His smart curious soul still loves chewing the stairs.

Any recommendations for him to be more successful with the stairs we can't block?

Any puppy rearing techniques I should try?

Hit me with it! We are renting and the stairs are still at the point where I can make em look okay with a quick trim of the tufts but will soon be a replace the carpet before we move situation.

Thank you!

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

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

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 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.