My puppy is 14 weeks old, I have had him for two weeks. He does decently well in the crate when I need to leave. He will whine for a few minutes, then settles down. He has no accidents in the crate and he is always asleep when I return (he is never in there for more than 3 hours). He also will willingly go into his crate during the day when I am nearby, as that is where his food is. I give him a lot of praise for going in the crate. I always make sure he has played, gotten attention, drank and eaten, and used the restroom before I put him in there.

For whatever reason, when I put him in his crate and I do not leave the room, he is not able to settle. I understand he is disappointed because he wants to be near me, but there are just times I need to use my room and have him contained. He is still learning to not chew on chords, and there are times I cannot supervise him properly and need to be in the room. There is not somewhere else I can put the crate. I have a cover I put over so he cannot see me, I have white noise machines, and try to keep relatively quiet.

How can I help him settle in the crate when I need to stay in the room? I do not want him to learn a negative association with the crate, but I also sometimes need to put him away to take care of things I need to take care of!

Dog: Rottie mix rescue. Got him at 4 months, 3 months with us now.

Medical: Renal Displasia (he will at some point die from kidney failure, prognosis is anywhere between a few months and 3 years).

Training: puppy socialization (completed), puppy manners level1 (completed).

The issue(s): even though our dog does fairly well with training (inside the home, and at class), he is, and I really try not to be hyperbolic here, uncontrollable outside when we walk.

Literally anything that moves, makes a sound, or any other trigger will cause him to go absolutely nuts (so: virtually anything).

He pulls so hard on the leash that I have developed calusses on my hands. He frequently pulls me off balance (and I'm a 6'4" / 200lbs guy).

He bolts right through us to grab a rolling leaf, with zero care about his own safety/health (he will literally run into a wall doing this).

He is SO amped up that he sometimes needs 30+ minutes to come down from his behaviour.

We're even running out of options for calm spaces, because even his crate he will gnaw at anything in reach because he is so nervous.

We're at a point where we just don't know what to do any anymore... He is food motivated, but outdoors you could literally hold a roasted chicken in front of him and he will ignore it over chasing anything that moves.

We're very worried that his behaviour won't progress (in all fairness, we've seen it go downhill mainly, he didn't use to be this nervous at all).

We can't even let him in the (big) yard, because he will eat the cedar hedges and rabbit poop until he vomits.

It's almost as if he has no filters.

Any advice?

So I got an 8 week old black lab yesterday. Shes great, slept the whole night, minimal whining. Nippy but that’s expected. On the car ride home she slept while she wore her collar most of the drive and was fine (it was 2 and a 1/2 hours). But now she keeps itching and rolling on the ground to get it off. With the leash it’s even worse. It’s a martingale collar by the way, but I tried clipping it so it wouldn’t tighten, she still hates it. I’m sure eventually with enough of getting used to it she’ll be fine, I’m just not sure how to start off so she at least tolerates it? Thanks

I'm getting a hunting lab soon. My last pets were ferrets, which are obviously very different animals, but when they got sick later in life I learned that I should have been getting them used to soups while they were growing up so I could easily add their medicine whenever they inevitably get sick in old age.

Of course, ferrets are more prone to disease later in life than the average lab and they're also known to imprint hard on their food as kits. I understand these are not quite the same issues that labs have, but it was such a painful struggle to get my sick ferrets to take their medicine that I want to be prepared this time.

My dad has a hunting lab that used to be great about taking pills wrapped in a pill pocket/peanut butter/whatever when he was young, but he has grown picky in his old age and it's a battle to get him to take pills now, no matter the method.

Is there anything I can do for my puppy to prepare him to easily take medicine when he's older?

TLDR: Is there something I should be doing for my puppy at a young age to prepare him for taking medicine later in life?

I got a new puppy two weeks ago. She is now 10 weeks old.

I brought her home at 8 weeks. She is the same breed as my current dog, a six-year-old female. My older dog recently had two tumors removed from her mammary area. It was a major surgery, as they had to remove a significant amount of tissue, but thankfully, she has recovered well and is now tumor-free.

We want to protect her, but as soon as the puppy met her, she immediately tried to nurse. We had to stop this behavior right away. Despite being well-fed and not needing milk, the puppy constantly—absolutely persistently—tries to nurse from my older dog. Keeping them separated while still in the same area has been extremely exhausting.

Will the puppy eventually grow out of this behavior? My older dog seems frightened by the situation, and I’m concerned about how this is affecting her.

Hi Reddit!

We are due to get our puppy in four weeks. We are both first time dog owners so, to ensure we are fully prepared, I have been putting together a list of things we need to get - which feels VERY overwhelming.

I have been researching for all of these items in the last couple of days and some seem so insanely expensive - should I be spending nearly £200 on a crate which the puppy will outgrow?! Could someone please tell me what we must ensure we have - and provide any links if possible?

Thank you in advance!

Hiya! So, I have a six month old puppy, as the title says.

Is this too late to socialize? She has met one stranger dog and was scared out of her socks, but she also has three adult dogs in the house with her and a cat. Will that help with future socialization?

How can I fix dog-dog resource guarding?

She also has an issue with biting our other dogs/humans when they go out of her leash range and come back in. How can I fix this?

Is this too late to teach bite inhibition? I was.. rather inconsistent at first due to being new to puppy owning (I'm a minor, wasn't even my decision to get the dog don't come at me lol)

Hi! I got lucky enough to adopt a lil lady on Friday :) She was found by a couple of college boys and wasn’t chipped, nor did anyone claim her. The boys loved her so much, but judging from her behavior, she didn’t have many rules at their house for the week she was there. She’s 4 months old and h a t e s her crate. I know it’s supposed to be slow going, but there are times I need her to be in there due to my job, etc. I’ve been feeding her in there and have been trying to make it fun. However, she’s a chewer and we’ve already had 1 ER visit from eating what she wasn’t supposed to, so no more toys or anything in the crate. I also read that she should have some time in there throughout the day so bedtime isn’t jarring. But rn she is going crazy in there, and my nerves are pretty shot. Any advice would be happily received! Please help a first time mama out :)

We are having issues with our 6 month old English Cream golden retriever puppy consistently eating his poop. Aside from consistently following him out to clean it up right away, does anyone have ideas on how to get them to stop? Also, this has nothing to do with him not getting enough to eat? I feel like it’s instinctual since he gets 2.5 cups a day. I’ve had Golden’s before and they have done this but I don’t think it’s gone through 6 months. SOS!🆘

my family and i got a mini golden doodle puppy 2.5 weeks ago. he’s 10.5 weeks old. the first couple nights with him were pretty terrible. he didn’t like his crate and would bark all night long. we got a snuggle puppy for him, but he just tried ripping it up. then we discovered that “shushing” him works wonders. we ended up buying a machine that will “shush” him all night long. when putting him in his crate, we have to sit there for a few minutes before he falls asleep. otherwise he’ll start barking like crazy. we have a blanket over his crate, but he can hear us moving. he’s definitely gotten better, and our bed time schedule typically looks something like this:

• put him down between 9-9:30
• he wakes up for his first potty break between 11:30-1am
• he wakes up for his second potty break between 3-5:30am
• he wakes up between 6-7:30am for the day

the second potty break and his wake up are where issues arise. we do our potty breaks in shifts. i stay up until 1, waiting for his first break. my mom is on duty for the second shift. then my sister is awake for his wake up. my mom and sister really struggle to get him to go back to bed for their shifts/get him to calm down and we’re struggling to understand why.

night potty breaks are boring. we don’t speak to him, don’t pet him, don’t make any noise or turn any lights on. it’s simply pick him up, take him outside, and immediately back to his crate. this works great for me. i can sit by his crate for no more than 15-20 mins and he’s out. for my mom, she sits by his crate for 30-45 minutes at a time. we’ve gone over what we each do and see if there’s any differences, and there don’t appear to be any. everytime she tries to sneak away, he’ll hear her and start barking.

as for my sister, if he wakes up between 6-7, he won’t go down for a nap until 10:30-11, no matter how hard she or anyone else tries. i know he just slept for a long time in the middle of the night, but everything i’ve read says puppies need 18-20 hours of sleep a day. he is NOT getting that much. i told my family we should strive for at least 14, and have started doing enforced naps as of a week ago. these work out decently well, but he’s still not getting 14 hours. i read that for enforced naps, you should do one hour up, two hours down. for him, he’ll do one hour up, one hour down. he doesn’t sleep longer than an hour and a half for these middle of the day enforced naps. i know he’s tired. he’s biting, acting crazy, and yawns a lot, but he refuses to calm down to sleep. we don’t play with him when it’s time for a nap, we speak to him calmly, and try to create a calm environment so he can chill and nap.

with this said, how can we get him to sleep during the second shift and in the morning when he’s been awake for hours but clearly needs a nap? we know he’s tired and it’s obvious in his behaviors, but we just can’t get him to calm down for the life of us. it’s frustrating, and we don’t want to stress him out because we’re frustrated but we don’t know what to do. i would appreciate any advice that you have to give!

Hi everyone! Does anyone have any good resources or recommendations for how to get a 10 week old puppy to use the inside potty tray? I’ve had her for 2 days, but that’s what the breeder was using to housetrain the puppy. So far, it’s been a game of putting the puppy on the tray and having her run off to bathroom somewhere else. I reward her for the few and far in-between times she actually does use the tray, but I feel like we’re going backwards.

I have a 4 month old Pitbull mix (I think Pitbull Lab mix but not entirely sure) that doesn’t like to walk past our front lawn or go far from the house when I walk him by myself. If I am with someone else like my partner or family member he feels less scared as they walk in front and he follows or goes to them if they call him. I want to try to bring treats to lure him further away from the house but I don’t know if that will create bad habits.

Please help!

Also, we hook his leash to his harness rather than collar.

I got my now 9 week old puppy 7 days ago and my puppy blues are so bad. I feel guilty about this because while I’m soo stressed she’s a very good girl. She already knows how to sit, shake, lay down, and twirl. She’s only had one accident in the house despite me having to leave her home while I work and have people stop in intermittently to let her outside. And she sleeps in her crate at bed time after only a minute or two of fussing. Last month I had to put down my soul dog due to severe medical issues at only 5 years old. I brought my new baby home and I know it will be okay and I fully believe in her but I’m struggling to believe in myself. Please give me advice and reassurance that we can do this. The adjustment has been so bad that the anxiety has made me physically ill I’ve vomited every day this week just so stressed and sad rn

Dear community, I just got a puppy from one of close friends of mine. I am inexperienced in potty training for puppies. I would like you kind assistance in this matter.

I have a 7 month old mixed breed I’ve had for almost three months. For a while she had stopped biting and now has gone back to it, it seems worse than before. She is biting hard enough to leave marks, I’ve noticed she tends to do it more when she is bored, anxious or excited but sometimes if I’m just laying down she will bite me. Any tips to get her to stop? She does not respond to scolding or when I tell her no, which has been very frustrating (and painful). When I previously asked a trainer about it she just told me to make sure all of her needs were being met to decrease her tendencies to bite but this hasn’t been a totally effective solution

Does anyone have experience adopting an older puppy from its previous home? I recently adopted a 4.5 month old puppy from a family who had gotten him from a breeder at 3 months. Unfortunately, they could not take care of him and had to move suddenly so they put him up for adoption.

Does anyone have any advice for adapting for the puppy and/or myself? I can tell he still looks around for his previous family and it’s absolutely heartbreaking. I try distracting him and it mostly works, but is this just a phase he will have to go through? On walks he will sometimes aimlessly look behind him.

Really just looking for some motivation/help/it-will-be-over-soon support from anyone who has been in a similar situation. It’s made all the puppy behaviour harder to adjust to because I feel bad for taking him away.

Thanks in advance!

And yes I've read many of the others threads and saw all of the most common suggestions, unfortunately my girl is a PITA & doesn't like any chews (and trust I've tried ALL of them), Trazadone does nothing to her and she won't have anything to do with any enrichment toys or activities ever (snuffle mats, puzzle toys, throwing food in the grass, etc.) Literally all she wants is to dude play ball, go swimming, go to the beach or go hiking. None of which work with healing stitches. Plz help before we both lose our minds 😅

My 6 month old Bichon puppy has recently developed a new expression - she looks at me and then pulls her upper lip back to show her teeth as though in a snarl, but her body language is relaxed and she's sometimes calmly approaching me while doing it. It might be in situations when she wakes up from a nap, comes in from being outside, or even is just lying down while I'm sitting across the room from her. She doesn't back away from pets, she takes treats, no barking or growling etc. The rest of her body language is fully relaxed. Everything I've read to try figure out what this is tells me it's a stress signal or a sign of anxiety but the situations and the rest of her body language doesn't seem to match up to that - is it a signal her teeth are hurting her or is it something else? I just want to make sure she's not actually anxious about something I can't see!

I have a 4mo 3wk old mini schnauzer puppy. He has toys of every different type, soft and fuzzy, rubbery, soft fabric, thicker fabric, tennis balls, wuffle mats, etc. The guy has NO interest on chewing on any of them. If he’s chewing on something we don’t like, we try to redirect him to a toy and he takes it for maybe .05 seconds and then is right back to whatever he had before. We have moved most things we don’t want him to have out of reach, but then he starts in on things like our clothes, our blankets we are using on the couch, one of our cats tail, etc. He has edible puppy teething sticks (N Bone brand) that he takes okay, but still rarely chews a whole stick before he’s back onto something unauthorized. We’ve also tried carrots (regular and frozen) but he’s not into them. I think he’s getting plenty of mental stimulation, we do lots of training in short bursts throughout the day, and we live in an apartment so any outside time is pretty stimulating. He also gets his food in a slow feeder, and a snack/meal in a puzzle feeder or wuffle mat every day. He is crate/play pen trained, and we are doing enforced naps in one or the other every hour or two.

Any suggestions for either longer lasting edible chews or a toy that may really tickle him? My last schnauzer wasn’t much of a toy guy either, but I got him when he was 2 so never had to work through this stage.

Our little fellow turned 14 weeks on Friday and we have had him for 7 weeks now. We have been going to puppy class and there is no doubt he is worst puppy in class. He is a beagle and schnauzer mix and just a delightful puppy all around but his ability to focus when there is anything else around is awful. He loves his crate and will go to bed at night. Yesterday we had to leave him for a little longer than normal and he didn’t even have an accident in his pen. We work with him every day and he loves to learn. He is so full of energy it seems like progress is slow and he is extremely bitey towards me. Yesterday I was googling is my puppy ever going to calm down. This morning when I went to let him out of his crate he was so snuggly and wanted pets and to be held. After breakfast I decided to work on stay with him, we have two more weeks of puppy class and I’m afraid he’s going to fail because stay is not in his vocabulary, but this morning he got it! He also let me put him on the couch and I treated him when he was calm and he actually stayed on the couch quietly while I walked to the kitchen to get more treats. I feel like we have turned a corner today and I’m so grateful for it.

I had heard of sleep regression in human babies but i have no other word for what’s gonna on with my 5 month old goldendoodle. Looking for some advice on how to get her through it without setting her back.

From when she was 2 months old and came home, she has slept through the night (7-8hours) with no problem in her crate. Crate is in our bedroom. Black wire crate, with only a blanket, dog bed, and one soft toy inside. We have always had it covered at night with a blanket (draped over top, sides, and back) to make her feel a little more enclosed.

In the past week (she is just now 5months old) she is waking up and rattling her cage door all throughout the night like she would if it were morning to let us know she is awake. Its hard to ignore her, but even if we get up and take her put she’s back at it 2 hrs later. We tried putting water in her crate in case she’s been thirsty, and now she drinks it all and then genuinely does need to pee in the middle of the night.

Any advice? Do we just need to ignore her when she starts rattling around? Keep the water? Ditch the water?

Needing reassurance! We took our 8 week old puppy home yesterday and WOW I am just shocked at how hard the night was. I did get her to sleep in her crate 11-5 but she whines/escalated to howling every 30min-1hour. I would let her whine for 3-5 minutes but if it escalated I took her out to try and pee (nothing all night) then gave her some love and put her back in the crate. I slept next to her crate on the floor until she settles herself then went to bed to try to get some rest.

I will say on a positive note I was consistent with the routine of putting her back in her crate all night and she settled down faster to sleep each time. And then peed outside at 5!

I'm just.... Exhausted and didn't realize it would be this hard. And I know it was just the first night and she's SO little. I have 3 kids (5, 5 & 8) and they are doing great with her. They day with her was AWESOME, if I could just figure out how to crack night sleep I think I can do this. I'm medicated for anxiety and I just feel like this could really cause a spiral 🫠 I just need people to tell me how hard the first few days were but then it got better, please!

Hey everyone, we have a 14 week old boxer who was being trained to potty on towels up to week 8, then we trained him on pads/towels to week 12 (when he got his 3rd shot). Now we're trying to transition him to outside (we realize puppy pads have made this more difficult but wanted to mitigate the parvo risk).

We've pretty much removed the pads cold turkey and have been very attentive to take him out in intervals, after sleeping, playing, drinking, etc. We also got all the carpets and rugs cleaned and now limit his access to a smaller hardwood area to basically reset the house training process.

Currently, at 14 weeks, he's showing improvement and is going outside in specific scenarios where he knows he's getting high value treat but I'm requesting guidance on how to best transition him to the mindset of "anywhere inside is bad, anywhere outside is good."

Some additional context:

1) We keep him on the 2nd floor of a townhouse and have bells set up so he can let us know when he wants to go out but training him on the bells is challenging because he's always playing with them or we're bumping into them so I don't think he's making a connection that they mean anything.

2) We take him to a specific part of our backyard to pee, we say go potty, and he goes like clockwork. We give him high value treats there. However, when I take him for a walk, he holds his pee the entire time and won't go until he's back at that spot in our backyard. He has pooped a few times on the walk and I praise him with the treats but he seems to be treating pooping and peeing differently.

3) The few times we've lost focus, he pees on the hardwood in the same location which is closest to where he used to use the pads in the adjacent room (this is also where the bells are location).

I know this is a lot of detail but generally just looking for any guidance on helping him make that switch while also dealing with the challenges of a townhouse. We also realize this could take a long time after the puppy pad setback but we just want to make sure we're not headed down any wrong paths.

Thanks!

Just wanted to share that my boy has FINALLY started to lose his baby teeth! And boy are they popping out faster than I thought!😳 but thank goodness cause the teething has definitely been ROUGH so we’re getting close to the end!🙌