I have two dogs… a senior terrier mix and a large 1 year old puppy mix. They’re both generally good dogs and well behaved. Both are housebroken (mostly). They both are kennel trained but only the puppy spends time in hers. The senior can be trusted when I’m gone and at night.

The problem I’m having is that they are driving my crazy to put it simply. In the evenings they both just stare at me for hours. It’s as if they want something. So I make sure to feed them on a regular schedule, make sure they have plenty of water and take them out regularly for potty breaks. Yet the staring and begging continues. It’s incredibly annoying. I love them both like crazy but they’re driving me nuts. Sometimes I have to just put the big one in her kennel for a while and to put the senior in the other room. I feel guilty doing that but I don’t know what they want. As far as I can tell all their needs are met.

Does anyone else go through this? What do you do?

To give some backstory, this is my boyfriend’s dog. He is a border collie mix of some sort and is a little special. My bf has told me he has trouble learning things and takes a while to grasp them. He also doesn’t understand personal space at all. He doesn’t lick like a normal dog, he just plows his head into and rubs into you pretty strongly. He is a cute dog, but he likes me WAY too much. I like dogs, but am not a dog person and have been around his three for about two months or so. When I get to his place I pet them, say hi, and kinda keep to myself, or I would, but the one is very persistent in trying to get my attention. This is despite trying to reprimand him and reward him when he backs off. Slowly it is getting worse to the point where I can’t pet him without the dog peeing himself or pulling out his ‘lipstick.’ He tries to get attention nearly every five minutes. He has even tried to jump over the back of the couch to get around my bf and to me when I tried to ignore him. If we shoo him away from one side of the couch, he circles around to the other to try again. He tries his face in my crotch and his ‘obsession’ of sorts is beginning to make me uncomfortable. Saying ‘no’ and being stern has had little to no effect. When I am at my bf’s place alone I have resorted to shutting myself into his room to get some peace. My bf says he isn’t like this with other women that have been around, like his sisters, and I am struggling to understand the dog or how to handle him. I know he has no ill will, he is a dog, but I don’t like being harassed whenever I am over. Can anyone help me understand what might be going on or what I could do to help my bf? I have tried cbd treats when over and it did nothing.

Posting here for a friend who doesn’t have Reddit and is having some issues with their cat. She’s a one year old cat who was found at about 3 days old, adopted out to my friend at about 2 months old. She was raised with dogs in the house prior to my friend adopting her. In the beginning she seemed very sweet and cuddly, but after about a month, she became much less affectionate.

Currently the issue is that, during morning and evening feeding time, the cat will start to eat, ask to be pet and purr while eating, then suddenly leave the room to seek out one of the dogs to attack him. She refuses to eat without being pet and/or unless someone is sitting with her to encourage her to eat. She will also refuse to finish eating until she has gone out of her way to go attack the dog mid-meal. Her food is up on a desk that neither of the dogs can reach, so it doesn’t seem like a resource guarding issue. He’s in a completely separate room when they eat.

The dog she attacks is a small senior, doesn’t bark, poses no threat whatsoever to her and leaves her alone, so there is seemingly no reason for her to go attack him. He is very timid, submissive, and avoids her at all costs because of the way she goes after him. There is another small senior dog of the same size in the house that she doesn’t attack or even try to go after.

Tonight my friend noticed what the pattern has been and shut the door so that the cat couldn’t go after the dog. The cat instead went and attacked my friend because she couldn’t get out of the room to go after the dog.

Looking for any suggestions on what could cause this behavior and/or recommendations on how to stop the behavior. She is a healthy cat who has been examined by a vet, so it doesn’t seem like a medical issue.

Firstly I want to mention I am planning to make a vet appointment to have her checked out, but wanted to post here in the meantime.

I have a 7-year-old mixed breed dog, she is about 65 lbs and we understand her mix to include American Staffordshire, Australian Cattledog, Bullmastiff, Shepherd, and Lab. She is an absolute joy and the heart of our family. She was a rescue and has always been quite attached to us, somewhat uneasy with others, and has retained some fears since her early days on the streets, like a fear of things with long handles (ie rakes, shovels). :( But we baby her and she is a member of the family - she is stubborn, hilarious, loving, loyal and expressive. She has never been highly playful, but does love a good chew toy. Generally very food-motivated.

In the last 6 weeks or so, we've observed some behavior changes. They started with one night when she appeared to not be feeling well - she was panting a bit and restless. That night she slept on her dog bed downstairs rather than with my partner and me, but the next day she seemed entirely fine. Since then, though, we've noticed she has been a bit different in a few small ways.

- She will typically go up to bed with us, but will leave us to sleep downstairs on her dog bed for the first few hours of the night and will join us later, around midnight. We've joked she's being a teenager by staying up late, but until now she has always stayed with us through the night and has never not slept on our bed.

- She no longer wants to go outside without us. We have a fenced yard and she has always been known for wanting to spend hours outside, typically sprawled on the grass watching birds and sniffing the air. Now she does not ask to go out and will not go if we encourage her to, unless we are also outside.

- She seems somehow more attached to us. Whereas she has always generally wanted to be wherever we are, now she seems to stick to me especially like glue. As soon as I move around she's at my heel to make sure she goes wherever I go.

Her appetite is strong, she still loves walks - her favorite thing - and seems energetic and spritely on walks. She seems to get enough water and begs for treats. Despite her attachment, she does not appear to have separation anxiety; when we are leaving the house she calmly retires to her dog bed and seems comfortable with us being away for short periods. She does not have any incontinence issues and does not limp or show any signs of pain.

So what do you think? Are these just natural behavior changes associated with age? Have you experienced anything along these lines and do you think it should be cause for concern?

Help! My 3year old Rottie just started growling and snapping at me when I pet her. (We’ve had her since a puppy). It started the other day, I first thought she had a sensitive spot, but now doesn’t matter where I pet her now, she continues to do this. She does with my daughter but does not do it to my husband. The weird thing is, i don’t go up to her and bother her, she comes to me acting like she wants love like normal, puts her head on my lap and then does it if I pet her. I hate ignoring her now. She is acting normal otherwise, follows me around and lays at my feet. Any ideas on why she would randomly start doing this!?

I have a 10 yesr old border collie dog. I am currently on a hybrid setup, where I report to office every Monday and Friday. So every Sunday and Thursday night, my dogs keeps bothering me and wont sleep. She cries too. She just stops when I pet her and get up on bed. Weird is on monday-wednesday & fri-sat nights, she is fine, she sleeps smooth. It always happens when I will leave for work the next day.

Anyone knows why is she like this? And what should I do? Thank you!

This is Max(ine). We’ve had her for about 12-13 years and the shelter said she was 1-2 when we adopted her.

She used to be a vacuum cleaner. We had to get one of those bowls with the obstacles in it to slow her down because we were afraid she’d inhale her food too fast and choke.

As she’s gotten older she’s started doing this. She takes a few bits of food at a time out of her bowl and puts them on the floor then she eats them there, then repeats.

Sometimes she’ll take them a few paces away where there’s a rug. But usually she just stays here.

Type of food doesn’t matter (dry kibble, soft or wet - though things got messy when she would take mouthfuls of wet food to the rug, and she seems to like when I give her soft food with just a little dry kibble in it).

Also tried using a larger bowl a couple times, I’ve only heard of whisker fatigue in relation to cats but you never know. No difference.

(Apologies in advance for any ignorance, I've never owned a cat before but I really want to help.)

Hi Reddit, so I'm in a long distance relationship and my partner is having a bit of a problem and kinda needs advice.

So my partner, K (21F) has an adult cat, Patches (10F) who she found a few years ago on her property. This cat is extremely dear to us, and the feeling is mutual.

Recently, K found an abandoned kitten, Lupin (M) on her property and has been taking care of him until he can be re-homed. The issue with this is that Patches seems to hate Lupin. She ran away from home the first day he was there and didn't come back til at least 24 hours later, to which she then avoided my partner anytime Lupin was around.

Today she was willing to be in the same room with Lupin, but she was very aggressive and actually left a pretty deep scratch in-between K's fingers.

K seems to be struggling with this whole situation and I want to help, but I've never had a pet cat so I'm completely stumped on how to help.

Any advice on how to get these two to co-exist?

Hi, I'm looking for any advice that people may have with border collie herding behaviour?

My family and I rescued a nearly 2 year old male border collie a couple of weeks ago.(We've had a collie in the past so are not new to the breed) When he came to us he was very underweight as he was unwell and shy/nervous but very quickly warmed up to us. Within 2-3 days he had the biggest transformation, was a complete cuddle bug, gentle and affectionate as well as being super easy and fun to train.

He met a couple of people and seemed to be okay with it however, about 2 weeks in he started to get nervous and that turned to reactivity. He's started nipping at strangers heels when they come in the doorway, at first it was just mouthing and running away but recently he properly bit a friends heel.(only seemingly reactive when people walk in the door as on walks/in public he hasn't a care for other people/animals/distractions)

I don't know what to do as we talked to the vet who said that it's a breed behaviour (which we knew before) but that it's only going to get worse and we should just think about rehoming him already. I've read about introducing them to people through first having him in a crate and we have bought a muzzle for him per the vets recommendations.

I was wondering if anyone would have any advice or recommendations from experience before? Can you train the nipping behaviour out of them? Any ideas if it is a territorial, boundary thing? Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated 🙏🙏

A few months ago my mom purchased a White German shepherd and he's always hiding, eating/drinking only when nobody is around, and is jumpy to every sound near him. My mom is tired of him doing his business in her room and wants him to go outside but he refuses to move anywhere outside of his kennel. I don't want to force him out. How can I build trust with him?

We rescued a Japanese spitz (5 year old) last November and been a part of the family ever since. She was rehomed due to her previous owners not having enough time to care for her, and she's been a cuddly ball of fluff since. No issues with potty or eating at all since the beginning of time.

The only issue we have is that she seem to only communicate through barking excessively. We have another Japanese spitz (resident doggo, 3 yrs old) that we got as an 8 week old pup and he doesn't bark as much, only when he gets startled, playing or when someone is at the door, plus he stops when we say "quiet" or stop. Meanwhile she (rescue) always barks.

We've been working on her commands (with sternful ways of doing it) but she doesn't seem to improve at all. Its not an immediate issue at the moment as we can tolerate it, thankfully our neighbours haven't complained either, but I'm wary now as I am currently pregnant but will never ever consider rehoming her.

Just worried that it's not going to get better and my future baby (and future self) will have regular disrupted sleep everyday. Do you have any tips on how to handle or better train your furbaby to be quiet on command?

She used to love being outside.. sometimes would just sit out there and look into the distance or just lay down next to the door... ... recently I put a cone on her due to her chewing from allergies. she was still going outside for the first week or so. but now she'll go to the door but she wants to go outside, I open the sliding glass door, and as soon as the door opens, she packs away after looking outside like she spooked. but she'll be totally ok going on walks. i even tried going outside with her and she was VERY cautious and hesitant. i did get her to go out on a harness... but it took a little pulling and she peed, to which i praised her and gave her a treat. id rather not have to wake up an extra 45 min than i already do to take her for an AM walk, but i will cause i love her... but i have a house with a fenced in yard just for her lol.

anyone have any ideas on how to get her back to loving the freedom to run around?

I really don’t know where else to post this but we got my puppy when she was 6 months old from the shelter and slowly introduced her to our 6 year old cat and they got along fine and were cuddle buddies and didn’t really play fight which I was worried about. Now she is a little over a year old and has tried to bite our cat multiple times and tries to chase her. We have resorted to separating them by floors with the cat upstairs and the dog on the main floor but we would like our pets to be friendly again. My husband and I both work hybrid with alternating days and the dog gets walked multiple times a day and has a backyard to play in. We try to spend time with both the pets and work off some of the energy but even when tired the dog will still chase after the cat.

What caused the sudden change in behavior and how do we work on it? Note we are not giving up either pets and will keep them separated by floors if we have too but my husband and I would prefer a more concrete solution.

i always find little toys or small pillows carried around the house and its definitely my cat playing with them but ive never actually seen him do this and ive only seen him carrying stuff in his mouth a couple times. he only does it when we're not looking!! why is he shy or secretive? could it be an anxiety thing? i dont really know how to tell him its okay since i cant encourage him lol

It's the best way I can describe his behaviour. He keeps biting different parts of my arm. My wrist, hand, fingers or any part of it. Then when he bites it he holds it and starts licking at it, before letting go and trying a different spot. When I nudge him off or pull him away (the bites can be quite strong and painful) he makes a sad noise and instantly lunges after it. I finally managed to stop him by hiding under my blanket and he jumled to the water, drinking a lot of it.

I really dont know what this behaviour means and it's worrying me a bit

We recently adopted a 2-year-old German Shepard from a rescue. Before we took him home he went to the vet and was neutered. Once we got him home he was loving his new backyard and pranced around the entire yard and seemed to love his big yard. He loves to be pet and just loves being near us. 2 days ago he suddenly won't leave the patio in the backyard. I took him for a walk and he will walk in the grass and if I take him on the leash in the front yard he has no problems. But if I try to use the leash in the backyard he just wants to go back on the patio or sit by the door. One of us our always out there with him and didn't notice anything startle him or that might have hurt him at all. How can I find out what the issue is without making it worse?

Hi yall,

me and my roomate do not know what to do about our two new cats, they hate each other so much and we're both afraid that they will never get along. My cat is a 3 year old male tabby and my roomates in a 5 year female Devon rex / sphinx cross. The tabby is probably about double the size of the devon rex, so were afraid that she is going to get hurt.

We did the whole thung of keeping them seperate and letting them both explore the house individually and on their own time. We kept them completely seperate for a week and then introduced them visually to one another. Eventually we let them both walk around while supervised, but everytime the devon rex tries to move anywhere, the tabby runs up on her and attacks her. We try to let them out as much as possible around one another, but everytime it ends up in the tabby trying to attack the little one. The tabby also always tries to go into the devon rexs room to eat all her food and do who knows what. Its been a month now of the same shit and we both do not know what to do. I ordered the phermone thing that plugs into the wall to try to keep them both calm, but that also doesnt seem to do anything.

if you have any tips on what to do, wether that be how to discipline the male when he is acting aggressive or how to redirect his mean feeling about his new sister. we are at a loss, please help!

This dog keeps on pinning down cats and kittens by the neck and dragging them across the ground. I'm fairly certain it killed a ginger kitten although my brother said the cat was hit by a car but someone it ended up in the ditch 10ft away. I don't really believe it I'm fairly certain it killed the kitten. It breaks my heart to see this happen to such beautiful little animals. It also chased off about 6 of the cats in the space of a few months. The kittens were tiny and malnourished too.

Hello! I have a weird (benign) behavior I wanted to ask about for curiosity's sake, as I just think it's kinda funny. Basically, my sister's dog eats very leisurely over the course of hours—UNLESS I am in the room. Then she eats at a normal speed (not too fast).

My mom has been a dog trainer for 40+ years, so I've grown up with an above average knowledge base on dog behavior, but I really can't logic this one out. It'd make sense if she was MY dog, I think, but I'm easily the least "dog person" in our 3 person household (me + sister + mom), spend the least amount of time interacting with them, etc, so it just surprises me that I'm the one that motivates her to eat? My mom and sister have even tried hand-feeding her, and she's just not interested in more than a few kibbles unless I'm there.

In case it helps: my sister's dog is a 1 year old female poodle/golden retriever mix (about 70% poodle). Not spayed, and the phenomenon has been going on about as long as we've had her (10 months). She LOVES all of us, including me, and gets super excited to see me whenever I emerge from my room after work or for breaks. She even picks up her kibbles and shows them to me before eating them, just like her toys. (Well, minus the eating, obviously.)

I don't think it's a bad thing, she's not too skinny and still eats most of her food, just much slower. I was just curious if anyone has ideas on why a dog might do this? Thanks!

I have an 8 year old female chihuahua mix, who is non-aggressive. (Leia)

A few months ago, my son found an abandoned kitten in our driveway. The kitten was only about 4 weeks old, and he needed to be nursed back to health. He was dehydrated and too young to be off milk. We named him Pete.

Leia took to Pete pretty much right away, and they snuggled and played all day.... until just a couple of days ago. I didn't see this happen, but according to my son Leia & Pete had a big fight. Pete was so scared he sprayed all over & pooped too.

Leia is currently in heat, and I had caught her trying to hump Pete a few times before. Could this be what traumatized Pete?

Now Pete freaks out whenever he sees Leia. Leia doesn't know any better and keeps trying to approach him.

We have been keeping them in separate rooms since the big scuffle, but this can't go on forever.

Does anyone have any advice on how to get Pete to be friends with Leia again? I don't want to keep either of them locked up in bedrooms all day everyday.

Additional information: neither pet is fixed. Pete has his appointment scheduled for the first week of September. Leia will have a much longer wait, as the clinic doesn't have any availability for dogs until December.

I would very much appreciate any tips you can give me on how to bring peace back to my critter children.

We had 2 female dogs and 2 male dogs. 1 female was extremely attached to one of our males. Inseparable. This female and male are both 8yesrs old. We have another female( 3yrs) who was typically just a relaxed dog, but over the past few days has been more around the one 8yr old male. The older female over the past couple days has seemed sad, but no other signs of anything and we’ve been trying to see what’s going on. Today, I left for work at 0700, and at 0800 I got a call from my husband that the older female killed the younger female and the only reason I can think of is because of her being insecure about her position in the pack feelin threatened. My question is, what do we do next. We have 2 young children, and if it’s because of attention, next she could go after my children. Do we rehome her? Do we euthanize her? I need some type advice. I know no one can make this decision but us but frankly I’m devastated about one dog. My children don’t know she’s gone yet, and not knowing if they may need to say goodbye to the other dog that they love I’m not sure my heart can handle a blind decision with no kind of input.

Hi, I'm Ash. I have problems with my back and what seems to do best to relieve it is bengay. I just put some on and I went to pick up my cat and she flipped out and isn't coming near me. Is there a psychological reason my cats acting this way. Is it the smell. She now comeing up to me giving me a wiff but seems oddly skittish. This isn't normal. I'm just curious why my is like this.

I have three dogs but there are 5 dogs in total. My "puppy" is 2 and is like 75 pounds no bigger then a heeler and my chihuahua are having issues. They get a long pretty well the chihuahua is kind territorial like hell growl when he's laying down if any of the dogs come near him but other wise he plays well with them and he especially loves when the big dogs play tug of war with him. Unfortunately whenever my puppy becomes agitated when people come downstairs or enter the house he attacks my chihuahua never any of the other dogs just him my chihuahua also becomes agitated by these things so I don't know if the puppy attacks him because he's also barking but my roommates dogs also bark and he doesn't go after them either I really don't know what to do and am becoming nervous for my chihuahuas health. We've had the chihuahua since 2017 and the puppy since 2022