Hi all,

My puppy is getting spayed next week. She is nearly 10 months old and has struggled with phantom pregnancy after her first heat a few months ago. So for her own good she really needs to get done.

I tend to bad anxiety and overthinking and researching anything. Aside of the very obvious fears I have over putting her through surgery, I have read somewhere on reddit about complete character changes after spay and them developing reactivity and separation anxiety. I am terrified now. She already suffers from mild/moderate sep. anxiety and I am working with a behaviourist on those.

I guess I am after positive stories and smoothless recovery stories to put my mind at ease a bit!

Thanks :)

We went to the vet today to get a spay consult and one of the questions we asked was about her poop since we brought it up at a previous visit and all tests for worms or anything else was clear. She's also been taking her simparica trio every month.

The last visit the vet said to keep an eye on it but because it wasn't happening that often, it should be ok. Cue this visit, I had a few more pictures for her and she said the pictures combined matched up with our pup having difficulty digesting something and that it was likely the grass she would eat. She was trouble with consistently eating her puppy food, but funnily enough as we're transitioning her to adult food (same brand, same flavor mind you) she's actually been loving it. I suppose it helps that we started realizing she liked to eat her meals exclusively after exercising intensely/playing hard for a while.

Which, what the vet says matches up to around when our dog got better about stopping eating grass. Her eating habits and the odd poo worried us for months but the vet confirmed she's got good muscle and is at a decent weight for her size/age. I'm glad things sorted themselves out eventually and now our next step is her spay in January! Our little girl is moving on and growing up

Hi, i rescued 2 dumped rat terriers, who are about 6 months old now. I live in an apartment complex & they are terrified of EVERYTHING. Every time i take them outside to go potty, theyll pee but take forever to poop. Mostly because they will bark at literally anyone who comes out of their apartment. Really loudly and non-stop, until they either go back inside or are out of sight. I cant take them outside if theres anyone else walking their dog. If theres a new object outside theyll bark at that too. Theyll spend 20 minutes barking at people and well go back inside and theyll poop on the floor bc they didnt go outside. Idk what to do 😭 its driving me insane. They have recently started barking inside too, every time they see anyone outside of the window. I try to introduce them to anyone i can and they bark and pull backwards on the leash until the person pets them for a while and they realize they are nice and stop barking. They love people. If we arent in our apartment complex they wont bark at people, they are great and well behaved when i take them out place. What is wrong with them??

Hi. I have a six month old puppy, a Havanese, and I'm...really having a hard time with potty training. She sleeps overnight just fine without having any accidents, and she can hold it for three hours when she's in her crate and awake or napping, but as soon as she's NOT in her crate, it's like she thinks the world is a free pee space and she can just go anywhere anytime she wants. I feel like I can't even look away for fifteen minutes without her peeing on the floor (currently intermittently checking on her as I write this, in fact!). I have to take her out every hour at least, sometimes more, and to top it all off I can't seem to teach her how to signal when she needs to go--if I don't catch any indicators that she needs to pee (sniffing, circling, etc.), she just goes on the floor, and sometimes she doesn't even seem to indicate she needs to go at all, she just kind of...does it. I have her on a schedule for going potty and she's even learned the command 'go potty', but even that doesn't seem to be curbing the problem. I'm at a bit of a loss for what the problem is and how to fix it.

I have a GSD X Lab. He is 12 weeks and is starting puppy classes tomorrow.

Is there any hints or advice for making this a smoother journey. He is very boisterous with our smaller older dogs as well as his LabX Husky friend who is 2 weeks younger than him and she is definitely smaller. And quite barky at other dogs he does not know.

I am a first time dog owner. I adopted a 6 month old border collie mix from a shelter on Sunday. She was being fostered in a home with 9 dogs. When we adopted her on Sunday and had her on Monday and Tuesday in our house, she was the most loving social butterfly. On Wednesday she suddenly shifted and absolutely HATES her harness. She is crate trained but not fully house broken. We started noticing that she would go to her crate on her own and not leave the crate when I wanted to take her on walks or out to potty. We had the crate/pen set up upstairs near our bedrooms but just recently moved her downstairs because at some point we had to carry her down the stairs to go for a walk, because she refused to put on her harness or move when I pulled the leash. She wouldn’t come downstairs for food or water when we had the crate upstairs so we brought food and water to her and she would drink plenty of water and eat normally. The harness is an over the head harness, but she did not have a problem with it initially, I don’t know what happened. When I took her on walks initially, she would even run with me sometimes, but after her behavior shifted, she kinda just walks along side me and does not run at all, which is weird for a border collie mix because I thought they had endless energy? When we leave her alone in her pen, sometimes she destroys pee pads and anything she can find. What’s odd is that we left the door open to her pen so she could leave if she wanted to and she did not budge. I’m at my wits end because it kills me to see her quiet and withdrawn. I want to maintain some level of routine but I don’t want to force her to do things and I don’t know why she’s suddenly withdrawn. I also want to note that I am at school on Monday-Thursday from 10/11am until 6/7pm but she’s not alone at home, my family is home with her. My parents try to do things to help her but she doesn’t respond. Please help me and please give me grace, I’m a first time dog owner and I’m learning.

me and my partner have recently adopted a puppy, and everything has been amazing so far! our pup is now 6 months old and only has the occasional wee accident once in a while, as we’ve gotten pretty good at potty training.

if he does have an accident, it only happens if he’s alone for a longer period of time. we’ve learnt to notice the signs when he needs to go and takes him out immediately and it all seemed like it was gonna be a smooth ride from then.

that was until he started to wee on the carpet in our bedroom, in the middle of the night! i feel like we’ve tried everything from nappies and pee pads to taking him out later in the evening so he’ll last longer. but nothing seems to work.

we only recently started to let him into the bedroom to sleep with us, it’s probably been a month, and everything has been fine up until a week ago. at first we thought it was because of the daylight saving time, but it doesn’t explain why it happens at 3am. then we thought it was the relocation to the bedroom, but again, he didn’t have any problems in the beginning when we moved him.

it’s starting to get frustrating as we were doing so well with the potty training and now it feels like we’re going backwards. it doesn’t make it easier as it happens while we’re sleeping, so we can’t scold him/teach him it’s wrong to pee inside.

what can we do to make him stop?!

also the stains are very difficult to remove, we’ve tried a few different products, but the stains still remain. been thinking about getting the simple solution stain and odour remover (extreme version), which is recommended by our pup’s insurance. anyone has any experiences with that product?

Hello everyone. This past July my families dog passed away after 16 years. We all miss him. After a couple of months my mom started missing having a dog and looked at puppies online and found one she liked (house consists of my mom, dad, and me 27M if that matters). They ended up getting him and in general he’s been a good boy, some small bumps still in the road with potty training and general behaviors, but overall not bad except for one thing. When he is riled up he starts to want to snap and bite at us, especially my mom. We understand that he is a puppy and that he is still figuring out his surroundings, but it’s gotten pretty aggressive with him snapping at us and biting down hard. My mom especially has cuts all up her arms from him biting, as he seems to gravitate more towards her. We’ve looked up some things to try and stop it, like redirecting him, giving him toys, telling him no, and even occasionally pushing him off us. He even completed an obedience course at a pet store, but despite everything he still aggressively tries to bite us when we are just at home. My question is there anything we can do to get him to stop actually biting us? It’s causing concern in my family as my parents are trying to be understanding but getting sick of him breaking flesh. I looked up intensive behavioral classes around where we live but they were all expensive. Any advice would be appreciated.

Im planning to crate train my puppy... i noticed that some home crates are not very portable due to it's design to make it look more aesthically pleasing or to match the house theme.

Am I suppose to train my pup to get used to 2 different crates if I want one for house usage + one for portable purpose?

First time dog owner... Any advice would be helpful, thank you 😊

Hi everyone! I adopted a 14 week old (now 15wk) cavoodle 6 days ago and Ive been keeping a puppy log for his potty breaks. I have him crate trained and he's been rly good and sleeps in it at night and during the day. I have the crate opened into a playpen which has a puppy pad and his water throughout the whole day that I'm at work like 8am-5pm. I find that he pees in the morning at 7am and then doesn't pee the whole day until I get home at around 5. Is this concerning that hes holding it in for so long particularly cos he's only a puppy?

Prior to getting him, I did extensive research and read that puppies will go multiple times a day and I'll have to wake up during the night to take him potty but this hasn't happened even since night 1 as he is able to hold it the whole time. When I do get home he dribbles cos he's so excited and then does like 3 pees.

So is he holding it in till I get home cos he's more comfortable with me around when he potties? Is this a cause of concern and will it cause any health problems? Thanks!

Hello! I posted before about my newly adopted 6 month old female dog. She is VERY busy. Always sniffing around the house, not necessarily getting into things, but just Moving around nonstop, possibly prowling for the cats (we have 3). I have a couple of questions….she has only napped on her own out of the crate once….we usually keep her out of crate for 1.5-2.5 hours and then in the crate for 1-2 hours. She sleeps about 9.5 hours overnight without waking up. Should I try putting her in the crate less often to see if she eventually settles/naps out of the crate on her own? Or keep enforcing naps at this schedule? I feel she is getting enough mental/physical exercise but could this be a sign that she is not? One other thing I was wondering. Her foster said she “loves loves loves to cuddle.” She has not cuddle with us at all…maybe this means she still just settling in and feeling a bit overstimulated about the cats in the house? Or maybe she just doesn’t like us much yet :)

Cat question…one of the three cats has decided he’s not scared of her and is mostly spending his time out of hiding. So, she cares less about him and ignores him often but still sometimes tries to play. The other two cats are still quite scared and run from her…which makes her want to chase them, so she is always sniffing around for them. Any tips for this behavior?

Thank you!

I have a 9 week old who I’m working on crate training. Does anyone have an ideas for good crate games? I’ve been making him sleep in his crate at night, and he does good with that, but during the daytime he’s reluctant to go in his cage.

Like the title says, my mastiff puppy randomly starts jumping and biting when we are outside for potty breaks. Most of the time it is fine, he does his business and we go back in, but sometimes, usually when I have to pull him away from something or take something away from him he starts to bite the leash and then switches to my arms nipping and jumping leaving welts and some surface level scratches.

I don’t know what to do I’m so frustrated. He’s already 80lbs and is only going to get bigger I need it to stop. I can’t get his attention to stop. I have to pull him back inside the house where he is perfectly fine and acts like nothing happened

I’m constantly bleeding, I don’t have a single pair of pants that don’t have holes anymore. It’s so frustrating! I’ve had puppies before but none of them were like this.

I have tried holding still, redirecting, pushing away, positive reinforcement. Nothing works and it’s so aggravating, I have had it.

Is she going to grow out of this or should I be concerned?

Edit: it doesn’t matter if she’s had 10 hours of sleep or if she’s been playing or training, she goes right to biting.

I just want to preface this by saying that my husband and I had no idea that there was research involved in getting a puppy. We just knew we wanted a dog and we wanted a dog that would be loyal to us and we could mold into whatever we wanted, so we thought starting at puppy stage would be best. Sounds easy, right? Yea hell no. 😂 so some of this will of course be common sense to most of you.

-enforced crate naps are a life saver on the weekends when we are home all day with our Winnie girl. During the week she is in her crate while we are at work and I go home and let her out to potty and water and play with her and she goes back in her crate. She does very good in her crate and is learning to settle in it when we are not home.

-get the puppy cam. Idk if it’s more for her or for me (definitely me) but I am able to talk to her and calm her down and also it gave me so much peace of mind that she is okay in her crate and not freaking out all day since she still gets upset when we first leave

-have a poop log. We were having the WORST TIME getting her to poop outside because her “I’m gonna poop” tell is also her “I’m gonna lay down right here” and “I’m looking for that one piece of kibble that I dropped two hours ago when I was walking around and eating” and it was so frustrating. Now we know around when she usually poops. Now this isn’t always correct, but in the last few days the inside accidents have gone down DRASTICALLY and she really only poos inside if she is stressed (like she can’t see us and we have her in the xpen that she hates because we gotta do something that she doesn’t need to get into)

-they are a fiend for hotdogs. Truly I swear she could learn anything in 10 mins if the hot dog is the reward 😅 we are learning “go to bed” and we are soooo closeeee

We have only had a little under a month with our girl, but she is truly the best and we adore her. She is our whole world and I swear my family thinks I’m insane. I totally get the crazy dog people now! Puppy blues are so hard, and I read those posts and relate so much, but as soon as she does something awful she is turning right around being the sweetest little Winnie girl and all is forgiven. I’m such a sucker lol.

Almost 6 month old male border collie / lab, HEAVY on the border collie traits wise.

He loves training and wants to please. Has been great in every other aspect other than jumping. And when I mean jumping he can kiss a 6 foot tall man with a hop no problem. This is however not a behavior I want. How can I fix this?

Edit to add:

We have been working on ignoring, pointing at the floor, or saying “down” and neither seem to work for him.

He’s gotten insanely more intense tricks down so I’m unsure why this one he just has no interest in learning.

Hi! It’s been three weeks we’ve had an 11 month old mini goldendoodle and he is attached to me and my brother by the hip. When we have guests come over he gets scared and hides under the chair. He doesn’t like when people try to pet him he will run away. Will he open up?? Is it because he’s still acclimating to the new house and everyone? What can I do? I don’t want him to get scared every time we have guests over. Please help

I have a 10 month old corgi, he’s got neutered about 2 weeks ago. We’re having issues with him overreacting when he sees other dogs he goes crazy like a manias or whenever he hears others dog’s collars. And he has extreme separation anxiety. We have tried to help him but nothing is working :(

I think my 6 month old golden has reached her second fear stage. We live in a new construction area so she has grown up with all the noise and hasn’t really been too bothered by it. However now she will barely go out to potty. I have been having to take her for her walks elsewhere, which is difficult for lunch breaks since I don’t have as much time as normal. And tips on tackling the second fear stage? Will it just pass? I am super nervous that it’s going to make her reactive once she is older. I’ve tried sitting with her, calmly petting her and giving her treats but she is so scared she doesn’t want to even eat them. It was not this bad during her first fear stage.

Sorry if this question is confusing. Basically, our cavalier is 5 months old now, but since we work from home, we're never "forced" to crate him for longer than he wants - typically between 1.5-3hrs at a time. We'll have him awake for 1-1.5hrs and then crate him to nap and usually once he gives a couple of yaps that he's properly awake, we'll get him out again (unless it's been less than an hour, then we'll usually see if he'll settle himself again). Initially this was because we obviously wanted to avoid any potty incidents, but he's 5 months at this point and good.

My concern is that we've never really trained him for "what happens if he wakes up and yaps and no one is home or comes and gets him?" situations. Like right now we plan our outings around those ~2hr windows, but I'm wondering if we should be practicing him having to stay crated for 4-5 hours so that when we DO actually have to leave for an extended time, we know he can handle it.

Is that ridiculous or something anyone has opinions on?

EDIT: He sleeps happily for ~9hrs every night in his crate, I was more talking about during the day

Thanks so much!

I have a 5 month old Golden Doodle puppy named Elliott. He's genuinely a big ball of love and is very intelligent. I can't ask for a better puppy. The one thing I just can't figure out how to solve, is his non-stop counter surfing.

He pops up on my table and takes placemats, has stolen a friend's croissant from the table, some fancy Brooklyn style pizzas, towels, gloves, hats, and basically anything he can get his little teeth on... And tonight, he jumped up on the ledge of my oven to steal freshly cooked granola I left cooling off in a pan. -_-

I never had a dog do this before and it's genuinely frustrating! He jumps up on people all the time too. In his mind, he knows he has a 1/50 chance of snatching something tasty, and he's risking it no matter what.

And yes, I am aware it's my fault for leaving ANYTHING out or for leaving him unattended...

With that, has anyone successfully nipped this in the bud? How on earth do I stop this before it gets worse!?

just to get this out of the way: at the moment he gets his walk in ~3 hours intervals and the first walk is around 7:30am which means his last is around 11pm so maybe we should do last walk around 9pm and then play with him, tire him out and go to sleep?

Hi, me and my girlfriend got a welsh corgi few weeks back, he is three and a half months old now. Usually he is well behaved, some teething here and there but we are working on "leave it" command and he is smart about it. Problem starts during the night, after our final walk around 11PM he gest very active and emotional - tries to chew and bite everything in the bedroom, gets on bed and is getting aggressive when I take him off of it. He is also biting us constantly.

We try to desensitize him after the walk with sniffing toys or chewing sticks but he stays very active for about 2-3 hours after that walk. Only thing that keeps him calm is his cheese chewing stick but he can chew out half of it or even all of it before he starts slowing down. Other toys he just chews up in a matter of minutes (skin, ears, etc.).

It's less of a problem when I can stay up during the night, since I can just take him out of the bedroom, give him cheese and let him inside again when he is ready for bed but that's not always the case. We don't mind giving him something to play with, we can sleep with sounds in bedroom. What else can we do during the night?

We asked a trainer for help couple of times now and she has been helpful in training him but her advice to just take him out of the room for couple of seconds if he keeps doing something he is not supposed to is difficult - he sounds really stressed whenever I pick him up when he does his things at night. I can live with being bit but it doesn't look healthy when he growls like that at me :(

My Labradoodle is nine months old and he currently sleeps 16 hours. He literally sleeps from 8 / 9 PM to noon. Which is great because I can get all my morning meetings done without any nipping and biting and jumping and barking, and then he gets up and he’s the most balanced dude in the world. Not always - but we’re getting there. It’s getting easier & easier to calm him down with a little treat or some snuggles. I’m pretty thankful that our routine has settled into this schedule. No more enforced naps, because he gets all his sleep at night these days. Had you asked me eight or ten weeks ago, I would’ve told you that working from home with a young dog is a fullblown nightmare. Not anymore.

Fingers crossed that this is the routine he will be comfortable with for a few more months.

I don't know if this question is allowed here so I can remove it if not.

Last month my puppy (9MO blue heeler) broke his leg while playing outside. So far treatment for it has involved 6 vet visits to 2 different vets. Luckily I have pet insurance, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to file the claim. Am I supposed to file all of them under one claim because they're all the same injury or should each visit be its own claim? Should I wait until his treatment is completely finished before I file it?

So far I've already spent around $9,000 on this (2 emergency room visits+ a surgery made up most of it). His (hopefully) last visit isn't for another month, but it's going to be another expensive one because they want to take x-rays again. I technically can afford it if I need to, but it would put me in a very bad position financially.

If I choose to file it now to get reimbursed before his final appointment will I just have to cut my losses on that last appointment? I know there must be a way to file for ongoing treatment because they cover ongoing illness, but unfortunately all of the info I can find is related to that rather than injury.

I've tried calling my insurance company to ask them directly, but I end up on a seemingly endless hold every time.

NOTE: I have 180 days from the date of the visit to file. So it'll still be well within the time limit even if I wait until after his next appointment.

We got a 5.5mo Australian Shepherd mix. She’s now 6.5 months. She was a rescue and I knew she wasn’t house broken. She goes outside just fine. Though gets easily scared and won’t go if there’s anything scary. We take her out several times a day. I try to aim for every 3-4 hours because any sooner and she doesn’t go and plays outside. We utilize the crate. Now I’ve had some really good days where she can be outside of her crate for 5+ hours and no accidents.

And then there’s what’s been happening the last few days and I’ll take her out, she will pee and poop, and then within MAYBE 25 minutes she’ll poop in the house again (and has started eating it too?). I am working really hard to not have her in the crate for extended periods of time, but as of lately anytime I try she has an accident. I have her gated in our kitchen/dinning area so she has quite a bit of room to roam when she’s out. She also literally has no cues when to go. She doesn’t alert me and even today has pooped in the kitchen with me right there 😐

I am just at a loss and I don’t know if what we’re doing is working. We go outside at the same time in the morning, come back in and eat breakfast. She then goes back outside within an hour to two of eating. If she goes then I let her stay out of her crate but if not then she goes back in the crate. I get her back out around lunch time, and keep doing this. She is good in the crate, no accidents, and no crying…

I just don’t know what to do. I want her to be able to eventually be free roam (except at night). I know pups aren’t close to trained until around a year but I figured we’d be further than we are now.

She is not spayed but I am planning to schedule this soon. Just saving up for it.

Hi! My husband and I are about to get our first puppy together. I haven’t had a puppy in 15 years, every dog I’ve had since then was adopted as an adult. My last dog was amazing but not trained at all- she was either a good bad dog or a bad good dog but regardless she was perfect lol. Crate training her was really challenging because I did it wrong at first and she would panic in the crate, but then I did my research and got a crate she couldn’t hurt/couldn’t hurt herself on. My current problem is that I know she was crate trained in a different way than I think will work for a baby. Some principles the same, but she was also a grown up.

My husband and I have 4 days a week where we are at work for the same time, generally not more than 6 hours. Unfortunately this schedule is non negotiable, but on the positive end it is in the afternoon/evening (4-10ish) so I’m hoping we can just zonk the puppy out and do an enforced nap in that range. I know how to make the crate a safe and appealing place for a dog, but I’m just anxious about going to work. I know this was a lot of word vomit but what advice do you have?

*we do have in-laws in the area who could do a check if necessary, however they love dogs a little too much and we need to have a solid training foundation down before I would feel good letting them help (I mean training my in-laws on the rules as much as the puppy )

I literally just wanna know all there is to know, I got my pup a few days ago and I take him outside to potty like clockwork. Even still he has peed ~6 ish times in the house with little to no warning, and I'm not quite sure what to do. This is my first time raising a puppy, before this I have only raised kittens and it's a difficult and new experience. All information greatly appreciated!!

I’m looking for toys that are safe for my teething puppy, benebone seems great but how safe is that to chew on/swallow? It’s inevitable small bits will get swallowed/chipped off, are there any alternatives for puppies?

hi, i’m a teen who just recently got a 4 month old maltipoo and he’s been the sweetest boy. he’s getting more comfortable wandering in the house outside of his crate, but he always starts crying and whining when we put him in and recently when we’ve started leaving him alone in the living room he’ll start whining and digging at his crate. i want to make sure i’m not harming him by leaving him alone/ignoring him when he cries—is there a threshold where i should start to be worried if he keeps crying? how do i know if he just wants attention? how/when should i reward him when crate training?

he gets taken out every hour or so to be played with or go on a walk if we’re available. any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

So I know puppies are super into exploring everything with their mouths, and teething. And I don't blame them for that, but my pup just immeadiately goes after hands/arms. If I try to hang out with him on the bed he's climbing on my head/face and biting my face. I understand its gonna be some trial and error but I could really do without the face biting.