When I travel and have to leave my dog behind.

I can’t leave him with friends because he is a lot of work and a liability, I can only board him.

And if I try to bring him with me, I can’t bring him and stay with friends because either they have reactive dogs or that their HOA doesn’t allow dogs without a registered DNA test to track down owners with dogs shitting all over the place.

This makes me just want to just escape to the forest or desert where I can just let the the poor dude roam. Even if it’s just by myself.

Hi all. I'm venting in hopes that I can get some guidance on what I can do to get some resolution.

So I've been with my partner for 3 years now. He's great and all but we have been having issues since day one with his velcro dog.

His dog is 11 years old now and glued to the hip of my partner. It's been a long road with a lot of progress but I am looking for outside help.

My partner is a "dog trainer" yet his dog is not trained to be an independent dog whatsoever. As long as my partner is within a few feet of his dog, she's fine. But once she cannot see him or she knows my partner has gone through an area with an exit, she freaks out and is constantly whining and visibly uneasy and won't take any food.

Even if I am in the room with her, it doesn't matter. And the way she looks at me when my partner isn't there is absolutely heart breaking.

It took almost 2 years for my partner to put the dog on medication for anxiety. It helped, but only a little.

It took another year after that before we tried using an automatic bark collar that corrects the noise and gradually increases the correction level if the noise continues within a certain time parameter.

Before the collar, both on and off medication, the dog would full on freak out and cry and howl and the neighbors have even commented on it before. How embarrassing! We would only get about an hour or two of relief a day when the medication was at its peak. The automatic bark collar has really dropped her noise level down quite a lot but she is still visibly anxious and has figured out a level of whine that bypasses the collar. She no longer tears the house up trying to escape and get to my partner (thanks to the e collar) but she still has it in her.

But the thing is that I am unable to form a bond or relationship with the dog. She doesn't care about me whatsoever. All she cares about is if partner is next to her. I've tried being the one that feeds her, I've been the only one that would take her on outings and walks and such. I've drowned her in high value treats daily to no avail. I'm tired and sad and I just want to live with a dog that isn't emotionally taxing to be around. I've tried tirelessly to build a relationship with this dog and nothing is working. My partner has never done any of those things with my dog yet my dog loves him. I take pride in how well behaved my dog is... and I'm not the dog trainer.

I just don't know what I can do to add a positive impact to the situation. I'm tired. My partner never does any training with her. It feels like I'm putting up a fight when I'm suggesting new ideas on what we can do to help her.

But she's fine with him. My dog is fine with him. I'm the only one with a problem with his dog and yet I feel like it's not a problem I can solve. He doesn't experience the sadness I feel every day from living with a dog who doesn't care about me at all no matter how hard I try to make myself valuable to her. He never has to jump through hoops to get my dog to care about him.

He says it's neurological and unfixable but I think it's a learned mindset that can be undone, but then again the dog is older and I don't have the training so I'm not sure.

We are unable to ever go out because of the severe separation anxiety. He doesn't trust anyone to watch her because she has a bite history. We have not taken time for us this entire time. We can't go out, we've never been able to spend a weekend away together, just the two of us no dogs. We might manage going out to dinner a couple of times each year but even the dinners are filled with him frequently checking the cameras to see how she's doing (which is normally pacing, whining, etc)

It's come to the point where I have to actively ignore the dog so I'm not getting upset over getting ignored by her. I just want to feel loved by his dog.

What can I do? Who can I reach out to? Is it all pointless if my partner isn't willing to work on it? I mean, the dog only cares about him. It feels like they're happy in their dysfunctional little bubble and I'm desperate for change and just talking to walls at this point.

Sigh. Thanks for reading.

How do I approach training my dog to bring me a beer? I finally got him to fetch after a year, but I'm no professional, I have some sort of idea on training.

I adopted a 6 year old hound rescue dog Sunday from a dog shelter near me. He has settled in nicely. A few questions?

1. I take him walking 2-3x a day for 20-30 mins at a time. Also I noticed her sleeps a lot when we're inside. Is this normal?
2. He can be stubborn with going inside the crate. He's crate and house trained but when I try to lure him in the crate with treats and toys he's not motivated. When I do get him inside he starts to bark and cry and tries to break out. I can get him in with treats and hes toys are in there but he still cries
3. Sometimes he's stubborn with wanting to walk a certain direction. He'll just stand still if he doesn't want to go. How can I fix this?
4. What are some ways I can get him to start sleeping on his bed ore? He was doing it at first but now would rather sleep on the couch. I constantly tell him to get down but usually as soon as I'm gone back on the couch he goes

I have two super sweet Huskies that I adore. My first Husky, Toast, is about 5 years old, and she free-roams the house without any issues and handles being alone pretty well. My second Husky, Olive, is about 2, and while I love her so much, I’m struggling with her separation anxiety.

I work from home and am a major homebody, so I’m around my dogs 90% of the time. When I do leave, it’s usually for quick errands or meeting a friend – never more than an hour or so. Even though I walk Olive 5 miles or let her run at the dog park before I leave, she still has a hard time. If she’s in the kennel, she’ll bark and howl the entire time, which doesn’t sit well with my apartment neighbors. If I let her free roam, she ends up destroying my furniture – and it’s getting really expensive.

I’ve tried everything I can think of: kenneling, extensive walks, dog park trips, daycare, training videos – nothing seems to help, and I can’t afford a high-priced trainer. It feels like I’m at a dead end, and I hate to think I can’t have a life outside of home because of her anxiety.

Has anyone been in a similar situation, or do you have any tips for how to manage separation anxiety with a high-energy breed like Olive?

I have two super sweet Huskies that I adore. My first Husky, Toast, is about 5 years old, and she free-roams the house without any issues and handles being alone pretty well. My second Husky, Olive, is about 2, and while I love her so much, I’m struggling with her separation anxiety.

I work from home and am a major homebody, so I’m around my dogs 90% of the time. When I do leave, it’s usually for quick errands or meeting a friend – never more than an hour or so. Even though I walk Olive 5 miles or let her run at the dog park before I leave, she still has a hard time. If she’s in the kennel, she’ll bark and howl the entire time, which doesn’t sit well with my apartment neighbors. If I let her free roam, she ends up destroying my furniture – and it’s getting really expensive.

I’ve tried everything I can think of: kenneling, extensive walks, dog park trips, daycare, training videos – nothing seems to help, and I can’t afford a high-priced trainer. It feels like I’m at a dead end, and I hate to think I can’t have a life outside of home because of her anxiety.

Has anyone been in a similar situation, or do you have any tips for how to manage separation anxiety with a high-energy breed like Olive?

I have a 2 year old mix breed dog (we are not sure what all he has in him). He has been crate trained since he was a puppy. He is in the crate at night and during the day while I am at work. I do this mainly as a safety issue bc I am worried that even tho our house is pretty dog proof that he will get into something that can hurt him. Recently he has started refusing to go into his crate. I will try and chase him around the house and try different methods of getting him in his crate but he will not go anywhere near me or the crate. This morning it happened again and I just had to leave him out. Does anyone know why he could suddenly be refusing to crate?

Also we are wanting to allow him to sleep in our room at night. We tried this for a period of time but he would wake up in the middle of the night begging to leave our room. He also has recently started peeing on our bed anytime we let him in our room. He doesn’t squat and use the bathroom he just peed while walking around on it. If we are able to break that behavior then I would love to let him sleep in our room. I would prefer that he sleeps on a bed on our room so does anyone know how to train him to sleep on a bed in our room?

I don’t know if I want to try using an ecollar with my dog. If I do, I want to do it correctly. I want to educate myself on the theory behind their use, how to use, how not to use, etc. Are there any reputable YouTubers who have solid and informative videos on ecollars?

My hand becomes part of the treat sometimes. It doesn’t really hurt, but over time it gets gross and my hand gets roughed up. I was under the impression you hand feed them and you are not suppose to just drop the treat on the ground. Does anyone have tricks/tips to save my hands when giving treat when training? Or and I wrong with the treat should come from me not the ground?

I am wondering if you can help me. I have a male Maltese x shi-tzu and a female black lab x American staffy. I am currently working full time and am struggling with some temporary health issues, so I am unable to walk the dogs at the moment. I've got a huge back yard and the dogs can run around, which is good, but they are barking incessantly at every little noise and driving my poor neighbours mad. I have succumbed to putting electric shock bark collars on them. It took me a long time to decide to do this as I love my dogs and I don't want to be cruel. While these collars are sort of working, it's not totally effective. I think my doggies might be bored and are barking to pass the time... 😢

Two questions:

1. Once I start walking them again soon, will they stop barking so much?
2. Is there an additional method I could use such as a bark activated ultrasonic device; running a fountain outside for a bit of white noise or anything else??

Many thanks 🙏

Service dogs and prongs?

First I want to start that I have no problem with service dogs or their handlers and this is not meant o be hate.

I know that there is a very wide audience using prongs and that there are a lot of people misinformed about them. I love seeing service dogs in public (although I never try and say hi) because I think it’s fascinating that they are so smart and are able to be trained like that.

HOWEVER, I feel like I’ve never seen a service dog wearing a prong correctly - most SD’s I’ve seen have been wearing one. - and they’re almost always too low on the neck and could be a little tighter.

Do you think it comes from like a lack of training from the organization in giving the handler usages for it? I just want to know if trainers and organizations show a handler how to use one before?

Also I have no hate against prongs either, just sucks that they are misused and hated on so much when they can be great if used properly.

We're seeking a Giant Schnauzer with excellent bloodlines and either already Level 3 or Elite, or a trainer in the Boston area who can train a puppy. We're flexible, but had a bad experience with a UK outfit and seek expertise from this community. Any assistance with sourcing the best bred Giant Schnauzers or best trainers providing trained young adults, or a trainer to whom we could bring a puppy we locate, is deeply appreciated.

Watched this the other night and while I have a few minor contentions on some of their historical claims (I think they also misidentified a NSDTR as a spaniel), I really like the production overall:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMds9JelUqw

My studies on the topic of canine history has played a pretty big part in how I view dogs, and I think any trainer or owner would be better for having also studied this topic. The history of dogs, how their genetic line has evolved, separated, and specialized over the millennia, gives us the context we need to most clearly understand the behavior.

The "case studies" (as I see them) in this video do a great job at connecting the history of a type of dog with explanation as for how the dog lives today. It even made me think a little differently about the dog types I see in my country.

I loved the Indian and Tibetan dogs featured. The Indian dog was allowed to live so freely and dogs who live anything like that are why I look at people tacking on all the gear to control their dog 24/7 and just feel horrible, so much so I demand we find any other solution beside making your dog live like that--but that is a different conversation for another day. I too want the best for dogs. I think we are all just trying to figure it out.

Also it is cool to see the very young mastiff puppy get so postural, so dramatically vicious over his food, and how his owner addressed it. Definitely the type of dog to grow up to eventually engage and win battles with wolves. Just a very cool dog all around.

I think this video does a good job at scratching the surface and giving a good general overview on the history of dogs. Check it out if you have 90-min to burn.

She already only gets rubber and rope toys, but not unsupervised. She’s just over a year old, a Belgian Malinois / GSD mix, and is going to start being left in the crate while we’re at work. This is the last step in her crate training. She’s had hours in the crate while we’re home. But she will 100% chew up the mattress if she decides she is bored enough.

I think if we leave a rubber or rope toy in there, she might chew too much at it and break it down enough to swallow pieces. My only other thought is a yak chew that is large enough not to choke on.

Thoughts?

UPDATE: they tell us she is a corgi, dachshund, aussie cattle mix.

I just adopted my dog (2 years old) about a month ago. She’s been well behaved mostly EXCEPT for the fact that she goes absolutely feral for rats. I live in the city and have a backyard where rats occasionally come through especially at night. Ever since she spotted one, when we go into the backyard (day or night), all she wants to do is hunt for rats. She obsessively paces up and down along the fence to find them and even scratched a large hole in the cover on the fence out of frustration. This also happens in the bedroom where there is a window that peers into our backyard. She will scratch at the window and bark to be let outside when she sees a squirrel or rat. I want to keep the window open for her but is it bad to if she’s just obsessed with looking for critters? How do I stop this behavior or get her desensitized to the rats? I’ve heard window film can block her view, but isn’t that just masking the true problem? Any help is appreciated.

My dog loves to play jolly ball/soccer with me, but she gets overexcited and growls/loudly barks every time she runs after or contacts the ball. I know it's an excited play bark and she is having fun, but I would like to be able to curb this behavior if possible. She is an ACD/border collie prone to getting overexcited and I think this could be a good way to teach her some self control.

So far, I have tried doing small kicks and if she is quiet then I will praise and keep passing her the ball to herd. If she barks, I have her lay down and we pause the game for like 30 seconds to a minute. I can't tell if she's understanding why we stop, and it takes the fun out of the game since I have to keep my kicks small. Is there a better way to teach her to be more quiet?

Or should I not bother trying to teach this during her jolly ball time and just keep playing loudly?

I mean, I guess that it’s because of ignorance. People who have never used it or seen one wouldn’t know how they work, and they’re told that we are “shocking” dogs into compliance.

When used correctly, I personally find an e-collar stim to be less aversive, painful and physically restraining than any collar or harness ever could be. You mean I can get the same result from my dog with .5 seconds of a stim compared to leash pressure and leash pops? I also find that we are less likely to overuse the stim compared to leash pressure, which owners tend to use too much of without even realizing.

I started using ecollar a few months ago with my dog and last week we started taking it seriously, and she’s already picked up on it and I rarely even have to use the stim effect. I’ve had better results from it compared to over 2 years of training collars, and positive reinforcement. If your dog is very leash frustrated, e-collar might very well be the answer for your dog’s reactivity if it’s heavily frustration based.

Edit: I see that a lot of people have experienced dogs who’ve been abused with e-collars and that’s really unfortunate. It’s sad that so many trainers are quick to use them as a quick solution for bad behaviour. They usually end up making it worse.

Ecollars aren’t very common where I am, so I never used one, and I rarely ever see them unless it’s another trainer using it. So my lived experience with them has been very positive.

My dog stays calm while driving but starts whining when we park. I’ve been waiting in the car until she settles and lies down, which can take 10-30 minutes, depending on how exciting the place is.

My question is about the faint, high-pitched whines that continue even after she's otherwise settled (most dog owners probably know what I'm referring to). She’s calm and focused on me, but still lets out these tiny whines as she lays there. Should I wait until she’s totally silent, or is minimal whining okay? I worry about reinforcing it if I let her out without full silence.

My goal is for her to approach new places calmly without getting overly excited and disconnecting from me. She’s generally very engaged and well-trained, but I wonder if I’m expecting too much by aiming for complete quiet. I’d love to hear what standards others have for their dog’s calmness in similar situations.

TLDR: My dog stays calm while driving but whines when we park. I wait until she settles before letting her out, but she sometimes does faint whines. Should I wait for complete silence, or is a little whining okay? Looking for advice on balancing calmness and excitement in new places.

I know this isn't the usual post for this group but I thought you guys might understand and unfortunately none of my friends are big dog people so they don't

My dog got injured recently so she can't go on walks and instead I've been doing what training I can, and I didn't realize just how much I had dropped off training her for a good chunk of the last year (I've had her a year and a half) until I started training again to work her brain and I realized just how much she enjoyed it and probably deserved it.

I dropped off for a mix of reasons including college being chaotic and needing to do more life training, like desensitization and working on walks, and that's def helpful and still needed but that doesn't fulfill her need properly and I didn't realize that until now. After she recovers I'm going to add it back to be a part of our routine, but I feel bad that I didn't realize for so long that I should have been sticking with training her as much as I could and letting her brain work.

If any of you have stories similar to this, I would love to hear them, otherwise, thank you for listening to my Ted talk

Hello, Community! First, I want to thank all who post and reply here. I have learned SO many helpful things in regards to my dog and his training.

Second, I am looking for suggestions in one area. I have a 15 month old Elhew English Pointer Mix that was adopted from the shelter when he was still a puppy (roughly 8 weeks).

He is absolutely the sweetest boy, almost to the point of timid. He is a happy, bouncy, boy, a snuggler, and learns pretty fast. He has shown zero aggression to any person, cat, or other dog.

He struggles, however, with car rides. We tried getting him used to it but he trembles and shakes, refuses to get in and sometimes gets sick. The vet gave us meds and suggested we give one the night before and one the morning of, any trips we planned.

Obviously, we are not thrilled about having to medicate him but we will if it helps him. Google suggests that he may grow out of the carsick part but I have yet to see any decent advice on how to help him not fear riding in the car. We hate having to crate him while we are out and about and would love for him to enjoy sticking his head out of the window and going on adventures with us.

Any ideas on how we can help him love the car? Thank you in advance.

TLDR: 15 month old dog is afraid of car rides.

I have an 8 month old doberman who is starting to realize the 5ft chainlink fence isn't going to be an obstacle for long. She has good recall (for the most part, working on recall in distracting situation) and basic obedience. She gets daily training and plenty of exercise.

Lately she has been jumping on the corner of the fence, sometimes attempting to get over it. She hasn't made the jump yet, but will sit and study the fence after failed attempts. The only time she has an urge to attempt to get out is if there is a cat/small animal or I'm outside the fenced area.

I've debated starting e-collar training to fix this, I don't think she'd go far but don't want her getting hit by a car. Any advice for e-collar training or any other type to reduce this behavior would be greatly appreciated!

I rescued a dog at 10 months. She is now almost 2. She is a Great Dane, Great Pyrenees, Anatolian, and APBT mix. When we got her she had massive reactivity and behavioral problems. Although a lot of these things are still a work in progress, she has massively improved on a lot of things. She is very treat motivated and intelligent.

Most of the time she is a sweet and loving dog. I am having issues with her when I am getting ready for work and also when I get home from work. If I walk from the kitchen to my room or get up from my desk to walk to the bathroom during these times, she will nip at my heels or growl and lunge at me. When I correct her by saying "No. Sit." and trying to get her to sit and leave me alone, she will escalate and start growling and lunging more., especially if I turn my back to walk off. If I continue to correct she starts to act like she is actually going to hurt me. The growling gets stronger and the lunging gets more aggressive. The only thing I have been able to get her to stop with is pulling out treats or throwing a toy but once this behavior starts, I hate rewarding her with treats or a toy.. To me that feels like she has just gotten her way. Usually I will have my fiance get involved and call her to him or kennel her so I can walk around freely for a bit. The other strange thing is she only exhibits this behavior toward me. Not my fiance or son. Why me?

Any advice or insight?

(Dog tax in my post history.)

My buddy is a 3 year-old ACD mix and we’ve been slowly overcoming his fear based reactivity. He’s been making very exciting progress recently—Much more tolerable of strangers, little things he used to explode over such as squirrels and sudden sounds. But the one trigger he’s still struggling a bit with is dogs.

I’m never going to expect him to be playful, or even friendly with other dogs, especially given his breed and past experiences with dogs. However, I am hoping to achieve neutrality. As of right now, he’ll still whine and occasionally growl at dogs when we see them from a distance. When they’re closer (ie: passing by our living room/patio window) he will have a bigger reaction.

The reason why I’m hoping to address this sooner than later is because he will be boarding (at the veterinary clinic I work at) for a few days in December while I’m out of town. While he shouldn’t be in direct contact with any dogs, it would be reassuring to know in the event he at least sees one, he won’t completely freak out.

I’ve considered “ripping the bandaid off” and doing some desensitization training outside a dog park (again, OUTSIDE of it lol) because I believe a reason he hasn’t been making progress is that he doesn’t get any exposure up close.

Thoughts? Ideas? Anything is appreciated

I'm about to get a puppy and I'm curious about that training actually looks like. I'd like to understand what you worked on in the first month with your pup.

There will be a lot of helping her making the right choices and trying to avoid the bad ones. I'll be using a crate and dog pen to help with this as well as potyiing on a leash. I'm planning on following a relative routine 1 hour out 2 hours in depending on what she likes, I won't be inflexible, mostly I want to make sure she's sleeping enough and not becoming a nuisance when she's sleepy.

The first 3 days I think I should only focus on crate and potty training as well as bonding. Then in the following few weeks, I'm going to keep working on crate training and potty training and start having max ~3 minute sessions teaching settling outside the crate, treat diving, no mugging/it's yer choice, collar grab, harness desensitizing, hand targets l, rewards moments of calm and maybe I'll start some recall. I'll be looking for sits and downs but I don't think I'm fussed about those rn.

Not including potty training and crate training, how can I work on behaviours/handling simultaneously? I'm thinking it would work like this: If I have 4 training sessions a day(I'm hoping she builds an appetite for more), at first we have alternative sessions of no mugging and treat diving and when she's learned those we start proofing and I can add something else to learn like collar grab? As we proof behaviours/handling do we practice them less, like we come back to them every other day then every few days, etc. When do you decide to stop actively working on something? How many behaviours are you working on simultaneously and what does that look like in training?

I can find silent shock collars that work with a remote, but they aren't automatic.
I can find automatic shock collars without a remote, but they beep and vibrate in addition to shocking.

The beeping, vibrating, smart displays, it all just destroys the battery time and you end up having to charge it every 3 days. I am looking to find an automatic shock collar without a display, no vibrating motor, no speaker to beep... to prolong the battery life.

I feel like this is the simplest possible design and so it should exist, but there are none. At this point I'm considering getting a collar without a display/remote and taking it apart to remove the speaker and motor.

Not my dog, but they personally hate the beeping (even though the dog stops when it is shocked) and so when it turns out of battery they are reluctant to recharge it, so they end up screaming at the dog like a jackass. I am hoping something that is silent and last longer will motivate them to keep it charged when it does run out of battery.

We just got a young pit, she’s friendly with other dogs and super friendly with people. We have 2 cats that aren’t too thrilled lol. We’ve been doing the whole sniff through the door thing for the past few days. One cat just runs and hides so I’m not too worried about her. She’ll probably hide for the first few months. My other cat though is a kitten about 8 months, and he’s interested in the dog but not fond. He comes and sits at the crack and sniffs and will lay down and roll around and like paw at the dog, but if the dog gets close he starts swatting. Puffing and hissing stopped after the first 2 days.

Now the dog is just super excited the whole time, constantly trying to get through to the cat. But I have no idea if she’s trying to play or if it’s going to go wrong. And honestly I need to get her to not go crazy sniffing the cat because that’s what will make the cat attack and start a fight. If she would be calm and calmly approach it wouldn’t be an issue most likely but she is a crackhead lol.But at the door the entire time she’s wagging her tail, and when they get close she just sniffs for the single second they manage to get that close. We have also started letting them be in the same room, me holding the dog and letting the cat roam around, come close if he feels comfortable. Which he does, and the dog starts squirming trying to get closer and the cat swats lol. But the cat isn’t scared. He comes up no problem, no puffiness or hissing. So I’m not sure how to read this situation. Advice?

My girl is a 5 year old 11 pound pomeranian/toy poodle mix that can run for AGES if she's chasing a ball. We've straight up played fetch for a couple hours on end and she still has energy after that. She's an agility dog too, so all around she's pretty sporty and has a LOT of endurance.

When we go on walks, she's pretty good about not pulling but you can tell she reallyyy wants to go faster and is actively metering herself. When I take her for the occasional jog and actually give her the chance to go the speed she wants to she, constantly lags behind me lol. I probably look like I have some out of shape little dog that I'm pushing too hard, but literally as soon as we get home she gets the zoomies and then follows me around like, "Okay, what's next?" unless I tell her to go lay down. Is anyone else's dog like this? Does she just hate runs? I'm not necessarily looking to fix this or anything - it's just weird and kind of funny and I want to know why she is like this lol.

My 8 month old, male Bedlington Terrier and I have been working on obedience (classes and on our own) since he came home and he does great 90% of the time. My only issue with him is I cannot keep his attention. If a person, an animal, a sound, anything distracting happens I lose him. And it's not like he's reactive (pulling, barking, etc) he just sits and stares at whatever it is and I don't exist even with a super high value treat. I've tried everything that's been suggested ("watch me" games with treats, using exciting voice/body language, etc).

The only time I have his attention is in my house with the cats in another room. I've tried slowly introducing distractions (cats in room but not playing, outside but no other people/animals) and the second he finds something more interesting than me it's over. I knows he's a terrier so I'm fighting against genetics. I don't have expectations of him being a perfectly trained off leash dog, but it's gotta get better than this. I feel like I've hit a wall and don't know where to go from here.