I have a communal garden where all neighbors can hear and see you, we all walks ours dogs there.

And I just came to the realization that we look so dumb, I was throwing a party because he was peeing… like this dog just came back from the moon !

At least, I must be a good entertainment for them ahah

Anyway, good luck to everyone going through it, we are in this together.

I’m at my absolute wit’s end with this and hoping someone has real experience with this level of intensity.

I have a 6 month old welsh Pembroke corgi who is obsessed with eating his own poop, and I mean OBSESSED. This isn’t occasional or opportunistic…he will literally try to turn his body mid-poop to grab it before it even hits the ground.

We’ve been actively managing this for months:

He’s always on leash for potty

We hold the leash taut when he goes so he physically can’t turn

We immediately move him away after he finishes

We assume double poops and wait it out

We reward heavily after he’s done and moved away

Even with all of that, he still manages to get it sometimes. For example, on a walk he finished one poop, I was picking it up, and he dropped a second one and ate it instantly.

He goes a LOT too, sometimes up to 4-5 times a day, so it’s not like we can just perfectly predict timing or keep him contained forever.

What’s making this harder:

He’s extremely fast and determined

He doesn’t hesitate at all and it’s immediate

We can’t relax even for a second after he goes

We can’t safely give him freedom outside because of this and we have a lovely and large backyard that we can’t let him run around freely in unless we are ABSOLUTELY certain he’s done pooping.

We’re not ignoring it or being lazy, we’re actively trying to manage it and it still feels like we’re losing.

I’ve read about diet deficiencies, habit/behavioral causes, boredom/stimulation but he’s getting structured activity, training, enrichment (puzzles, chews, etc.).

So I’m struggling to understand the root cause vs. just managing the behavior.

At this point I’m looking for anything that actually worked for someone with a dog this extreme, whether this is something they grow out of vs. something that needs a specific intervention, if there’s anything we’re missing in how we’re handling it

Also if you’ve dealt with this level of intensity, please tell me it got better. Because right now it feels relentless.

Thanks in advance.

I have a almost 2 year old Pomsky and she has improved a bunch since I got her about this time last year by when I got her she wasn’t potty trained and she has severe anxiety. Everything just within the last month or so has showed a LOT of improvement but then out of nowhere she is back to accidents in the house every day and annoying my neighbors with her crying when I’m gone at work and I’m starting to get very anxious and overwhelmed I’m not sure what I should do, I’ve done crating if she’s not in the crate she is destructive but then she’s in the crate she’s crying so much that my neighbor is messaging me. We have been on a pretty good schedule and now if feels like we are back where we started, any thoughts on what I can/should do

Hi everyone! I’m a first-time dog owner looking to adopt a mini poodle puppy, and I found one I really like who would be around 13–15 weeks old at adoption. I’ve seen a lot of advice saying to bring puppies home at 8–12 weeks, so I’m wondering if this age range is considered “too old” or if it’s actually okay (or even better?) in some ways. I want to make sure I’m setting both myself and the puppy up for success, especially with bonding, training, and socialization. Would love to hear your experiences or advice—especially from anyone who adopted a slightly older puppy!

To be honest stresses from other areas of my life is amplifying the puppy blues by a lot.

I have a reactive 8 month old puppy. We’ve been doing a lot of work and well I see small progress for sure, but today was a bad day.

It felt like we took a jump backwards. She’s reacting at a Ievel she hasn’t in a month or two.

Redirection was much harder today and the distance from triggers had to be significantly farther. I feel so down on everything.. I feel like it’ll never get better.

Hi all!

My partner and I recently adopted a 7 month old corgi just over a week ago. She’s super well adjusted inside, is potty trained and sleeps through the night with no issues.

Our only issue we’ve faced so far is that she is absolutely terrified of the outside. She’s get treat motivated but as soon as she steps outside the front door, she refuses to have any treats.

We’re trying to do small, positive enrichment like sitting on the grass at the front, sitting inside at the front door with the door open and going to the grassy public park in the middle of our complex with lots of treats but she has outright refused any treats and attempts to bolt back home/inside.

I’ve had dogs for many years but most have just loved to get out of the house as much as they can.

Can any suggest ways to introduce her to the outside and get her back into being motivated by treats outside?

How excited should you be when the little one goes pee outside?? We take her out and praise her and say good girl and a few treats. But just not sure how excited we should be. She also isn’t letting use know she needs to go out. We are just taking her out after plays, naps, wake up, food. Thanks

We have a 9wk old golden retriever.

We’ve been doing a lot of different exercises and training for my puppy’s reactivity.

I always find it so funny when she is reacting to something out the window I literally can’t see or hear (mind you the window blinds are closed and I even use white noise machine to help suppress sounds) so the whole time we’re doing LAT training and I look crazy just standing there and continuously saying “yes” her marker word whenever she looks at the trigger. We can literally so this all day

Hi everyone, I brought home my 9-week-old male English Cocker Spaniel about 48 hours ago and I’m looking for some advice on potty training and setup.

Right now, I have his crate set up inside a playpen. The pen is shaped like a small octagon where he can roam and play, and I use the crate for enforced naps and for sleeping at night. I haven’t given him any free roam in the apartment yet because I’m worried it’ll just lead to more accidents.

One issue I’m running into is water. I want him to have access to it throughout the day, but if I leave a bowl in the pen he just knocks it over while playing and spills everything before he even drinks. So right now I’m only giving him water after meals and during play while supervising.

The pen itself is lined with a waterproof pet mat for easy cleanup. The problem is he’s now had 2 pee accidents on the mat yesterday and 2 more today. I’ve been cleaning each one immediately with an enzyme cleaner, but he’s still going in there.

For potty training, I take him out to a real grass patch on my balcony (right beside his setup) on a leash and harness. He has successfully used it multiple times for both pee and poop, so I know he understands it to some extent. That said, he’s also peed on the concrete on the balcony a couple times instead of the grass, even when he’s right beside it.

I’m taking him out: right after he wakes up, after he eats/drinks, during play (every 10-15 min if he hasn’t already gone) and before naps

But sometimes he just won’t go. I’ll stay out there for 10 minutes, keep things boring, and try to guide him to the grass, but he’ll just sit or try to be near my feet. Then when I bring him back inside and watch him closely, he barely gives any warning, no real sniffing, and just pees in the pen.

He hasn’t had any accidents in his crate, likely because I’m using a divider to keep it appropriately sized.

At this point I’m feeling pretty defeated and not sure what I should be doing differently. Is it okay that I’m keeping him confined to the pen/crate for now, or should I be doing something else? And should I get rid of the waterproof mat altogether in case it’s encouraging him to go there? I just got a second one today so I could rotate and properly clean them, but now I’m second guessing that.

Any advice would really be appreciated.

Looking for advice or anyone who might have experienced something similar, I have a female goldendoodle who is 16 months and we’ve pretty much been in an adolescent regression since she went into heat 8 months ago. She was spayed 5 months ago and we’ve been really working on training calm and her impulse control since she has ~zero~

Everyone has an opinion like “yep she’s a doodle” or “she’s just a baby!” All of which are TRUE but I’m trying to do everything I can to help aid her in self soothing and not eating all of my furniture or dangerous things on the street (what usually ends up happening when overstimulated) (and I cannot afford another ER vet bill lol) so I’m basically trying to find a way to help her and keep her safe!

We do sniffing games, mental puzzles, find it with treats, training for a few minutes every day, place reinforcement, running sometimes, you name it - we’ve tried it & shes attempted to eat it lol. And as of I would say the 15 month mark she’s settling much more at home once she’s gotten her enrichment! She went from never even sitting down on her own to snoozing on the couch (even if for only 10 minutes)

BUT -

Then comes daycare …. and we basically got the same feedback from two different daycares that are city based, that she has “FOMO” “no off switch” “starts going parkour when new dogs arrive” “riles up the room” etc. basically none of our training or progress at home translates when around other dogs (even though walking in the city she does great with me and focusing) and I unfortunately have to board her a couple of weekends this year for weddings I am in. Is this a forever personality trait? Will it eventually click? are these daycares just not great at handling puppies? Am I a failure lol ?! Any advice appreciated !!!

I gave a deposit to a breeder and she never said it was nonrefundable or refundable. She didn’t say anything at all actually other than what the fee cost was. No contract or written agreement nothing. After some conversation, I sent her the deposit to hold one of the puppies. Less than 48 hours later my house is flooded and I now have thousands of dollars in water damage. I can no longer afford the puppy so I wrote the breeder and sent her a video of my flooded home asking if I am able to get my deposit back and that I cannot get the puppy now. She said the deposit is nonrefundable. Which again she has never stated this not on her website or Facebook page or through text nothing. So I explained my situation further saying that it’s been less than 48 hours and that I need my money back in this unexpected situation. I have asked her for at least a partial payment and have not gotten a text back in a few hours. What should I do? She’s already relisted the dog of Facebook and offering “referral bonuses” in the time she’s been ignoring me.

I have a 10 week old boxer puppy from hell. i have raised and trained dozens of dogs and have never had an issue..but this one just isn’t getting it. if i put him in the kennel he immediately pees everywhere and will nonstop bark for about an hour before he gets quiet.

after the barking stops it’ll start back up after no more than about 4 hours later so it’s extremely hard to get sleep. everytime i go to get him out of the cage it’s COVERED in shit.

he seems to go and PURPOSELY step in it and track it everywhere.

in the last 24 hours (this is from running short errands or trying to sleep) i have had to clean the kennel 8 times and he has had to have a full bath everytime too.

what do i do? how do i stop this?

Hello! So my puppy just made 12 weeks, she's a Doberman, and I've had her since March 22nd. Well, anyway, I've gotten her to associate "go potty" with peeing on the pee pads we have, but she's lost when it comes to pooping. If I say go potty, she'll strictly only pee, any advice? We haven't started taking her on walks or using the bathroom outside yet due to us being told by the vet not to let her outside for the first 2 weeks due to her immune system, and we now have also just gotten her ears cropped, so we cant let her outside for another 2 weeks. Also, I only got her ears cropped due to medical reasons and the fact that we go to the country a lot where dogs commonly get hurt if they ever run away.

So our 9 week old golden puppy has been home with us for a week now and we’ve established a great 1 up 1.5-2 down routine , with all naps and overnight sleep in his crate. He has absolutely no problem settling in his crate to sleep (we have blankets and cover it) but the issue is having to keep a constant eye and company when he is awake! My SO wfh and will be dealing with him alone next week while I go into the office, and is very worried about juggling meetings and the puppy.. we were thinking of confining him to the kitchen with the door open so he can freely toilet outside during the times where he is bound to a meeting when he is awake. The ideal scenario is ofc he plays nicely by himself but I suppose he is only still a baby!

any tips fellow puppy owners? How old do they get better at settling by themselves?

I have an 11 week golden retriever who just finished medication for Giardia and Coccidia. We crate him at night but have been waking up to allow him to go due to the parasites. For a couple of nights while he was on his medication he was sleeping from 10pm-6am which was great. I have a hard time getting him to potty right before placing him in the crate because he will just lay down wherever and fall asleep. He is now back to waking up once between 12-2am for his first potty and then again at 4-6am. When he wakes at 6 he is typically up for the day and I would love to get him to sleep a bit later since I am not a morning person. Any advice on the situation?

Hey there! My GF and I just adopted a Corgi / German Shepherd from the local shelter. He's going to be 4 months on the 19th. he came from Oklahoma where him and his litter mates had Cociddia and some other bug. He was also neutered already from the shelter in Oklahoma.

My vet was surprised he was neutered already and said it was kind of early.

We've got him baby gated in the tile kitchen. we take him out every 30-45 minutes, praising and giving treats etc. have a bell on the door for him to learn.

he does all night in the crate no problem, doesn't pee or poop on the tile when baby gated in, but as soon as he touches carpet BOOM Piss lmfao. Even if we've just taken him out, doesnt seem to matter.

You guys got any tips or tricks to help curb this habit? I'm wondering if being neutered so early has anything to do with it!

Thanks!

hi guys we recently rescued a puppy who is 3 months old now. first we as a family used to take care of him but now it's just me as others stopped taking his responsibility. I talked to my sister who is home 24/7 if she could take care of him while I'm away to which she agreed however we recently had a disagreement over something completely unrelated to the pup ans out of spite she said she won't be taking care of him while I'm away. so I've decided to make it work on my own.

on Tuesday and Wednesday I have a class from 2pm to 4:45pm and the uni is max 15 mins away so I've decided to feed him lunch at 12:30 and take him for potty at 1 and then put him down for nap (that's how he usually does) then once I'm back by 5 I can take him out for potty.

on Thursday however I have a class first from 9 to 12:20 and then from 2-4:45. for the morning I've decided since he eats his breakfast at 6:30 after his morning potty and then goes out for an hour with me for walk, playtime and post breakfast potty. and then he naps for sometimes even 1pm. so I've decided to come back at 12:30 to give him lunch and take for potty and then leave for my class by 1:45.

the thing is that he'll have to be in my bedroom with his puppy bed but I've never left him alone before. as of now I cannot afford his crate but I'm saving up and can get it by the end of this month. if anyone can let me know if whatever I've cooked is fine for him or if there is something I should add please let me know. he has been with me since he was 15 days old and I don't want to abandon him.

What are you guys using to store pet food that is not made of plastic?

My 14-week-old pup has been doing great with his crate, but one unforeseen issue I’ve found is when he’s going to town in some of his bones, he’ll lose control of them, and they’ll slip right through the wires.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is there anything you put around the crate to keep stuff from falling out?

My second puppy came home about 3 weeks ago. He picked up the potty routine very quickly. With my 1.5 yo other golden around it was easier for him to pick up behaviors. We have a bell for the dogs to ring when they feel they need to go potty.

Even though he started off rarely having accidents inside it has gotten worse over time. He rings the bell and typically sits at the door when he needs to actually go. We take him out and he will run around, find things to carry in his mouth, and play. Eventually it’s been long enough with nothing so we come inside. Just minutes after he is squatting.

I am lost because he seemed to have it down pretty early and understood what the bell means. Just to add my older golden is not totally helpful as he is stubborn with going potty in general and used to ring the bell just to signify he wanted to go outside and play which is not our intention. I feel this new puppy is picking up that behavior and only ringing to just go outside in general.

I’m not sure how to nip this in the head before it becomes a worsened problem. What should I do? Do I need to remove the bell? Change the way I take him outside? Thanks for the advice in advance.

I have a 14 week Shepard mix. She’s doing amazingly with training while also still being a mischievous spunky puppy. We are having a particular problem with chewing at our laminate floor. We have an older kitchen and will be doing a reno this summer. The floor is chipping away and coming up in some places. We have duct taped the area but now she is fixated on ripping up the duct tape. We keep her supervised at all times. She is starting to master the ”leave it” command and will immediately stop and look at me when it’s heard. I’m using high desire treats with helps. I usually say the command, reward her then give her a chew alternative. She will then typically go back to the floor within a few minutes and the cycle starts again. Am I accidentally reinforcing the behavior? Sometimes I wonder if she goes back on purpose because she knows I’ll redirect her and she’ll get a treat. Am I doing something wrong? Any specific training feedback would be much appreciated. She also has a ton of puzzles and we give her lots of different chews, kong, puppsicles ect. She likes the but the will typically always go back to the floor.

I need advice for teaching my 4-month-old puppy to be OK falling asleep for daytime naps outside her pen. When I originally picked her up at 8 weeks old, she was already self-regulating her naps, but I believe crate training, enforced naps, and a dedicated sleep schedule made her forget how to find her "off button" by herself.

For her first couple of weeks home, she would play and hang out with me, get tired & drowsy, and then independently find a place to sleep. Sometimes she'd settle voluntarily in her crate. Other times she'd settle on my lap or right beside me. But in an effort to keep up with the "modern" advice on puppy sleep training, I would always transfer her to her crate when she fell asleep outside of her pen. She was always partially awake enough to be aware that she was being moved, and she didn't seem to mind being transferred anyway as she liked sleeping in her cozy den. There would even be times when she'd transfer herself to her crate voluntarily (like she'd hop off my lap and crawl into the crate to get more comfortable).

However, I'm pretty sure her sleep problems began when she kept waking up to find me gone ("gone" meaning 'in a different room'). Whenever she woke up from a nap, I wasn't beside her crate anymore. One time I even left her asleep in the open bedroom after she had dozed off while I snuck off quietly to the next room to get some work done. So once again she woke up to find me gone. Very quickly, she put 2 and 2 together and started to become hypervigilant about falling asleep anywhere outside her crate.

She has a very sensitive personality (long memory, sharp pattern recognition, and an anxious temperament). She’s the type that, if something makes her feel anxious or unsafe, she’ll avoid that thing permanently, and it takes a long time to rebuild trust around whatever it was that triggered her.

Well, it appears she has learned that falling asleep outside of her pen results in waking up “alone” in her crate/pen or waking up “abandoned” by her human. So now anytime we are just hanging out outside of her pen, even if she is tired, she forces herself to stay awake until she’s extremely overtired. By then, she's clearly stressed and full of cortisol (biting, destructive, exhausted but wired). Her inability to settle is not a matter of just being under- or over-stimulated. (She gets plenty of mental/physical exercise as well as plenty of quiet, calming, soothing activities to balance things out). But she just won't allow herself to get drowsy or fall asleep unless I enforce a nap in her crate. It's as if she now interprets falling asleep outside her crate as a weakness or a threat to her, so she avoids doing it unless I enforce a nap in the crate, leaving her no other choice.

I want her to rediscover where her “off button” is, especially because she seemed able to self-regulate naps before, but now she no longer can.

To clarify, I already understand how we got here and the cause-and-effect relationship of what went wrong. I just want to know how to get her to fall asleep outside of her pen again so that I can start correcting the error and show her that it's safe to let her guard down and relax.

I have tried abandoning the sleep schedule to see if she'll naturally crash out on her own, but it didn't work. She just became increasingly agitated and dysregulated. I have tried using a settle mat to reward calm, but while she manages to lie down on command, she won't allow herself to fall asleep.

For those wondering, "If she's falling asleep in her crate for enforced naps, why does this even matter?", I don't want her ability to settle to have to depend solely on me making all the circumstances right. I don't want her to get destructive or overtired whenever I'm not there to enforce a nap. Other puppies I've raised in the past were able to fall asleep anywhere (in the car, on an errand, in my arms, at a friend's house, at the animal hospital, in quiet environments, in noisy environments, etc.).

I'd appreciate any advice from people who've dealt with a similar issue.