r/DogTrainingTips

Long story short, my family has 4 dogs above the ages of 3. They weren’t my idea, and for some reason they kept piling on with more. They aren’t trained, two have some aggression, and all 4 of them bark constantly at anything when outside.

I attempted to walk one to see how bad it really was, he’s a golden lab around 3 and a half years old. A small dog was around us and he just lost it, 100% was going to harm the dog if he got away, seen a cat and just attempted to break off the leash. But as far as I know, no hatred to kids or other people.

They all pull on leashes and don’t listen to any form of commands, all of our fault for not teaching them in their youth honestly. But I would like to put some time and effort in to get the situation under control so they can actually have other dog friends and get to go in public.

hi so i have a pitt mix that i got from the rescue i work at and she is mostly okay with people but she is very reactive when people are in what she deems as “her space” (aka my bedroom) which would be fine but the problem is that i live in my parents basement (haha reddit user living in their parents basement) and my parents need to get down there to wash clothes and what not. anyways, im gonna get a muzzle for her so we can work on her getting used to my mom being down there without us worrying that she’ll bite her so does anyone have any tips for muzzle training?

My dog 12 yo is not doing great with the new baby 2weeks.

He is high anxiety rescue with separation anxiety and probably an unhealthy attachment to me.

When we first brought her home the dog didnt care. Tried getting him to smell blankets, hats he didnt care. Didnt even sniff them. the first introduction with her in the crib asleep he barely even sniffed her. Then she made noise. And the barking, whining, and stress signs started (licking lips, yawning)

We keep them completely separated. He is no longer allowed in our room. This has added to night time stress as he whines and nudges the door, waking me up. One night he wont cry at all, the next it will be non stop. I swear on nights she sleeps good, hell cry all night and on nights shes fussing hell sleep.

We have installed a baby gate to our room and have started to desensitize him to her through the gate, using treats when hes quiet and the place command. The issue is he never seems to tire of the barking.

One night in frustration I secluded him to the front hall away from our door. (We have another baby gate separating the front half of the house from the living room) he barked for 3 hours straight. Same with his crate. He will just bark the whole time hes in there. He also doesn't not fully respect these gates. He cant clear them but he will put his paws up on them, nudge them with his nose and paw at them trying to get through.

I dont believe he has shown any signs of aggression. Just the barking, and whining. His bark is more of an attention seeking alert bark not aggressive. No growling. Hes also not trying to force his way into the room. He might occasionally try to sneak in when hes in his anxiety state but hes not rushing the door every time we go in and out.

When my husband and I hang out in the living room while she sleep we have zero issues with him, until he hears her fussing. Its almost like he forgets shes there.

I dont know what to do short of hiring a trainer (im looking into it but we are not near any major city so its hard to find in home trainers) im secluded to my room with the baby while shes awake which is fine for now but its already draining on me. She thankfully doesn't care at all about him barking, sleeps through it, doesn't even flinch. Im fully prepared (mentally) to keep them separated.

Im sure someone is going to suggest rehoming and I dont want to concider that unless of course safety comes into play. I love him, even with the postpartum hormones and anxiety hes causing i dont have any pet aversion towards him, nd at this point I dont believe he would intentionally hurt her.

First 8 months of her life she was an angel. She grew up frequenting bars, restaurants, coffee shops. Got loads of attention from many different humans and dogs. Always delighted with the attention. Always happy to play. Highly socialised

On vet’s advice, waited for her to have two heats before spaying her. After her first heat, things changed. She became a rebellious teenager, sometimes ignoring cues, but worst of all she started barking at strangers and even charging them. Mostly she seems to want to play, but to those that don’t know her, she clearly appears highly aggressive. Even when she sees one of her favourite humans or dogs, her initial hello is to raise the hackles and growl (at best) or scream bloody murder and charge to within one metre of them, after which she then reverts to an adorable, cuddly, playful puppy. She also approaches many dogs this way, but at least they are only terrified for a brief moment before they realise she just wants to play. Human strangere that know dogs well just ignore her for a few seconds, then will pet her and she’ll be delighted p, but for the vast majority of people she is at minimum annoying and loud due to her growling and barking, or even appears terrifyingly aggressive

Any noises she hears outside the house and she screams like crazy. Have tried “go to place”, “settle”, “watch me”, “look at that” all of which she understands fully and will respond to when below threshold (at least for a moment until there is further sound), but she goes beyond threshold from zero to 100 in an instant far too often and it’s impossible to anticipate/intervene preemptively at all times

Taking her to coffee shops or restaurants is (not always, but usually) a nightmare as I have to be on alert for anyone entering/leaving or walking by to intercept her and give her a command to prevent her from barking (which works most of the time, but only if I am 100% ready to intervene, which is horrible to have to constantly be doing). She is getting better in general it seems, but sometimes she is just shouting at anything and everything and nothing will stop her. Walks are maybe 80% fine, but most days there are at least one or two people she (seemingly randomly) will decide to just shout at and try and charge. Once every two weeks or so though, we’ll have a walk where it is almost everyone for the entirety of a walk. It is hell

She gets 1 to 2 short walks (10-15 minute) walks per day, and 1 to 2 long walks (30-45 minutes) per day. She gets to run around in an empty field or the forest almost every day to burn off energy. We do 2-4 roughly 10 minute training sessions at home every day. When below threshold, she knows a huge number of cues and does great with them. She is smart and highly food motivated (the problem is perhaps that she is also far too play motivated, including with strangers?). We work on training on every walk. We play fetch and tug and puzzle games at home every day. I take her to coffee shops or restaurants 4 to 5 times per week where we work on exposure and training. She goes to doggy daycare 2 to 3 times per week (and is apparently an angel there, other than barking at entrance sometimes). She eats very well. She is active. She is physically healthy. She is loved and cuddled to hell and back every day

Perhaps worth mentioning daycare staff are genuinely baffled when I describe her behavioural issues, as they claim to have never (or barely) witnessed them (leading me to believe perhaps these issues are not just motivation to play, but also her motivation to protect me?). She is fully off lead when at daycare. Fully on lead when we are out (trainer told me she absolutely cannot ever be off lead in public given her issues, which is really a shame as she used to be a great off lead dog in public places)

I thought after the two year mark things would improve. I am putting so much into working on her behavioural issues, trying to believe it will eventually pay off, doing everything dog trainers have advised me, but it is always 2 steps forward then 1.9 steps back, and frankly in past weeks far worse behaviour even than six months or a year ago. I need to see some improvement, or have some reason to believe she will at some stage improve if I keep investing as much as I am. I do not want to resign myself to her being “one of those scary ass dogs” that has to be left at home and never brought out around other people or dogs, but frankly recently I am seeing the way people stare at us and from the outside looking in, it must appear that is the only option for her

Grateful for any advice. I am sure I have forgotten to include relevant information without which perhaps it is not possible to advise, so please do let me know if you have any questions. There must be something I am doing wrong, or something I am not doing that I need to be

Hello all,

I grew up with dogs but never really handled training until I recently moved out and got my own female standard schnauzer. She is currently 9 months old, I’ve had her for 4 months, and she feels impossible. I went into this with tons of time and energy to train her, but it seems like no matter what I do nothing helps. Firstly, her potty training is very poor, I am very consistent in doing all the standard techniques (remains in crate when not supervised, immediately taken outside after accident, praised and given treats when going outside, TONS and TONS of walks like 6+/day), and yet she frequently goes inside. And when she goes, it’s a very small amount so it’s not like she really needed to and couldn’t hold it, and this is the case for #1 and 2. Biting: she gets excited and bites REALLY hard, like extremely painful leaves marks and goes right for the face. I’ve tried disengaging and removing access to me as soon as she bites, she has plenty of toys to bite and I try giving her one when she bites me/others but she’s uninterested, I’ve tried scolding, placing in pen when she bites, she really does not care what I do. Counters/tables, she jumps up and nothing I do prevents this. When she does I say “no, down” and she looks at me and knows what I want, but won’t actually get down no matter how many times I say it until I get up to remove her from the table, at which point she immediately goes down herself. Walking: total nightmare, I’ve been trying the “you pull we don’t move” trick for 4 months and our walks often last 30 minutes and span about 150 feet. I’ve tried front clip harness, gentle leader and none of it helps. No recall, she understands recall well because indoors she’ll often come when called (although less and less recently), but when at the dog park she just looks at me and goes back to whatever she was doing, I can’t even take her anymore because it literally takes 30 minutes to get her back on the leash and leave. She’s well exercised (has been going to dog park near daily for months), walked basically every 2 hours and for long periods of time. My newest failing strategy is whenever I’m sure she understands what I want but doesn’t listen, I say it once again, and then put her in her pen if she doesn’t listen. Feels impossible, I knew a dog would be a lot of work but I thought that if I was truly willing to put in however much work she required that I would have a reasonably behaved dog. Is there anything I’m missing? Maybe something I’m doing wrong without realizing? Thanks in advance.

Hi everyone,

I have a 16 week-old dachshund puppy and I’m looking for some advice.

He’s a bit cautious, but overall he’s really sweet and does well with people and other animals. He’s mostly been around cats, but when he does interact with my parents dogs, he’s completely fine friendly, playful, no issues at all. They usually see each other everday for a hour.

The only problem I’ve noticed is around food. He’s totally fine with humans near his food, but if another dog comes near while he’s eating or has food, he becomes defensive and will try to snip at them.

I’m guessing it’s some kind of resource guarding, but I want to make sure I handle it correctly while he’s still young.

Thanks in advance!

our dog is a year old and crate trained as a puppy within a couple of days. she is happy and comfortable in her crate and doesn't have any hesitation to go into it at night. she does not generally use it during the day but the gate is always open for her.

she has always been an incredibly well behaved dog and she has been allowed to stay out of her crate at night for a couple of weeks now.

should we be using the crate sometimes so that she stays trained and doesn't have issues if we need her in the crate? (ie when we camp we always kept her in it because the coydogs were so close and we wanted her to be safe. she was in the tent with us)

should we be crating her every night to maintain a routine?

sorry its so long

Hullo!

As the title says he does 1-3 hour naps during the day a few times a day in the crate, goes in by himself with only a few seconds of whining when I lock it sometimes during the day. At night however the best we’ve done is half an hour, any idea why that may be?

My reasoning for wanting him to sleep in the crate overnight is that he’s only 9 weeks so is absolutely not trustworthy free roaming (though free roam is a goal) and for potty training so he doesn’t pee somewhere during the night and instead can be taken out.

I got this dog he’s still young at 3 he is barking and lunging at them and cars and dogs well everything. I normally say uh uh in a tone and pull them back my direction. He’s not interested in treats. Any advice

I want to preface this by saying I am going to be contacting a behaviorist.

My dog is a herding breed. Very sweet. She is 3 years old and has grown up around other dogs and cats. At around 1ish years old she started displaying "aggressive" behavior with my cat. Whenever he would come into the room, she would go crazy barking - before she was completely fine with him. They would sleep together and hang out. But one day she started flipping out on him for coming into my room.

She wasn't like this with any of the other cats (4 others in total). When my partner and I moved in together, we brought my cat, my older (12 years) dog, and my younger dog. The behavior has progressively gotten worse.

She is obsessed with watching the cat room and barking at the slightest hint the cat is in there. If she can't get to him, she redirects onto my older dog who is in the other room sleeping. They get into a fight and she doesn't back down. Additionally, if there is thunder she'll go after him, and sometimes when he is just sleeping, she'll stand over him and then attack him if he moves the slightest bit.

The weird thing is that she won't act like this at other homes or if I am not at home. When I am gone and my partner is home or we have a pet sittier, she is calm, polite, and will even hang out with the cat on the couch or bed. She doesn't even attack my older dog.

She's a great dog, and I love her dearly, but I am starting to get frustrated because I can't relax unless she is locked away in the hallway or her crate at night. I miss our cuddles and TV time.

We do scent work, obedience training, run, sniff walks, and hike together, but I am starting to lose motivation because it isn't getting better and when she starts getting ramped up it's like I don't exist. I don't want to keep getting frustrated and ruin our relationship, but I don't know why she is doing this.

Obviously it's a me issue, since it only happens when I am home and she's fine with everyone else.

Does anyone have an inkling why she might be doing this?

Okay so I expect a lot of hate for this post - so please be as nice as possible

My dog is reactive to people with unstable energy (pretty much just people who look under the influence). It’s inconvenient for sure in a downtown community and I want her to feel safe

We are can work on managing this in a similar way that we trained her out of dog reactivity, although it’s more difficult because we can’t manufacture these situations as easily “hey person smoking crack, can I ask you to please help me train my dog?”

My question is, would it be possible to train a react command even though she is already predisposed?

I want her to feel comfortable, but I would almost prefer to NOT train her out of this than train it out and not be able to control a reaction when I want it to happen

I’m a woman, living downtown in a sketchy city. I appreciate that she looks scary, but I want her to feel comfortable

I know this is likely not doable because her reaction comes from fear and instability. If I help her feel safer and more confident in this situation can I ask her to do this on command?

To be CLEAR. I am not asking to train her in bite work. I would NOT do this without the help and guidance of a professional trainer. BEFORE taking any steps I would like the most opinions I can collect, including contacting trainers as I am now. I would not do this alone, I would likely have a trainer train her all the way through the process rather than doing it myself because it’s a delicate situation. I just want to know if it’s a possibility

I want her happy, but I also want both of us to be safe. Her fear is not misplaced and neither is mine

I have a very sensitive little chihuahua I adopted for a little over a year now. He has always had an issue with never drinking water all day and then randomly running over and trying to chug as much of it as he can all at once. If no one is home when he does it then there will be pee all over the house because he’ll have to go to the bathroom within the hour of chugging it. I would tell him no and move him away from the water bowl when I catch him trying to chug water for too long but this has only made the issue worse. Now he thinks he’s not allowed to drink water at all when I’m around and will run over and chug water even more aggressively the second I leave. How the heck do you get a dog to drink water normally???