r/puppy101

Our Bernese Mountain Dog recently turned 1. As he’s gotten bigger and older, he has mostly stopped peeing and pooping in our front yard and we typically take him on 4 walks a day during which he does his business somewhere along the walk. We have never once not picked up his poop. When he was younger he had a bit more of an upset stomach and sometimes his poop would be runnier, but lately that’s not the case. Still, we’ve always done our best to clean up any runny bits.

We have some neighbors with signs on their yard that have a dog pooping crossed out and the sign says “be respectful”. Yesterday a neighbor ran out to tell my husband they don’t want any dogs pooping on their yard.

I respect people’s wishes and it is private property so I do comply, but there are no sidewalks where we live and when we walk it’s mostly along streets with houses. Is it reasonable for me to be slightly upset by this considering I pick up his poop every time and it usually isn’t runny? Is there something I can try to make him go to the bathroom in my yard first?

It’s not everyone who has the signs and has explicitly said no to dogs pooping at the front of their yards, so there are a lot of places I can take him/I do avoid the houses with that preference. But also some of those people have dogs and I don’t get it. Where else is he supposed to poop? The street?

I have an 11 week old border collie pup but he just won’t stop biting me , I have tried everything , toys for him to chew , frozen carrot but he constantly just keeps going for me, I’ve tried telling him off , ignoring it , everything it’s just not stopping , I have tried things like food puzzles etc incase he is bored , enforced naps in crate incase it’s because of being overtired , I’m just lost what else to do

Hey everyone,

I’ve got a 5 month old Cavapoo (Storm) and honestly I feel like I’m losing my mind a bit 😅

A few weeks ago everything seemed to click. She was:

- Walking nicely on the lead

- Settling well in the house

- Way less bitey

- Actually listening to me

And now… it’s like I’ve got a completely different dog.

The last few days:

- Pulling like crazy on walks again (no focus at all)

- Getting super bitey and “naughty” in the evenings

- Won’t settle unless she crashes out from exhaustion

- Hates being handled (paws wiped, brushing etc.)

- Just generally feels a bit chaotic and over the place

What’s confusing is she can be good — like earlier she walked pretty nicely and even settled in a pub. So I know she’s capable.

Nothing major has changed apart from:

- We’re transitioning her food

- She might be teething more

- Maybe just getting older / more confident?

Is this just a normal regression / teenage phase starting early?

Would really appreciate any advice on:

- How to deal with the sudden bad walking again

- Handling training (she’s started resisting everything)

- Managing the evening chaos/zoomies

Feels like we made loads of progress and now we’re back at square one.

Thanks in advance 🙏

so, after a lot of time thinking and wanting a dog, over than five years living with one, I decided to get a dog myself. it’s a 3 month old english setter, a very beautiful little guy. the thing is, i’m starting to have anxiety and think about returning him, because for some unknown reason I’m afraid I won’t be able to take proper care of him, which also stresses me the hell out and I just can’t focus on my job. I really love him, I’m familiar with the term “puppy blues”, and I’m 100% sure it is it, but I never knew it would be that hard.

so, I would like some advice on how to get rid of that awful feeling, how did you guys get past it? is there anything I can do to make myself and the dog also feel better?

Hi there! I recently adopted an 8 month old potential JackChi mix/mutt on the 28th, and while I’m not a first time dog owner this is my first time raising a puppy on my own.

I have been drilling into my head the 3-3-3 rule, and looked at a couple of puppy blue posts. I’m generally an anxious person and have had that “what if I’m not the right owner.” So, I want to ask other JackChi owners, or high energy pups, what’s the best thing I can do to give her a good fulfilling/enriching life.

Currently she’s recovering from Kennel Cough (got her medication), and missing her Parvo vaccination (we have an appointment for this coming Friday to get it) so parks and long walks aren’t really an option.

Lately my niece and I have been doing monkey in the middle for play time, and sneaking in treats in her kong bone for teething, but this can only do so much while she’s in recovery/quarantine.

Sorry if this post is all over the place, I have trouble writing down my thoughts orz

We just got our pup, (7 weeks, pomsky female) yesterday. So yes I know we are in a huge adjustment period. But I want her to learn how to sleep in her crate through the night. I do have her crate in my room. But that didn’t work last night, she cried for me immediately. If I leave it in another room where I can’t hear her crying, how long can I leave her through the night before checking and taking her potty?

I have a 6 month old German shepherd puppy. for about 3 weeks now, she hasn't been eating all that much. The vet says she is healthy. I've tried the whole pit it down for 15 mins and picked it up thing. I've wet the food. I've tried different foods. If I leave the food down all day, she will occasionally drive by eating a few pieces of kibble. she is drinking water, playing, peeing and poop are normal. She will eat treats as well. I just don't know what to do.

I have a 5 month old rottie mastiff mix that I’ve had for 2 weeks. She’s an angel so far, basic potty training accidents, some crying in the crate, but nothing too hard on us. The biggest two issues I’ve had so far is the barking and a fear of leashes and harnesses. I’ve tried putting the harness on the floor and just rewarding existing around it, then throwing treats on the harness and she’s fine with that but as soon as it’s in my hand she shuts down and runs. Even just sitting with it on my lap while tossing treats, she refuses to even take the treats at that point. It’s so bad that she will even hide in the crate that she hates to avoid having to be near me when I am simply holding it. I’ve never once put a harness on her, but now we are pushing onto needing to take her to her vet appointment and I’m frazzled.

As for the barking, I’ll take her out late at night when there are no noises and yet she will bark and refuse to refocus or offer behaviors for me. I’ve tried even just dropping treats near her when quiet and she won’t stop. I can’t get this to replicate inside the house where there are less distractions, and she is tired from a whole day of working, training, playing, puzzles, etc so I know it’s not just over excitement or boredom. I know she’s got some protection instincts running in that little head of hers, is this something that is just inevitable?

Am I doing something wrong? This isn’t the first puppy I’ve raised but I’ve never had this strong willed of a breed let alone two competing breeds. She’s barely food motivated, mid on toy motivation and couldn’t care less about attention. I know it’s only been two weeks and I need to give her time to fully settle but I’m trying to crack down on the stuff I’m seeing now before I get hit with the wave of puppy behavior.

We leave our 2 pups out overnight, they sleep in their own beds on the floor in our bedroom. Luckily there’s only carpet in our finished basement.

When they get up overnight to go out, (usually about 3-4) they just end up playing outside, barking and being jerks. Now they’ve started pooping by the front door. Just poop! Should we let them out more before bed? Wake up one at a time to go out?

I don’t want to leave them in their kennels, they’re in them for 5 hours Tues-Fri.

Otherwise they’ve been great.

every morning when she barks to wake me up , then i take her out of her crate take her potty feed her play with her and take her out again and then normally she turns into a shark and won’t chill out no matter what i do, so does that mean it’s time to put her back in the crate for a nap , she normally will not chill out on her own. and how long would i put her down to nap for

We have an 8 month old chocolate lab/husky/sheppard mix and when she is excited trying to play, she bites my hands and arms hard or nips my sweaters. I really hoped after she got her adult teeth she would stop biting but nope.

It's not because she's bored, she has lots of toys and goes for 2 walks a day and weekends 30-45 mins at an off-leash park in the morning.

For example, we spent 25 mins playing with a chuck-it at the park this morning and when we got home she was relaxed for 10 mins then at trying to bite me.

I am firm with her to stop, redirect with a toy and it doesn't help. She thinks it's a game but after 5+ mins of telling her no and stop, she calms down and it stops. I know she is at the age of testing boundaries but I worry about her doing this to someone she doesn't know or a kid.

Any advice on how to make this stop?

Title typo: Only when we're NOT in the room

Hey gang!
I did a reddit search and there were similar issues, but not much help in terms of actually remediating.

Here's the situation: Oliver is 1.5 years old. He took to training very well and we can trust him around the house more and more. His "leave it" command is super solid, even with food scraps on walks and whatnot. Very proud of him!

But! Sometimes he's a shoe guy. If we're not in the room with him to say "Leave it", he bee-lines to shoes and prances/marches away so happy. I think he's using it to play a game, because he gets so excited once he gets a shoe and can't wait for us to chase him. We've gotten the procedure down pretty pat and are able to get the shoe back with out engaging in much joy or fun. We've stopped trying to bribe him with treats to get him to bring it back, and try to joylessly take it from him.

He's got several toys around the house, and he knows which are his toys and which aren't. But for some reason, he just grabs a shoe for the thrill.

SO! The question in: How can I help him not grab shoes? Leave it works if we see it, so that's good. But he struggles with "drop it". I'm working on that but it's the first thing he's struggled to learn.

Are there any tips for helping reinforce that he's not supposed to grab shoes?
We've arranged shoes to be in rooms with doors now so we _can_ shut him out of those spaces, but that's not how we want to be long term.

Thanks for your time!

Hi everyone, I’d really love to hear your experiences and opinions on this.

I had a puppy a while ago when I was still living with my mom. Even though he was technically *my* dog, he ended up bonding much more closely with my mom. He loved me, but she was definitely his person, and I could really see the difference.

Now I’m living on my own and have a new puppy, and I think I’m a bit anxious about the same thing happening again. My boyfriend comes over about twice a week and spends time with us, and about once a month I go visit my family. I’m worried that my puppy might end up bonding more strongly with someone else instead of me.

So I wanted to ask:

* How do you tell if your puppy is truly bonded to you?

* What behaviours or signs made it obvious to you who your dog’s “person” is?

* Can bonding shift over time depending on who they spend time with?

* Is there anything you did intentionally to build a stronger bond?

I think I might just be overthinking it, but I’d really appreciate hearing how others have experienced this.

Thanks in advance 🐶

PS I have a 5 month old male Maltese puppy.

Hi everyone. I have a 4 month old golden doodle. He’s an amazing pup and has been doing good with crate training and we leave him for 3-4 hour blocks when we’re at work and he’s fine. We got him when he was around 2 months old. We love traveling but it’s a little hard with him especially on long flights. We wanted to leave him in daycare for a week but we’ve never dropped him off anywhere and he’s been with us every night since we got him. We’re worried he’ll be sad/anxious or he’ll regress in his training. Any advice on how to approach this situation/anyone having been in this situation?

I have a 14 week old cavapoo. Weve had her since 8 weeks but shes only been able to go out this week. If I go by myself we get 5 meters from the house and she sits down and wont move. Ive tried luring her with treats, using encouragement and carrying her a few meters then putting her down, but nothing is working. Shes fine with her lead and harness, so it's not uncomfortable. However, when she is with multiple people for her walks she will still sit down occasionally, but no where near as much. She likes to be at the front so if everyone else continues walking she will run to catch up. Honestly dont know what to do, I know she is only young but it would be nice to get out for 10 minutes at least! Any help please?! Thanks

I'm a few weeks into a new puppy (my second post here, I'm guessing there will be more). She's 13 weeks old, 3 pounds, and an absolute terror, but we can handle that. What I'm going insane about is that my old dog (Luna - chiweenie, 14, Cushing's Disease) prefers to pretend the puppy doesn't exist, but the puppy barks and jumps and loses her whole mind anytime she sees her. The puppy does go up for enforced naps and spends most of her time in a pen because she can't be around Luna.

(Background on how I got into this situation: seven months ago we were told Luna had probably 6 months left because she has cushings and had a seizure. Our younger dog is inconsolable without her, so we started looking for a puppy. Now we're a few weeks into a puppy and Luna is going strong with no signs of going anywhere soon. We thought we'd be a 2 dog household, but now we have a very old and grumpy dog, her younger brother who she only now likes after a few years, and a puppy she wishes would leave her alone.)

I'm keeping them 100% separated for the time being, but it makes everything SO much harder. Life is simplest when I can put the old girl up in my bed and she sleeps for a couple hours. The puppy can run around to her little heart's content, explore, play with our middle dog (almost 5 and loves her), and everything is pretty chill.

Inevitably, the old lady wants to come out and the puppy goes wild. Once Luna settles, the puppy will forget about her, but give it a few minutes and Luna will want to move four inches on the couch to a new spot. I can't have the puppy out without running constant interference because she hops along the edge of the couch and barks and I am in no way confident that Luna wouldn't go after her if pushed too far. I would LOVE to just have the puppy on one side of a baby gate and Luna on the other, but Luna will whine and bark to be let back in, even though she doesn't actually want to be anywhere near the puppy.

I honestly don't know how to manage this. I want the puppy to be able to roam around safely, but I want Luna to be included in the family, and right now I don't see how I can do both. Does anyone have any suggestions?

my puppy (17wk dachshund) has attended a puppy socialisation class thing since he was 12 weeks old and we have had 0 issues with other dogs there and he loves going to meet and play with other puppies. today however we had to leave early.

there were three dogs (2 border collies 1 labrador) that were incessantly going at mine. barking, pinning, biting, chasing, knocking over, growling etc which i’m aware is normal puppy behaviour. my concern was the constant pinning of mine to the point he was yelping and none of the owners/workers seemed too bothered by this. i understand that all puppy sizes are welcome in these classes and the puppies weren’t really my problem more the owners reluctance to actually react to what their dogs(who were giant in comparison to mine) were doing constantly, for around half an hour mine was a target. the worker intervened a couple of times and the behaviour wasn’t aggressive but my puppy was yelping due to being knocked over or nipped, he stopped trying to play soon after and was just running away with his tail between his legs.

there was a point that caused me to leave where i had to push the labrador away from mine because he had cornered my puppy under my legs and was barking inches away from his face.

as i left the worker said the behaviour wasn’t aggressive to which i responded that it wasn’t that it’s just the size difference i don’t want mine to get hurt it’s not the dogs fault at all, it’s just me not wanting my tiny puppy to be injured by accident.

this post isn’t to say don’t bring your dogs to these classes as i believe socialisation is important for dogs of all sizes to meet and learn to play, but if you have a large dog that is consistently going at a much smaller dog to the point they’re yelling or running away and hiding please intervene.

apologies for long post i needed to vent as this is my first puppy that’s belonged to me and im now concerned this will turn into a fear of other dogs.

I’ve watched videos and they say to take him out every hour or watch for behaviors, but the problem is that he is just constantly peeing everywhere. I can’t even have him loose in the house for 15 minutes without risking him peeing, even if I gave him plenty of time outside.

We have a 5 month old large mixed breed dog. We got him at 12 weeks and has been doing great overall! But I have a few questions that have been tickling the back of my brain.

1- we do enforced naps in the crate, he will go in to his crate willingly and will only protest slightly on occasion and will whine when he wakes up. With the being said we've realized he will not nap restfully unless the crate is covered and some kind of noise playing. With that being said is this a negative? I know puppies need a lot of rest and we usually do 23-3 hours awake (we don't force him to stay awake) and let him sleep for as long as he needs, lately he only seems to be restfully sleeping for an hour or so at a time. I know he's getting older and needs less sleep but at what point if at all should I attempt to remove the cover and noise? I feel like him only being able to sleep with those things might be a negative. Now I will say he does take cat naps on the ground if we are cleaning or hanging out so he does settle outside of the crate just not for the deep sleep he needs.

2- I tend to over think but, our pup has no interest in playing really, you'll try to initiate play and he'll chase maybe twice and then stop or he'll just drop whatever you were trying to play with. He never actively seeks out a toy except for a couple seconds and otherwise would rather just follow us around and lay at our feet (there is nothing wrong with him medically I think he's just a pretty chill guy) any pointers on how to initiate play? Or is it ok to just let him do what he wants and wander around (he's 95% potty trained so he has quite a bit of freedom) his only real interest are bully sticks and training for his food. We do use puzzle toys man's everything but those things don't take much time so we're engaged fully for about 30 minutes with estirar trading enrichment or attempted play but the rest of the time he's just doing nothing (which I also know is good for him the learn) but will all that for the question of does anyone else's puppies not play really? And would rather just be around you? And how do you initiate play or get them interested!

My 11-month-old pup has been acting WAY more anxious than normal in the past 48 hours, and I’m trying to figure out if it is just a fear period or if there is reason for more concern. 

We rescued her at 4 months and she's now 11 months old. She has been an incredibly excitable and confident dog and rarely if ever showed signs of fear.

2 days ago, seemingly without explanation, as soon as we got outside she became very scared: tail tucked, shaking, whining, and pulling to go back inside. No explicable reason other than that the air may have smelled a little weird? We live in a city, so that is to be expected at times. Ever since then, she seems reluctant to go on walks and generally way more nervous than normal (jumping at the sound of cars going past, birds calling, etc). Sometimes she’s been in a total panic, and sometimes it’s just more on edge than normal and we're able to go on our normal walks. In the past day she's also become increasingly aware and afraid of our ceiling? She’ll look up at it and cower/back away, and she refuses to get on her bed. But eventually she has been able to calm down/ignore it. She also tends to get better over the course of each day, evenings are calmer than mornings.

She has no other symptoms- still eating and going to the bathroom normally, her ears don't smell off, no pain when squeezing her legs. We did call the vet, who wasn't that concerned and thought it was something environmental because it tends to be better when she's inside. We have an appointment early next week for them to examine her.

Does this line up with any of your experiences with fear periods? Or any ideas about what it could be? A lot of things line up with my reading about them (timeline, reevaluating environment) but this just seems quite severe. I would also welcome any advice on how to help her feel a little less afraid! I feel so bad seeing her like this. We have been giving her lots of treats and trying to keep the vibes very positive.