r/puppy101

I’m a medical student, and for the first month after bringing my puppy, Luna, home, I was convinced I had adopted a literal demon.

I loved her, but some days the resentment was real. I’d be sitting at my desk trying to get through heavy study blocks, and she would just transform into this unstoppable biting machine. She’d whine, growl, jump, and shred my ankles. I tried everything—free-roaming, giving her more puzzle toys, taking her on longer walks to "tire her out." Nothing worked. She just got more frantic. I was on the verge of tears most nights, thinking I was failing her completely and that my life was officially ruined.

Then, I had a conversation with an experienced rescuer that completely flipped my perspective on puppy biology.

They told me: "Puppies get overtired so easily and become literal land sharks. They need as much sleep as human babies." >

It was a massive lightbulb moment. I realized I was treating her like an adult dog. Because I was home studying, I let her free-roam and stay awake alongside me for almost 15-16 hours a day. Her brain was completely fried and overstimulated, and the biting wasn't aggression—it was a literal toddler tantrum because she didn't know how to turn her own brain off.

That same day, I stopped "going with the flow." I locked in strict, robotic "Reset Blocks". Every 45 minutes to an hour of being awake, she goes into her quiet zone/crate in another room with white noise and a long-lasting chew for a forced 2-hour nap. No exceptions.

The difference? Night and day. The minute I started forcing her to sleep, the 'demon puppy' vanished. She’s calm, she doesn't hit that crazy biting wall anymore, and I can finally breathe and study without crushing guilt.

If you are currently crying on your kitchen floor because your puppy won't stop biting you, please stop trying to tire them out. Put them to sleep! They are probably just exhausted babies who don't know how to crash.

Just got a 3 month old puppy, I cant tell if she's teething or just hates me. Mind you, I've only treated her with love (aside from pushing her away when she bites). For whatever reason, she either nips with intent to break skin or latches onto my limbs and I have to physically pull her off. She has moments of calm, but she cant go even an hour without attacking me. I thought it was playful at first but she growls and barks as if she has ill intent.

Is this normal for her age? Am I doing something wrong? Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

We've only had him for about five days but within those days he's barely slept, he stays up for most of the night and day. I take him out every 30 minutes of the day and run outside with him, play some games where he has to use his brain, and work on some training (right now our starting priority is down, he's a bit overexcitable) the first day or so we had him he was very relaxed and chill and mostly just wanted to sit around but now he's sort of the walls and bitey. With everything near him lol. I know this is partially normal but I think the lack of sleep could be overexerting this. The problem is that I can never get him in a quiet environment. My little brother stays up ALL night watching super loud overstimulating videos in the room I have my puppy's crate in. I would just bring him up to my room but my cats aren't introduced to him yet and they stay in my room almost 98% percent of the time and I don't want to spring that on them yet. I try to tell him how much this affects my puppy when he's so little and needs so much sleep but he doesn't really care at all and claims the videos won't keep the dog up. Should I just wait out the grumpy phase until he becomes acclimated to the noisiness? My family is always very loud so it'll be good for him to be used to it. But I just feel so bad

Hi everyone, just got home with my 11 week old chinese crested puppy yesterday and I've already run into bit of an issue with the crate.

The breed is already small, but she is the smallest from the litter. She is tiny 🥹 And after we came home I quickly realized I totally overshot it with the crate size - she could fit there like 10 times, 5 times when lying down comfortably. And my biggest fear is that she will caught her leg I'm between the bars when excited or panicking and seriously hurt herself.

Of course, now she is only staying in the crate under close supervision and when calm (mostly just to sleep) and so far she's been good! Slept the whole night in it, only woke me around 1 am and 6 am with whines, waited for me to take her outside, she peed (yay!) and now she's asleep again. But I really want to prevent any possible issue.

I already quickly ordered quite smaller metal crate last night, but I'm still afraid of the metal bars and her tiny legs. Plastic crate might be an option, less space to hurt herself, but I'm afraid the crate might nor be great for the upcoming summer - it really doesn't get super hot here but we do not have AC, so it gets warm.

I'm considering one of those foldable textile crates, one that is not completely easily foldable and has a sort of a metal wires inside so they're more stable (hope that description makes sense, English is not my first language). I know they're usually not recommend, but she is so light and small I'm thinking it might just work! Her teeth are tiny as well and right now she still needs her kibble softened by water, so I'm honestly not sure if she would manage to bite her way outside if it came to it.

Do you have any advice please?

EDIT: I forgot to add I need to resolve this especially for when I'm going back to work next week - I'll only be out for 4 hours at a time and only a few days a week at the beginning + I will have a puppy camera to supervise but I still want to be 100% sure my puppy will not hurt herself while I'm gone.

Hey y’all. I need a reality check or swift kick in the ass. This is our first rescue, but not first puppy. We got him at 4.5 months and…it’s a mess. Our primary issue is he whines and barks constantly UNLESS he’s in his crate, there he’s solid. We just got him in with a trainer (we were scheduled to sooner but he had a pretty nasty dog attack to recover from so we were delayed) and she says he’s super smart and trainable. But for the 2 hour increments he’s awake at home, it’s incredibly stressful (we have the privilege of working from home). Especially his witching hour from 8-10pm after our girls are down when we’re at our most spent from the day. The training activities she recommended were things that are very hard for him to really get that mental enrichment and wear out his brain: tethering, sitting a pile of treats in front of him he can’t have, activities where he has to really engage like getting up and sitting on a milk crate or walking across a thin beam like something from a palette.

BUT…We have two competing realities right now.

1. my husband and girls have bonded with him and love him (I haven’t, my anxiety has been too high to get there) and
2. we feel like we’re failing miserably at home training, it’s so overwhelming at time one or both of us shuts down.

Our trainer also is getting field lab or Chesapeake bay retriever from his behavior and demeanor so this family dog lab we were anticipating is now potentially a super high energy, needs a job, working dog. All of that is to say….wtf do we do? I’m stuck in a regret shame spiral I can’t seem to get out of without any light at the end of the tunnel. 🫠 If you read this far, I appreciate you. I unintentionally wrote a novel.

Hey all, hoping for some past experiences from anyone else.

My 3 month old baby GSP has been dealing with an infection in her uterus that we’ve been keeping “under control” with antibiotics under strict vet supervision (constant visits).

Following a round and a half of the antibiotics the vet is now recommending we spay her early (ASAP, likely around 4-4.5 months per surgeon availability) as the risks of the infection spreading in his opinion outweigh the potential consequences of an early spay.

I’m pretty nervous about the potential effects on her growth and long term musculoskeletal health, particularly her tendon strength as she’s going to be an upland bird dog. And am hoping for some past experiences from anyone who’s been in a similar circumstance or maybe just some pats on the back saying it’ll all work out haha.

I didn’t know which flair to use because it’s all of them 😅

My poochon puppy turned 12 weeks yesterday. We got her at just under 9 weeks (this is my first pup and I didn’t know until after the fact that was pretty early - please give me some grace).

She has been a biter since we got her and that was fine. It was always light nipping/chewing and redirection typically worked, at least for a little while. She would willingly go into her crate to sleep at night and for naps during the day some of the time. That didn’t last very long, truthfully. But after that she would at least sleep next to it without much fuss. She was already used to going to the bathroom outside when we got her and for the first 3 weeks, only had 2-3 accidents in the house (2 poop, 1 pee). She barked and growled during play time but would eventually settle down.

I feel like with the snap of a finger, a few days ago she just took a complete 180. She barks, growls, jumps, and bites hard constantly and cannot be redirected. She runs away from me outside and crawls under things so I can’t get to her, but in the house she won’t leave my side. She refuses to go to sleep - I put her in a puppy proof room, where she’s always slept, 40 minutes ago and she hasn’t stopped barking. She has being pooping AND peeing in the house multiple times a day, sometimes right after she goes out.

I’m doing just about everything I’m supposed to do, although I admit I haven’t been the greatest about crate training. But that’s really not high on my priority list at this point. We always reward peeing/pooping outside. I always try to redirect the biting, and she has a TON of chew toys and squeakers/crinkles already.

She eats plenty and seems completely happy and healthy. She still wants to play with me. The issue is that she doesn’t want to stop, and bites the whole time. I do short training sessions (working on “sit,” “stay,” “come”) and she actually does pretty well with it, but as soon as we’re done, she goes insane. I enforce regular naps. And to be clear, she gets a ton of love and attention. But it’s been making me a little sad that I can’t do that as much because she just barks and bites.

I’m at my wits end, not for my own sake but because I’m terrified she’s going to grow into a maladapted dog. I’m looking for tips but also reassurance. Is this normal? Is there anything I can do beyond what I’m doing now to make it better? I just love her so so much and want everyone else to love her too.

I have the most amazing 6 month old dog. He is crate trained, is doing amazing in training overall and has a great temperament.
The issue is that i need to go away for a wedding out of the country, and handle a bit of business while im there. It breaks my heart to leave him here but he can’t travel yet and i also don’t think I’ll have the time while overseas to be with him.
Does anyone have any experience with leaving a dog for that period of time? I worry he will lose all his training and regress. Or worse, he will hate me when he sees me again for leaving him.

My 10-week puppy needed to nap so I put him in his crate and left him there - he ended up crying and barking for 20 minutes. Usually he gives up in 5-10 so I thought it strange. However I REALLY didn't want to award bad behavior so I took him out to potty with zero other interaction. About 5 minutes outside and he went to poop. I still had the idea of showing 0 emotion so I just wiped him off and put him in his crate and left him. He whimpered once and is now in the crate sleeping. I was thinking, should I have actually rewarded him heavy for all of this? I just had that gameplan in my head of ZERO reward right now but I mean he was totally right to bark in some sense? With that said I have his crate in a playpen + a pee pad - he has NO problems going pee on the pad and has gone poop on the pad overnight... I would think he knows to just poop on the pad if I don't get to him. Looking for some thoughts!

Our puppy is usually pretty good during the day but has become crazy around 6-7pm after dinner, even through she’s just up from a nap. I’ll take her outside to potty then sniff around and light play but she instantly gets riled up and her eyes go wide for my ankles. Unless I pick her up and take her inside, I cannot get her to calm down or divert her attention. Then inside she’s still pretty wired.

My thought was she just needs more naps, but our vet said we should probably exercise her more. Throughout the day she’s usually up for an hour and down for 2-2.5 hours and while she’s up we’ll light play or sniff outside or train for 30 minutes then hang out inside for 30 just chewing on toys. Am I not giving her enough exercise already? I almost feel like we’re exercising too much, but she is a spaniel and wants to be active.

Hi, our 15 week old toy poodle has generally been very god with his potty training so far. He took to using his pee pad pretty quickly and goes in to the room himself and in to his pen to go toilet on his pad. However the past week or two we have been catching him trying to pee on other areas outside is designated zone. So he definitely seems confused about where he can and can't do his business.

I am wondering how I can try and prevent this behavior and reenforce that he should only go on his pee pad...until he is old enough to go outside once he gets all his shots. We live in a city apartment so I am waiting until he is full vaccinated before bringing him outside to go toilet. Does anybody have any tips on how to deal with this behavior?

He's about 90% good with going in the right place and then 10% of the time he goes where he pleases lol.

Thanks!!

I have a 3.5 month old pup. I don’t know what is going on with food and me trying to feed him. Routine goes like this: 5mins training then meal. Training is just a very small amount of his kibbles and one treat cut in like 5 small pieces (like those low calories ones). I feed him 3 times a day, morning after wake up, in between 12-1 lunch and in between 5-7 dinner. Morning usually is fine I suspect because he’s hungry, lunch is kinda hit or miss sometimes eat sometimes no, even if he does eat it’s like half of what I offer. Dinner really bothers me it’s always me putting down food bowl he looked at it and walk away.

My rule is I put down 15mins and take away, if he doesn’t eat too bad gotta wait till next meal.

I thought he just not hungry, but I hire a sitter with him during the day while I am gone and he ALWAYS eats fine with sitter. Like he actually finishes ALL of his food, never happens with me. Ever.

Like just tonight I offer him food he doesn’t wanna eat. I’ve considered is me being there too much pressure for him to eat but no he follows me everywhere, if I leave the food spot he follows me, if I stand next to food spot he just stand away from the food bowl and stare at me like I am an alien, if I disappear into a different room like bathroom he will wait for a minute then go do his own thing like play toys. What is actually going on?? If he’s not hungry why does he eat with sitter just fine????

I honestly didn’t expect how emotionally exhausting raising a puppy could be sometimes.

Some days I feel like I’m doing okay, and then other days I feel guilty about EVERYTHING. Not enough training, too much crate time, not enough enrichment, too many enforced naps, worrying about socialization windows, worrying I’m creating bad habits accidentally, etc.

My puppy is healthy, loved, fed, walked, played with, and honestly doing pretty normal puppy things… but my brain still acts like I’m ruining his life because he stole a sock or had one bad day

Did anyone else go through this phase? And when did you finally start feeling more confident?

I really admire vets and everything they do, so this isn’t meant to bash them at all — I’m just feeling frustrated and could use some perspective from other puppy owners.

My pup is 8 months old, and twice now I’ve brought him in early when I first noticed symptoms. Both times I was told it was mild or “nothing to treat yet,” so we were sent home to monitor. Then he ended up getting worse, and I had to go back for a second visit — and that’s when he finally got medication.

I’m not someone trying to avoid vet bills. I would genuinely pay anything to help him feel better. It just feels awful watching him get sicker after doing the responsible thing and bringing him in early, only to be told to wait it out. Then he ends up needing meds anyway, plus the extra stress of another appointment, plus more time feeling miserable.

It’s gotten to the point where I feel like I need to exaggerate symptoms just to be taken seriously the first time, which I really don’t want to do. I just want him treated appropriately when I bring him in instead of waiting for things to escalate.

Has anyone else gone through this with their young pups? I’m trying to advocate for him the best I can, but right now I’m just feeling defeated.

I feel a bit silly coming back to Reddit for advice yet again but hey, here we are.

As the title says, my puppy will not stop attacking after every walk.

For some background information, he’s 4 months old (5 months on 26th) and an Australian labradoodle.
We’ve had him since he was only 9 weeks and have been training him since he was at least 14 weeks which he has been doing for extremely well with.

I’ve made previous posts about him biting and although he is getting much better, he is still very much doing so. As he’s got older and sharper teeth, he now finds he can lunge and latch onto us.
I keep him entertained in every way I can think and naps throughout the day so my only thought is that the problem may be about teething.

Now onto the real problem;
Every time I start to walk him home, he starts to attack. He will lunge up at hands and try to sink teeth in or target ankles.
This behaviour only ever starts two houses away from home no matter which direction I take him. The behaviour also occurs whether the walk was long or short so I assume it’s not anything to do with overstimulation.

I’m a bit lost here now as I’ve tried stopping walking or busying his mouth with something else yet no matter what I do he’ll always end up attacking.
Today I resorted to literally picking him up and carrying him the two houses home as he never seems to bite when someone is carrying him.

I was going to take him to the vets on 29th for a checkup and will definitely be mentioning it to them then (as the vets is also the training class we attend) but in the meantime any help?

My puppy is 12 weeks old. I’ve had him two weeks. He is having a very hard time with the crate, but I need him to be able to go in there.

Current routine:
Wake around 6, potty, breakfast, walk, hang with me while I get ready, drop the kids to school, then I set him up with two frozen Kong toys w snacks in them in the crate with calming music on, blanket over the crate.
He goes in at 8 and comes out at 11:30. He cries frantically the entire time, but frankly I have to go to work there’s just nothing I can do about that.
I come home for lunch, potty, walk. He is usually pretty chill, but when he comes out of the crate he is still whiny even after a walk and some treats, probably because he gets so worked up.

Then he comes to the office with me from about 12-2. No issue from 12-2 he chills at my feet throughout that time (usually in meetings)
Then I work from home in the afternoon about 2-4. We get the kids from school between 4-5, and have a normal evening with a few short walks and playtime in the backyard. Bedtime is around 10, and he is sleeping with me and my partner simply because I am afraid to have him screaming all night in the crate, despite it being next to the bed I think he will keep my kids awake and they need their sleep. We only really have him in bed because this puppy stuff is a lot and we definitely still need to get our zzzz’s.

When I have him in the yard if I put him on a tie out where he can’t reach me he barks and cries the whole time. I have done this only twice because of how loud and worked up he gets. It sucks because once he is in that state I think I’m not supposed to acknowledge him so I have to wait for a pause in his freak out before I can mark it and then take off the leash or take him out of the crate.

My biggest question is: what’s next? We start puppy school in a few weeks so I’m sure I’ll learn more then. For now, how can I improve the separation? There are a lot of things online suggesting to put them in and out of the crate many times a day to get them used to it. If I could better understand how to schedule this and what to do/not do I will get started. I also am willing to crate train him at night and read that they might stay calm if you sleep next to them in it for a while. I can start that, but what do I do if he keeps crying anyway? There’s a lot of conflicting advice!

Thanks for any help you can provide :)

Hi my husband and I are looking to board our 6 month only puppy in Boston. We don’t have any friends who are willing to take care of our baby and we want to make sure she is going to a safe and reputable place for a few nights. Does anyone have any affordable recommendations for boarding places that are around 50/60 dollars a night? We are willing to travel further out as well.

My puppy is 4 months old, he is 50% husky. So say if he is biting something he shouldn’t, if I tell him no, he makes a high pitched “yip” kind of sound and lunges at me to bite.

It’s not super scary, and it doesn’t seem vicious… but I am wondering if this is just a puppy thing, or if it will become scarier or do real damage once he’s no longer a puppy.

What can I do about it?

would it be ok to leave our new puppy (who will be 4 months old at the time), for 6 days with my in-laws while we have to go away?

My 9 almost 10 month old lab/german shepherd just decided she doesn't want to eat her kibble anymore no matter what we do to it. We have tried mixing is with some soft food and bone broth but she skips around the kibble and eats everything else.

Just looking for some ideas on a good kibble that we can mix with the soft food and bone broth.

She currently eats purina one plus puppy formula.

No beef.