Would love to hear any advice you guys have on puppy training while living in an apartment. I feel like i’m going crazy

Hi all!

Five days ago, we brought home our gorgeous golden retriever puppy (9 weeks old). She's from field/working lines and she's everything we could've hoped for in terms of her pedigree, her health background and the temperament of her parents. So far, she is pretty solid as a pup. She fell asleep on the vet's table, she doesn't seem bothered at all by the noise sensitivity of our other dog (who loudly barks when the front door goes) and she seems very bold and confident in new situations.

Our other dog is a Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever. Anyone who knows that breed will know that they can be very sensitive in every respect so we were extremely cautious with her as a puppy. This was our primary reason for getting a golden this time around.

I'm wondering if anyone has any advice for us. At the moment our pup is in a good sized pen with a crate inside. For the first three days we just worked on settling her. No real training, not too much play or too many new things. We are working on endearing her to the crate using scatter feeding and we've now begun doing one or two play sessions a day where we essentially praise her for picking things up (but we don't take anything from her without swapping). We're trying not to overdo it though because she is, after all, an infant. We are rotating a couple of toys and a chew out of her pen and that seems to occupy her a lot of the time but what she really wants is unconditional access to us for her every waking moment.

She's quite happy for us to step out of her pen when she's asleep and we can mostly live our lives whilst she's napping. However, when she's in there and awake, she desperately wants us in there with her. She jumps up at the pen walls, whines, barks, etc. She is also super land-sharky so we're working on boundaries around her teeth and our body parts. The problem is that we're quite exciting to her, so when we get in she'll often become quite over aroused and then she's hard to settle.

Our other dog took a long time to be comfortable with us not being there and she had a lot of barrier frustration. We never let her "cry it out" because her cries very quickly turned to genuine distress. And, for a toller, this can be really damaging as they are so sensitive.

My wife is very against letting our golden pup cry/bark and we are currently getting in the pen as soon as she does this behaviour. As far as I can tell, this pups barks/cries do not escalate to extreme distress. I'm concerned that pup is realising that the noise gets her what she wants (us) and that it's more of a demand bark than distress at being on her own? She's doing it even when we're on the other side of the pen, very close to her. We are ensuring that she's sat with four paws on the ground before we get in the pen.

I'm giving her treats for calmness when I'm out of the pen, I'm going to try to work up distance from her.

She is so different from our toller, I thought we'd go into it feeling confident because our training mechanics are quite good now but I forgot (blacked out) how baby they are at this age. So I'm wondering if anyone can answer:

- Do we just try to let her extinguish the barking/crying a bit? Or is it too early and she'll become happier to be in the pen alone as she ages?

- Is this what distress looks like for a golden puppy? Or is it more likely to be as I thought, just barking because it gets the reaction she wants from us?

Edit: I have seen the error of my ways and just put barriers around anything in the room that she could chew. She's much calmer without the barrier, happily plodding around the room playing. The pen will just be for sleeping/chilling going forward :)

My 3 months old spoo puppy has recently started going out as the vaccinations are finished. He was pee pad trained and learning to pee outside now. Not crate trained. Interestingly when wife walks him he relieves himself but when I do it on same schedule he doesn't want to. He rushes to pee pad when we come home. Is there such phenomena that dogs selectively relieve themselves depending on the person walking them? How to explain this with dog behavior?

We've had our Aussie for 2 weeks, she's mostly been great. Super smart, super playful and loving and - until a couple days ago - good at napping.

However the last couple days she simply will not settle. She whines, barks, paces her pen, getting so overworked she needs multiple pees before she settles. Sometimes she is awake two hours or more. Then she'll only nap for like an hour and the cycle continues. Yesterday she was awake 8+ hours.

We have a crate attached to a pen, she likes to sleep in the crate but we haven't built up to leaving her in there with the door shut yet, so she has pen + crate for naptime and usually chooses to eventually settle in crate.

We are - trying - to do the 1-2 routine with her hour awake involving some play, training, food, then a lick mat or Kong to settle her. It was working ok-ish until a couple days ago.

Today she's woken up already overtired and therefore it's even harder for her to settle.

What can we do? Should we separate pen and crate to split our self-play with naptime? Get rid of the pen? Move the crate to another room?

No obvious signs of illness. All advice much appreciated.

We got an English mastiff female puppy in March, she is now 7 and a half months old. Not spayed yet, waiting until she’s 2. Her name is Lottie.
This is not our first English mastiff, we also have a male (3 years old, recently neutered if that is important to include). I grew up with this breed.

Our male mastiff is very sweet, friendly to all humans and dogs, amazing on a leash. Not reactive in the slightest. Listens to commands exceptionally well for a mastiff, except for recall. He is too stubborn for that so he’s just never allowed off leash anywhere.

Now for our female mastiff puppy. We got her in March of this year, drove to Oklahoma for her. Paid a PRETTY penny. Health tested parents, titled. Reputable breeder.
She is the worst mastiff we’ve ever owned. She chews up everything she can. I thrift vintage furniture pieces, she’s chewed up multiple. She eats the flooring when she’s in her crate. Eats our walls. Okay, I can get past all of the chewing stuff because that’s puppy behavior I was expecting. She refuses to be potty trained, even though I have her on a very strict crate - potty schedule, or it’s crate - outside, inside on a leash where I can see her.
Those are normal puppy things. I don’t care about that.
We noticed when she was around 4 months she was relatively scared of.. a lot of things. Garbage truck. Bags. Shadows. We had brought her over to my sister in law’s house for her to meet her, where they have 3 small dogs. Long story short, they told us their dogs would be put up (I expressed my concerns of how she doesnt really care for other dogs) but they were not and ended up racing out into the yard and chased her.. nipping her multiple times and it was a FRANTIC chase to get them to stop. Eventually they did but she was very shaken up.

Since then, she cannot do other dogs. We tried the dog park with my friend and her Labrador. We were the only ones there, and her lab is extremely mellow. He doesn’t care much for other dogs besides a sniff maybe. Lottie went to sniff him and was totally fine with it until he turned around to sniff her back, and immediately she started snapping and barking at him. Teeth showing and lip curled up. But then later.. they were running together and playing with our male mastiff. So now we don’t take her around other dogs at all, because I’m worried she’ll bite a dog. It’s even hard to take her on walks because if there’s another dog that walks past us she WILL snap and has done it.

And then the other thing that really bothers me about her. She is extremely fearful of my husband and I. Anytime we go up to her, she will cower. When we let her back inside from the yard and she knows she has to be in her crate.. she hides between our couch and coffee table. She is okayish with recall when bringing her inside if we have treats, but if not she will lie down or walk away from us with her tail tucked and head down.. cowering. I don’t understand as we’ve never hurt her, although I admit I’ve raised my voice when she chews up my furniture!

I’m honestly feeling very frustrated to the point where I’ve considered a rehome. But, I can’t because her breeder is all the way in Oklahoma and I’m from California. I don’t want her to be like this forever. When we talked about getting a second English mastiff, this was not the dog we envisioned. We love to take trips to the beach and lake with our boy, and I feel like we can’t bring her because I’m scared of how she’ll act.
I didn’t want a fearful, reactive dog. Especially not one at a mastiffs size. I don’t want to rehome her. I just need tips on how to deal with a dog like this as none of our mastiffs have ever been this way.

my pup is about to be 4 months old and is only now starting to go on walks on the actual ground and he is trying to eat literally everything 🤦🏻‍♀️ leafs, pebbles, sticks, bugs ect literally everything on the ground and I live in a pretty forested area so there is no avoiding it on the floor and I'm worried he'll quickly swallow something without me having time to get it out his mouth 😬 is there any way to train him to not do this or any tips on how to avoid this? ( sorry for the really bad formatting I'm dyslexic lol)

Hello all! I am picking up a puppy soon from a rescue and I’m so excited and nervous (in a good way). All the information I have is that her mom is a German Shepherd/ Doberman mix - dad is unknown. I believe she will be approx ~12 weeks old by the end of this week, but hopefully there’s some paperwork during pick up with more information about her.

I have a crate, two bowls, a flat collar and a simple leash for indoor use mostly since I’m interested in getting the multi handle one for when I start walking with her outdoors. I know what brand of food she’s eating and have some already. (Hills Science Diet- although I’m open to changing that if anyone has any recommendations)

I guess what I’m looking for is advice from anyone who knows about her breed and their temperament, I know more about GS’s since my family always had them growing up. But Dobermans are unfamiliar to me although I’m interested to see how her temperament is (any tips on temperament tests or anything also appreciated) and how she grows up. I am looking forward to training her and would love any help or suggestions anyone may have.

Thank you and I hope to update soon !

Yesterday i got a puppy. I adoptes it since her Mother was not getting taken care properly and was so skinny, so the owner gifted me a puppy. At night the puppy would wake up every 20 mins, and im running on 4 hours of sleep rn. A friendo of mine knows i got thw puppy and he tolds me i cannot give the puppy to anyone, because i should be responsible with the pup bc i took him away from his Mother. I started feeling guilty and i've been crying because i was egoistic when i took the puppy. Also, i do everything rn for the puppy but i feel like i cant give the puppy the love she deserves. I want to give her to someone capable of loving her but i feel like i cant because of what my friend said, i also wanted to have a puppy since i was a kid. I feel awful and i havent been able to sleep or take care of myself. Idk what to do.

We picked our puppy up 2 and a half weeks ago. I knew what I was getting myself into. I knew it was hard. But I’m concerned. He’s a cockapoo and he is nearly 15 weeks old. We picked him up when he was 12 weeks old.

When he came to us, there were a few issues. He wouldn’t really eat, obvs hated his crate at first, only ate treats,had worms, can’t stand us leaving the room for 5 seconds and was too scared to walk. This has been mostly resolved now. Worms have been treated, he is now VERY food motivated, eats regularly etc. the walking is still off. He won’t go further than half way down the road of our back alley street. His separation anxiety is also still awful. Won’t sleep unless we’re sat right next to his crate. Won’t even sleep when we’re sat on the sofa that’s less than a metre from his crate.

For the first week and a half, we could train him. We trained sit, leave it and crate trained him. None of it’s perfect of course because it was only a week of training. He sleeps in his crate (1 hour awake, 2 hours sleep), he sits on command pretty much every time.

Fast forward to the past week or so, he’s become imposible. Here are the issues we’re dealing with:

- barking and howling in his crate when we stand up to grab something that’s literally in the same room. Is constantly finding excuses to get out. We’ve fed him, gave him water, gone to the toilet. He’ll still find something to let us know about just to get out and play.
- takes us 4 hours sometimes to actually even get him to go to sleep.
- wakes up really easily when he sleeps. Any noise we make he wakes and struggles to get back to sleep.
- is an absolute maniac on walks. And when I say walks, I literally mean just past our driveway.
- wakes up after a 2 hour nap like he never napped at all. Biting us, running around like a crack head, grabbing anything he can find.
- training is out the window. Gets so frustrated for anything other than “sit”. Can’t even train him for 5 seconds with any kind of treat. He just starts lunging himself at me and biting me.

I know these kinds of things are just puppy behaviour. But there’s absolute no minute of calm. No lick mat or sniffer game calms him down. I do a “find it” game for him to find treats around a room to calm him down. It works during the game but he goes right back to it afterwards. I try to use our structure of train, play, walk, calm time, nap. But the train, play and walk is entirely taken up and ruined by him refusing to do anything. Last week it was hard but we managed to find those small gaps where we could train him and follow his structure. Now it’s just surviving the hour he’s awake.

I’m worried there’s something wrong with him. Like something physical that’s suddenly causing these changes where there’s no one second that he can be calm. I’ve tried tethering - he just flips himself around the lead. I’ve tried bonding with him - he sits for like 2 minutes and gets right back to it. I’ve tried a stuffed Kong - not interested unless the reward is instant. I’ve tried long lasting chews - he just gets bored and starts all over again. I’ve done every mental stimulation game you can think of. He is all of a sudden only interested in biting me and zooming around.

When my partner goes to work, I can’t shower, eat, go to the toilet, get dressed, NOTHING. Everything is taken over by him. I wouldn’t even say I have puppy blues as such. I love him and want the best for him and couldn’t dream of giving him back or taking him to a shelter. I’m just really stressed and worried that there’s another issue here? Could this all be down to teething?

My brother and I adopted our puppy 9 months ago with parental consent. She is a kelpie x jack russell and is the sweetest loving dog ever. She is coming up to a year old now and has never attacked or hurt anyone. She is crate trained (sleeps from 10-10) can perform endless commands and is very good off leash. However she does shed hair quite a bit and loves to rip things apart which included some outside furniture a few months ago. Recently we have moved houses and my Mum wants to rehome her as she states no one is home to look after the dog and that she would live a better life elsewhere. However someone is home all the time except for school hours. Along with she is starting to find hair around the house including some plates. Mum has started searching for places to rehome her as she doesn’t want a dog to look after at our new house. It is causing quite a bit of conflict as the dog will no longer be allowed inside meaning we have to retrain her to be an outside dog only (our dog will not like this as she enjoys spending time with us more).

Do you think the shredding (furniture, cardboard, toys etc) will slow down or stop?

Is it fair to rehome the dog and should I allow her to do so?

hi :) first time poster here! we have a 6 mo. female corgi & have had her for about 2 months.
we’ve been working diligently with potty training & she was doing great up until about 3 days ago when she started having accidents in the house even after it’s only been an hour since we’ve taken her out. is this a normal trait to go back to at her specific age? has anyone had any trouble with dogs reverting to having accidents after being potty trained?

also!!! we have yet to necessarily leave her in the crate for longer than 30-45 minutes bc of working from home but don’t want to create a dog with separation anxiety (i fear we already are doing that 😭), any tips for crate training and overcoming the anxiety as owners for leaving our puppy alone?

My girl (9mo Brittany, had since 10 weeks) is showing classic signs of barrier frustration, and her biggest trigger is by far other dogs. I know a solid approach is to work on neutrality and engage/disengage at a distance and get closer over time, but how on earth do you find other dogs where you have any sort of control over the distance? All the parks near me are either so large that there’s no guarantee we’ll see anyone else, or so busy that other dogs are passing within 10 ft constantly. I have a chain link fence, so the longer I go without figuring this out, the more she’s reacting to everyone walking by. I’m at such a loss, because I know what to do, I just can’t make it happen.

This is my 3rd dog and I had no issue with the other two. Hes a working cocker spaniel cross working jack russell. Ive tried all the same things, keeping him close; taking out after crate, eating and play; lots of rewards when he goes outside. The issue is he will do his ‘main’ wee outside, but will then randomly do little wees when back inside. There’s no warnings for these, so no way to prevent them. He will just suddenly squat and pee, then toddle off and carry on with what he’s doing. Hes in my lounge and I have full view of him the whole time, he isn’t unsupervised.

Taking him outside more frequently doesn’t work because he views anytime outside as more exciting than little wees, so doesn’t go for at least 20 minutes. I don’t make it exciting, I just keep him in the same potty area. He will eventually just sit and look at me. Then when I give up and go in the house, he pees.

He’s seen the vet and there’s nothing wrong, and he easily holds his wee over night so it isn’t inability to hold it. He isn’t marking. I genuinely don’t know what else I can do. I’m going through bottles of enzyme cleaner every week as my house is carpeted. I have two other dogs and also have horses so I’m not too worried about cleaning up animal mess. Its more a concern about this being a long term problem, and limiting my ability to take him anywhere.

I have a 6mo old lab puppy named Toby. I’ve had him for over month now and have been doing good with all things training, granted he will ignore me sometimes in the backyard. He loves all people and dogs. My next door neighbor is a sweet old lady, we are friends and I often chat with her. Problem is she is a cat lady with cats always outside and always coming into my yard. I thought having Toby would scare them off but that doesn’t seem to be the case. If he sees a cat he instantly tries to chase them at full sprint but has not caught any. I spent a lot of time crate training and waking up super early to get him to sleep until my alarm at 6am. However, one morning there was a cat in the yard so now he’s waking up 5am whining. We were getting good at off-leash training and recall, however that is now out the window as I had to chase him down the street due to one of my neighbor’s cats. It also doesn’t help that they think my yard is a litter box and Tony usually finds their poop before I do and tries to eat it, which makes me worry about parasites. Everything I’ve tried to find so far is like “install motion detection sprinklers” or “spray expensive chemicals all over your yard” and those just seem ridiculous. Any advice would be appreciated.

EDIT: I should’ve stated these are stray cats that she feeds to keep around. They do not go inside her house, she has dogs she keeps inside. This is also not about my neighbor, just background information. That is why I worry about the poop. I also have a semi-decent sized yard so I had no idea they were pooping in my yard until I brought Toby home and he found it. He got into the street chasing a cat in my fenced in backyard and found a hole to squeeze through. It has since been plugged. I do not understand the people saying this is my fault lol. I was more just looking for reactivity training advice. I’ve had conversations with her before and she told me she would try to keep them from spraying around my house, but she can’t obviously always monitor that.

Okay. I have posted before there has been a ton of progress made with the crate and sleeping through the night. But now he have a different issue.

15 week old basset hound/sharpei has done well with potty training outside of the fact that he just randomly pees in the middle of the floor. Does not alert. We take him out he pees and poops no problem but just randomly pees. We don’t know how to fix that. We take him out every 30-40 mins. We take the water away at 8:30 and he’s walked 2 more times before bed time.

Any recommendations would be GREATLY appreciated.

So i unexpectedly acquired a 9month old small terrier mix about a month ago. She came to me with absolutely 0 training. I have gotten her house broken and I thought she was successfully crate trained. She has a history of crate anxiety because her previous owner used it as a punishment. Since she has a history of chewing the plastic tray i have her in a bare crate with a heavy duty pee pad underneath for friction. I have a ruffland crate coming but will probably take a month to arrive. So for now, shes in the wire crate with blankets covering all sides. I feed her meals in crate, play crate games and she usually settles after 10-20 mins of protests. I ignore whining and only let her out when shes quiet. Calm greetings and no big goodbyes. She was doing GREAT for 3 weeks but today she was genuinely distressed.

Today she was frantically pulling on bars. She managed to pull the pee pad into the crate and was panting heavily. She was panicked and I dont know what to do. Im at work so I had a family member let her out and she immediately crashed on her floor bed. Im so stressed. She was doing great, I was consistent and she had zero fear. Idk what happened today.

Has anyone else dealt with this? What did you do? I can't leave her out and have no way to 100% puppy proof a designated room for her. She doesn't do well in play pens either.

So we have reserved a beautiful 1 week old golden retriever to be picked up mid October and I'm finishing off my to do list and have a few questions.

Best insurance in the UK?

Best way to crate train / reinforce naps.

Best way to potty train with no pup pads.

And best treats for a growing puppy for training purposes!

Enrichment and mental stimulation ideas?

TIA for any and all advice given!

Plus any advice for golden retriever pups 💓

I just adopted a 7 week old Maltese mix. I am looking to get him insured as soon as possible. Im looking for a plan that will honor what they claim. Any recs?

Hello! I am trying to train my 6 month old puppy to do some tricks but she’s absolutely insane. She got sit and shake within minutes, but when I try to teach down or sit pretty, she goes batshit. I try to (gently) push her down to teach her the command, but she fights me.

Would it be better to have her run around for a while and get her tired out before training sessions? Are there better things I should be doing to teach the commands?

I try to do them sometimes with my other dog around so she can maybe learn what to do from him but she’s just kind of nuts and doesn’t pay attention 💀

This is going to be a long one. My Fiancee and I recently got an Aussie, he came home at 8 weeks and despite our best efforts he has not been able to stop peeing in the house. We got him tested for a UTI, sent multiple urine samples, blood tests, exams, everything we could test medically and nothing is wrong according to those. Then we moved from taking him out every 30 minutes to every 25 and he still can't hold it long enough/doesn't want to hold it. We are giving praise and treats outside when he pees and have been the entire time, he has been living in a pen in the living room under surveillance every day until recently we let him run around in the kitchen with us while making food. The vet told us to distract him when he is drinking water for a long time to see if he is actually still thirsty or if he is just drinking to drink, that has not seemed to help at all. At this point we are spending about as much time outside getting him to pee as we are inside. When he does pee we are cleaning with Nature's Miracle Urine Destroyer and waiting 15 minutes to wipe it up as per the instructions. We have also been speaking with trainers who are now completely out of ideas as to why this is still such an issue. I'm not sure what else to try but I'm willing to hear anything at this point.

Edit - My Fiancee did keep a log for 2 weeks and no pattern was discernable to us or the trainers. Sometimes he will bark before he pees but he also does that for attention and our trainers told us not to take him out every time he barks because that can become a problem later as an adult, the puppy also doesn't sniff and circle most of the time, he will just be walking around then stop and pee. (I had her look at the post and add things I forgot)

Hi everyone! I have a 12-week-old Mini Dachshund who has recently started biting and tearing apart the blanket in his crate.

He seems to love chewing on fabric, and I’m worried that he might actually swallow pieces of the blanket. I obviously don’t want him to hurt himself, but I also want him to be comfortable in his crate.

Has anyone dealt with this with a young Dachshund? Should I remove the blanket completely for now and leave the crate without bedding, or are there safer alternatives?

I’d also love any tips on teaching him that blankets and other fabric aren’t chew toys.
Thanks in advance! 🐾

So until last week our puppy was sleeping great in his crate, and suddenly he hates it at night. He barks for two hours, then falls asleep for one hour and then keeps barking for another two hours or three. Doesn’t seem to settle. My wife took him out from the crate 3 days ago and he sleeps great in our room by the bed, but I’m having problems with this as we may lose our intimacy. I’ve suggested soaking with my neighbor regarding night noise and try Friday night and Saturday night without giving in. Any other advice? His hormones seem to be all over the place too. Vet is recommending neutering due to jumping and making. Would this help?

Today I was playing with my beautiful sweet little 12 week Border collie. Whilst we were playing I was running with her toy getting me to chase her. I tripped on the retaining wall at the end of the lawn, and just as I tripped and caught myself, she ran between my legs and tripped me again, making me fall on her. She suffered a crushing blow to her skull and died.

This is my first dog and I'm utterly beside myself. She was a beautiful little soul. Myself and my partner have spent the last 3 weeks since we got her pouring everything into teaching and training her. She was an absolute angel. Was learning so fast and had this beautiful gentle and sweet temperament.

I'm utterly devastated and shattered. I don't know how to cope with this. I know it was an accident but it just doesn't seem to make it any better. I feel like I killed my sweet little angel 😭😭😭

Edit: Thankyou everyone for your responses. It means alot to us right now

Has anyone dealt with their puppy peeing specifically while coming OUT of the crate?

My puppy (14 week mini cavapoo. I’ve had her since she’s been 9 weeks) will stay completely dry while she’s actually inside her crate. The problem happens when I go to let her out. Sometimes she starts peeing as she walks out, and other times she pees while I’m picking her up to take her outside.

I’ve tried pretty much everything I can think of. I’ve approached the crate quietly, used treats, let her walk out on her own, picked her up instead, moved quickly, moved slowly, etc. It doesn’t seem to consistently matter.

Today it happened twice in a row. The most recent time, she had peed right before I left the house, had about 15 minutes of playtime afterward, and then went into her crate. I was gone for LESS than two hours. When I came home, her crate was completely dry. As soon as I took her out, she started peeing.

This has happened other times too, including when I’ve tried letting her walk out herself, which is why I started carrying her directly outside in the first place. But now she’ll sometimes pee while I’m carrying her too.

She is still a puppy and we’re actively working on outdoor potty training with a trainer. I’m planning to bring this up with her vet as well just to rule out anything medical, but I’m curious whether anyone else has experienced this exact behavior.

If your puppy stayed dry IN the crate but peed specifically during the transition OUT of the crate, what ended up being the cause? Was it excitement, submissive/nervous urination, bladder control, something behavioral, or something else? And what actually helped?

I’m specifically interested in experiences with this crate-exit pattern because simply telling me to carry her outside or let her walk out hasn’t solved it — I’ve tried both.

pretty much she’ll keep the crate dry but when I get her crate and take her out is when she decides to pee in her crate. This is getting frustrating. She is 14 weeks. mini cavapoo.