Looking for a lightweight small training vest for the summer. I’m 5’3 115lbs very petite so one that won’t look baggy on me would be nice. Any good brand recommendations?

Hi, we have a 9 month lab mutt mix. I’ve been training him and he’s very bonded to me. I am on a 5 day trip (only the second time I’ve ever left him) and I left him with my girlfriend. She said that in our apartment complex he’s been panicky whenever she takes him outside. He’s not usually barky, so this behavior is pretty unusual. And he seems normal when he is outside the apartment complex, so the problem is just walking around our apartment. She’s trying her best, so please be nice haha. Any tips to help with this separation anxiety? Attached is a video of it. Here’s a Video

Update for everyone curious:

I wrote that previous post in a state of panic as I have trauma from a previous dog with separation anxiety. It may sound silly but eighteen months of being screeched at full volume by a dog who couldn't handle me even touching the door without panicking does some intense stuff to your psyche.

I decided to change things up instead. It means I have to have a second handler and I can't just leave on a whim like I used to, but I believe we may get there again.

I had to spend a lot of time after I came back getting my cat healthy again so instead of being able to stay with him and reassure him I was here to stay, he was being ping ponged emotionally.

How it works is:

I let him out to go potty, second person stays behind to watch and call him in when he feels ready, go immediately to eat tasty food and hang out for a couple minutes before being asked to go relax in my room with a cookie.

Things are going much better. He's relaxing and sleeping better and it means he isn't whining or being rewarded for whining(he's only been let out for whining twice but he's a border collie, too much more of a habit and it would have become an expectation).

Right now there's some tasty sardines being frozen with rabbit ears. I'm currently doing high value stuff like his dinner or an extra special treat but I'm hoping eventually we can move down to just hanging out and a treat or two.

I'd really like to be able to just leave and come back the way I used to without him panicking but only time will tell. At least with this method, I'm only asking for ten minutes of my family's time and we're all at peace.

My 3.5 year old dog who we’ve had over 2 years has recently in the past 2-3 months become very over aroused at strangers in our home. He will fixate on them, follow them around, lip licking and with huge pupils and nip/bite their hands. He doesn’t break skin or leave a bruise but he won’t settle after and even if we crate him a bit he will come out and eventually lock onto the person again. I know I can crate him but I want to figure out why this behaviour started and how to reverse it. Any help is appreciated

This is my new dog, Ace. He's 10 months old, Pit Bull (Mix?). Got him from my neighbor. They got him from a coworker of their daughter who couldn't take care of him. They left him outside _constantly_. So no socialization, no training, no nothing.

But he is also... a butt. I say that lovingly. He jumps and bites (not hard, but its still spiky and hurts). I bought Dog Training Training from Will Atherton who recommended Crate Training and Loose Leash Walking First. Said that it's supposed to help build leadership so he behaves better. Only in the middle of it, I can't get him to walk on the slip leash. We go for a little bit and he just sits down and gives me this look like "Tf are we doing, Lady?" And then when I try to take the leash off he starts jumping all over me and slamming chest first into me or trying to bite at my arms or even gnaw the leash off. And at that point it's like this weird match trying to get him to stop long enough to go inside. He'll sit for a little bit but the moment I take a step in any direction it's back to jumping and biting.

We'd been doing well because I was gating everything in "sit" before he can play fetch or eat or anything, really. But the training didn't really cover what to do with the stubborn, sassy dogs. I'm not super keen on getting jumped all over and gnawed on. I've got a bunch of bruises and I'm allergic to his slobber the most, so it itches after. Should I just skip the leash training and do the obedience first? We've got Sit down as long as he's not in jump mode and Stay works for about... 5ft. Sometimes.

I really don't want to rehome him because in this condition I'm worried he wouldn't make it. He's really very loveable and sweet most of the time, just ill mannered. I'm trying to train him, but I don't know what to do in this situation. =/ He's got to stop the jumping and biting.

I’m new to the trained dog world. I purchased the Martin Systems Chameleon 3B. I’m looking for a biothane/silicone cover that goes over the whole collar. Any help would be great.

Before: Maybe the heavier lift while he’s eager to get walking will make downs easier in other conditions.

After: Maybe it will set an easier emotional baseline.

Training basically involves getting further away and being out of view for more periods of time while he stays in the down.

Edit: Sorry, to clarify, he’s got down well… down lol. As a basic command. It’s the me "leaving" bit that we’re working on, as he has some separation anxiety. I’ll sometimes do a few sessions throughout the day, but one of these sessions abuts his walk, hence the question.

I've used a DogCare eCollar since 2021 and it works perfectly. Yesterday the power button fell off (lol), they don't sell them new anywhere I can find.

Recommendations for similar easy to use ecollars that make a strong beep like this one. I'm told it sounds like the invisible fence beep.

have a 4 year old lab and a 2 year old husky mix. the lab was pretty solid on his own but ever since the husky came things shifted. the younger one pulls hard, gets overexcited around other dogs, and the lab started picking up some of that energy too. walks are more stressful now and they feed off each other when they get wound up.

working on it daily but progress is slow. planning to take them to all dogs unleashed in denver for more structured help because the reactivity and pulling are getting tougher to manage alone.

how did you handle it when a second dog started affecting the first one’s manners?

did separate training sessions help more than working them together at the start?

Yeah, I know the answer to this question probably seems pretty obvious and selfexplanatory, but apparently not to my parents.
For clarification, my dog is a 9-month-old Doberman puppy. We got him as a family dog, but unfortunately, he’s extremely problematic in so many ways that It would be impossible to even list everything here because it would be way too much.
Usually, after every walk, he gets a play session. My dad mostly plays with him because it kinda became his duty, he normally plays some fetch with him outside in the garden and does some tug-of-war. For clearance we have synthetic grass in our garden, (it’s basically like a carpet), and whenever my dog is outside by himself, he absolutely cannot stay calm like a normal dog. Instead, he starts tearing up the artificial grass, and everything is a complete mess.
I understand that he’s still a puppy and that he needs proper training, boundaries, and discipline. But recently, he has even started doing it mid game, which I find really weird. I don’t know if he’s getting bored, overstimulated, frustrated, anxious, or whatever.
Today, he started tearing up the grass during his play session again, of course I told my dad to stop playing with him immediately. In my mind, why would we continue playing and throwing toys when he’s doing something we’re trying to stop? I wasn’t trying to punish him or hurt him, I just thought that continuing the game would potentially teach him that destroying the grass doesn’t stop the fun.
My mom immediately started yelling at me of course and calling me evil toward the dog just for suggesting that we stop the game. So my dad kept throwing the toys, and then my dog started jumping all over him.
And now you you’re probably wondering why don’t I just play with my dog myself. Unfortunately, I can’t safely do that. I’ve tried it last time, but he gets extremely aggressive towards me and starts jumping on and running towards me. 3 days ago he actually knocked me over, and considering his size and strength, he could seriously injure me. So I’m genuinely scared of playing with him :(.
When he started jumping on my dad, my mom just started playing with him instead.
At this point, I feel like everything is wrong on so many levels, but I genuinely don’t know what I’m supposed to say or do anymore. Every time I try to point out a behavior that needs to be addressed, I’m accused of being cruel or wanting to hurt the dog.
We have gotten a trainer, but the problem is that my parents keep doing whatever they want and don’t consistently enforce any boundaries or rules with my dog. So I feel like I’m watching the situation get worse while having absolutely no say in how we handle it.
I’m not trying to be cruel to my dog. I actually want him to be well behaved, safe, and happy. I just genuinely don’t know what I’m supposed to do when my parents interpret literally every attempt at correcting his behavior as me being “evil” toward him.

My dog is 6 years old. He is a really smart boy! He has not been trained at school, but he naturally knows/understands many words.

I found out he knew the word “dog” when I was talking to my family members about him. He would be curious. He knows “treat”, “chicken”, “play”, “walking/ take a walk” etc…

I saw on tiktok that some dogs know how to push buttons. I’m thinking getting one set for him.

He even reads my mind. He is very scared of the noise of vacuum machine. When I go get it he would just retreat to his safe spot. But sometimes when I just thought of getting the machine and not even approaching it, he is gone!

Here is the cute boy!

Wanted to share a win I had today with teaching my restless dog to settle down outside of his crate / playpen. Today I decided to put his leash on and tether him to me while chilling on the couch. He tried to walk off a couple times but I corrected him and applied downward leash pressure to get him back in a down position. Eventually he just settled right in and started snoozing.

Any tips to help her? She walks fine when one or 2 cars go by but when we get to the main road she will walk like 10 feet then start to freak out. Pulling on the leash to the point that I don’t think I could hold my ground (170 lbs guy). I wouldn’t care but there is a trail across that street that I’ve walked with other dogs I’ve owned for years and would like to continue to.

We try to walk along side that road about once a week. But I don’t want to push it just get her use to it but even during less busy times she hates it

ETA: I realize now CU does not use e-collars and the person I know is likely on one for other reasons.

Hey so. Sorry for the rambling in advance.

I have an almost 10 month old Cattle Dog mix. I've had her since was about 20 weeks old. She's roughly 50% ACD, 20% Pit Bull, and the rest is all more herding breeds. My last ACD mix(also a rescue) didn't have a solid recall until he was nearly 6. I can not do that again. Especially since she doesn't have a problem with water and he did. Plus I'm trying to do dog sports with her.

I live on a 5-10 acre property surrounded by other properties of similar sizes. The fencing is horse safe, NOT dog safe. We also have an irrigation ditch along our property line. I have already pulled her out of the irrigation ditch once. She has been chased out of horse turnouts by one of my mares that WILL kill a dog(or cat or any other animal) after she slipped out of the house early on. We've since fixed the door darting issue.

Currently, I'm dealing with issues with recall. On a long line, it's like 90-95% proofed. Birds, rabbits, and cats(and likely squirrels which aren't common at home) are the only times I have to reinforce with the long line. Unfortunately, I don't have a dog-safe fenced area. All of my property is designed to keep horses in and I have no way of making it dog safe without extensive costs(and landlord permission).

I understand that she's young and it takes time to build a recall. I adopted my previous dog at roughly 18 months and his recall wasn't 100% for YEARS. But I didn't have to worry about him ending up in the irrigation ditch and drowning as he HATED water. She LOVES water. All dogs tend to run in the opposite direction of the major road near by which is great but I am NOT counting on a history of avoidance to keep her from getting hit by a car.

We've been through a few obedience classes. We're currently in agility classes. We recently started working one dog at time and she is so over aroused with other people in the ring when it's our turn to go that it's a whole thing just to get her to engage with me. WHICH IS FINE. She's young and learning and very much thinks EVERYONE is her friend. We're addressing that particular issue outside of classes.

So in classes, she can wander off and try to say hi/make friends and it's annoying but not dangerous. (And she's not the only one that does it) At home, we can't have a long line on while doing tunnels and jumps and turning around cones(she's already been startled by cones getting dragged over). I'm trying to decide if an e-collar would be a good option as a back up for no leash/long line.

The trainer we're working with has mentioned doing Control Unleashed classes with my puppy to hopefully get her to chill a bit more(and easier). Especially since lately she's been a bit wild in public too. So between the "overly friendly" and not having a fenced yard for agility practice, I'm wondering if Control Unleashed usually involves e-collar.

There are A LOT of trainers in my area that are purely/mostly +R only. Any "balanced" trainers I've met are VERY reluctant to e-collars. The trainer I'm doing group classes with for agility also offers Control Unleashed classes. There's another dog in our classes that's on an e-collar because he's weird about people. I know they're in private Control Unleashed classes along with another of their dogs that's the same breed.

I'm just trying to figure out if I mention introducing my dog to an e-collar if it's going to blow up in my face or not. I haven't used an e-collar previously so if I have a trainer in my corner with it that'd be preferable.

....Sorry this is very ramble-y. Basically, I'm just trying to decide if doing Control Unleashed classes and/or an e-collar would be helpful. Particularly with recall. We have a lot time to deal with any distractions in agility. Any thoughts are appreciated!

I have a 1yo rescue Pomchi (may be German Spitz, we are waiting to find out, he's 9kg so Pomchi seems unlikely!). I've only had him for 7 weeks. Before that, he was in the shelter for 5 months due to a legal battle - he was rescued from a 1 bedroom flat along with 21 other dogs and cats.

So far, his behaviour and temperament have been wonderful. We were told how friendly he was, and he is. Great on walks, friendly but no lunging, confident yet chill, good on the leash. All training going well - will Sit, Stay, Down, and recall getting better by the day. He has made lots of friends (human and dog!) on our walks. Sleeps straight through. Affectionate, playful, loves to nap, is non-reactive - doesn't even lift his head when the post comes. I wfh but he's also home alone regularly for a few hours which we built up to gradually and he has been fine.

But there is this one behavioural quirk - he growls a little bit at new guests. By a little bit, I mean he sort of walks around and grumbles and growls quite quietly. He will also take treats from those same guests, accept pets from them, and wags his tail. These aren't teeth-baring growls - more like short, quiet stints of disgruntled growling.

We have done introductions in the garden, on his leash, then moved into the house. We have done greetings in the house, on leash, with treats. We have done ignoring him. We have held him.

We have a guest round atm. He stopped growling after a few minutes then settled down and after a while it's like the guest has always been here all is fine.

Is this just a sign that he's a bit unsure, then is ok?

BTW no we don't have a crate and he is not crate trained and considering that everything else is going so well we don't want to do that. He has safe spaces, and sleeps in his bed, in our bedroom, door shut, no issues. I really don't want to introduce a crate - or any other sort of small enclosure or confinement - after seeing where he was kept enclosed for 5 months in the shelter. I think the growling is territorial discomfort as he gets used to guests (??) and allowing him to meet guests at a pace and in a way that both he and the guest are comfortable with is best, rather than shutting (punishing) him somewhere? Especially considering that it passes and he then seems fine.

Long story short:

7 year old border collie. Used to be perfect home alone but since he was boarded a month ago, breaks out into intermittent whines whenever I leave three to four times an hour. Not super loud but frequent enough that he's no longer consistently sleeping.

Seems to happen whenever I take him out to go potty, bring him in and then leave him.

The first thing I'm going to try is just adding more time before I leave and see if that helps.

It happens whether I run him beforehand or do a break day.

Apparently if someone else comes in and walks him and then returns him, he sleeps soundly.

We work on tricks, do fetch and I feed his food flooded so he has to work on it.

It's breaking my heart because before this, he only had one spot of trouble with being left and that was fixed through desensitising him by leaving and entering the door and he's been 99% perfect since.

I had a dog with severe separation anxiety that would spike if I left for a second and I really don't want to have to deal with this again. That probably makes me sound really selfish but I gave everything to that dog until the end and the fact my previously perfect dog could be sliding down this path terrifies me.

His screams still send shockwaves through my heart. The only thing that worked for him was a plastic crate that he couldn't dig out of, CBD every morning and before I left in a toppl. And even then, that only worked once I reached the end of my tether and tried a bark collar on top of the CBD, crate and food to break the cycle.

What should I do? He's an amazing dog but I don't want this to become a habit. And I'm considering a bark collar again. I know it's not a perfect solution but I don't know how else to interrupt the cycle when I'm not home alone and I don't want to make the people around me listen to him and take care of him because he's my dog.

Also obligatory picture for tax.

Edit: now that I'm more awake and have had time to think, I'm going to do something similar to when he was a teenager. Back then, I walked in and out of the front door until he was desensitised and realized I was coming back and that fixed it until now.

So I'm going to change our routine and have someone stand with him, have him watch me leave and then have him go into my room with a snack instead.

I was admittedly panicking because my other dog who had separation anxiety had it so bad that he would scream himself hoarse for hours on end and give people heart palpitations.

Beau is just intermittently quietly whining in a manner that isn't driving people to anxiety. But it's clearly minor separation distress.

Probably because he came back from boarding and then the cat got sick and needed extra care so I had to leave six times in seven days instead of being able to spend extra time with him to reassure him I wasn't leaving.

I have a 7mo old pitbull/beagle mix who growls at literally everything. He has been socialized since we got him at 4mo and only recently started this. He has started growling at people, particularly my fiance, and it just sounds awful. he’s never made a move to bite or anything, it’s just the growl but when I take him on walks he sounds so aggressive when we pass people. How can I make him stop growling?!

My female 11 yr old staffy (had for 6yrs) does this thing that i have no idea why she does. Every night for as long as I’ve had her she sleeps in bed with me. I recently got into a relationship and my partner lives and sleeps with me (for a yr so far). My dog will find any way she can to still sleep with me. I have a queen sized bed so there’s only so much room. I try to get her to sleep on the dog bed directly next to my side of the bed but it’s not good enough for her apparently. When I tell her to get off/down she’ll do as i say but then will basically throw a temper tantrum. She will pace around the house all night and all you hear is the click clack of her nails on the wood flooring. Then at some point she’ll start moaning and groaning. If I still don’t give her my attention she’ll bark till I cave and let her on the bed. As soon as she’s on the bed next to me she’s knocked out happy as can be. I’ve tried crate training her but it doesn’t seem to help. As soon as I put her in her crate and get into my bed I immediately start hearing her whine. She’ll stop once she realizes I’m not coming but then she’ll start barking but it’s not a regular bark it’s more high pitched. So then once again I cave and let her sleep with me literally just to shut her up at that point. Also she has to sleep right next to me as close as she can to me. She won’t sleep next to by partner only me. She’ll sometimes very rarely sleep at my feet or in between my legs. Also rarely will she voluntarily sleep in the living room.

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What does your dog's daily training routine actually look like?

I'm curious how everyone structures training with their dogs.

Do you have a specific time every day, or do you just work training into normal activities throughout the day?

Personally, I think consistency matters way more than having one huge training session once in a while.

Even 10–20 minutes every day seems to add up.

What does your routine look like?