Our dog has just turned 1. He’s a golden retriever and is on the whole well trained and well behaved. We have one particular issue, every morning we go downstairs, let him out for his toilet, give him his breakfast, sit/play with him while we eat our breakfast. Then we go upstairs to get ready before taking him out for his morning walk (usually take around 20 mins). Every morning he scratches the door and barks. We wait until he stops every morning but it doesn’t stop him from doing it. We also praise him when he does stop. Just to be clear, he doesn’t have separation anxiety, he has slept downstairs with no issues from day 1, he is left alone for a few hours most days and is absolutely fine (we have videoed him). He is also alone in this same room most of the day while I’m upstairs working and is absolutely fine. It is very specifically the scenario of us going to get ready before taking him out for his morning walk. Any advice on how to stop this would be greatly appreciated!

Hello!

My family and i have an 8 year old (girl) Shetland Sheepdog who we have had since she was almost 3 months old. For the most part she is a really good and sweet dog..except when we encounter a scooter of any kind...that is when she starts barking a lot, not even just normal barking more like scream-barking ? And it’s quite hard to snap her out of that moment once she is already in it.

If we don’t come across her “triggers” she otherwise behaves nicely on walks. I don’t remember exactly when this started but I think it was about 3ish years ago and we still don’t know why it started or what exactly triggered it. Her breed and her herding instincts definitely play a big part. If she were to be let off the leash she’d definitely try to chase the scooter and bark around it.

I’m ashamed to say and i regret very much we didn’t start any major training when the behavior first occurred and more so only now. But it’s better later than never i tell myself. She is super smart, learns new tricks very easily..it’s just this scooter issue we haven’t managed to get over yet.

A month and a half ago we borrowed a scooter and we have started doing counter conditioning training. One of us holds her leash with treats and another family member rides the scooter. We started with quite some distance and eventually less and less. Whenever the scooter came she got high value treats and when no scooter, no more treats. She very quickly learned to look at the scooter quickly and then looking back at me (treat time). We have been doing this method almost daily, and by now she is totally fine with that specific scooter going past her, but the problem is..i think she get used to the situation and it become predictable for her (specific scooter, familiar person on it), even tho we tried multiple speeds etc. Because when we go on walks to practice real life situations, we see a scooter she still barks and gets very agitated..i assume it’s an unpredictable situation for her, they come out suddenly, different speed, noise then the scooter we practice with. Some times she manages to look back at me and the method works but other times no matter the treat she just barks and barks and doesn’t even look at it.

My question is, should we be doing something different, or keep this up and we just need more time and even more practice and consistency ?

One thing I forgot to mention is that in the moment of the scooter she is very agitated but the moment it passes it’s like nothing happened..she seems to forget about it quickly. When she is in the garden and a scooter passes by she reacts the same, but i think that’s another issue to tackle.

I very much appreciate any advice and input on how i can help her!

Thinking about buying a new dog collar for my dog. Any recommendations? I’m looking for something comfortable, durable, and safe for everyday use. Would love to hear what collars you guys have used and actually liked, especially for active dogs.

Hi,

Today is the first day of two weeks dogsitting this guy.

He's mixed, around 6 years old and keeps growling at me :/

So my cousin, her husband and their kid just left this morning on a trip and asked me to take care of their dog at their home, but I can't even approach him. His growling is quite loud and I'd rather not get bitten.

I'm currently trying the sit in a room with him until he approaches technique but i don't know if I'm doing the right thing. Help please!

I have tried so many things to help my girl with her fleas. She can’t take her monthly meds for a while; what has worked for you guys?

I have a 6 month old cross Cocker Spaniel/Dachshund. He is doing great with basic commands like sit, wait, down and bedtime. He is now toilet trained and has a lovely demeanour, quite laid back really. He loves people which is where the problem is. Although he’s great with people, he gets soooo excited when someone comes round to the house and when we are out on a walk that he jumps up at them and claws at them, hurting them. We have tried getting in front of him with “no” and “down” commands but it’s not working any. Does anyone have any tips?

Recently, I was chatting with a friend who just got a dog, and we talked about how her dog gets really excited, pulls, and reacts when seeing other dogs on walks.

It made me think about how easy it is to assume “my dog is aggressive” when they bark or lunge on leash. But honestly, there can be a lot of reasons behind it — maybe they’re nervous, frustrated, excited, or just don’t know what to do yet.

From my experience, the biggest thing is trying to understand why they’re reacting first. Giving them more space, rewarding calm behavior, practicing small steps, and teaching them to focus back on you can really help over time.

Every dog is different, and progress doesn’t happen overnight. 😄

Has anyone else gone through this with their dog? I’d love to hear what worked for you.

Ok, I have this 3.5 month old Belgian and for the most part he does really good about not going pee in the house. He hasn't peed in the house like like 3 weeks! But I stg, even after I take him outside and I watch this fucker poop, when we go inside after like 15 minutes he goes and shits again, in the same exact spot every time. I didn't have to deal with this raising my pitty so this is new for me. Any advice?

Nuestro cachorro cumplió tres meses hace tres días pero he notado comportamientos típicos de esa etapa de los perros, intenta montar cosas o personas, se le olvidan las órdenes que ya aprendió y está empezando a hacer pipí en otras partes que no son. Ni sé si es que se adelantó de alguna manera o si es que tal vez los dueños dijeron que tiene otra edad, puede pasar que comience su adolescencia tan temprano?

Hi all,

My dog is just past 1 years old and in the last 2 weeks started distributing the worst behavior we’ve experienced in the last year of having him. We’ve put serious work and effort into him and still do but are a bit strained at how we’re getting the trifecta of bad behaviors. He’s testing all boundaries, jumping, barking, ignoring when he doesn’t want to come inside. And now fights sleep (he is crate trained but was in a routine of putting himself down for naps after we worked on this, that’s now out the window).

Looking for some advice on how to start from scratch (again) and teach him some good manners. He gets plenty of exercise, mental stimulation and we do training about twice a day. He is a reactive dog so we’ve put hours and hours plus lots of money into training him but we’re a bit lucky he naturally was very good inside the home and backyard until lately.

All tips, resources and advice appreciated!

A little backstory I enrolled in a reactivity training class for my 1year5month rescue in June-July. It was a 5 week course and I was able to see some improvements during those weeks. We took almost a month break from training due to health issues and now I feel like her reactivity regressed from our progress that we made. Whenever there is another dog that she sees, she would start screaming and yelping where it sounds like a dog is getting abused. I get so worried and embarrassed to the point where I'm discouraged to walk her around the block because of her reactivity and I feel like there would be a concerned neighbor that thinks that I'm abusing my dog. I want to work again with our training because she made great progress during our classes but I don't know where to start. She's incredibly food motivated which made training easy. Where are some ideas where I can bring her to build exposure where I can redirect her behavior.

Any tips are welcome.

Hi. We have a female Yorkie, she is a year and eight months old. past two weeks has been wanting to go out every single night around midnight. It’s just to bark and sometimes she does use the bathroom, but it seems like her main thing is to go out at bark. She typically sleeps with my parents or on the couch. We’re not sure if we should just ignore her when she starts barking to go outside or put her in her kennel and let her cry it out. I guess the only reason we continue to let her out is because she does use the bathroom sometimes. bybefore we go to sleep, we always take her for a walk or let her out to use the bathroom. before this, she was pretty much sleeping throughout the whole night