I have a 2yr old male chihuahua and he has some serious anxiety/alarm/territorial barking. He is barking all day long every 3-5 minutes at any sound he can hear. He will bark for a while, come lay down (with his ears still pricked up), growls at nothing, and then a few minutes pass by and he is jumping up barking like crazy again at any noise (a lot of the time it's something I can't even hear).

What I have tried: Closing blinds doesn't work since it's the sounds that trigger him. I tried brown noise, calming dog music, white noise - he can still hear noises through it and barks all the same.

Making him sit/lie down in his bed and rewarding him when he settles down doesn't really work. He is barking so frequently that by the time he settles down, he just jumps back up again immediately and starts barking again. And I can't intervene every few minutes throughout the entire day.

I have tried making him sit and then I make a knocking noise on the wall. He goes crazy. So I make the sound lighter or fainter until he doesn't bark at it, and then try to raise the intensity as he improves. But while he may eventually do okay during the training session, it doesn't translate to all the other random noises he seems to hear that set him off that are unpredictable and I can't even hear.

Giving him a bone to chew on or puzzle toy can occupy him a little bit, but that's temporary and doesn't solve the problem or relax him much.

I take him on several walks per day and he plays/wrestles with my other dog. I do training sessions with him as well. I need a new gate for my backyard to be able to let him roam outside, so that will be getting fixed soon.

He is also territorial outside. He scrapes up the ground with his back paws and growls with his hackles raised, even if nothing is there. But he isn't "aggressive" in that when he sees a dog, he does pull towards it but he doesn't bark or growl. He also barks at people, but will sniff them and doesn't bite.

I also have another dog, and when she barks it triggers him to bark. She doesn't bark much, but they can definitely trigger each other to bark. I don't want her to start getting bad about it like he is.

I have a behavioral appointment for him at the vet today, so I will see what they recommend. If they prescribe a medication, hopefully it helps that baseline hyper-alertness, but if they want me to see a special trainer... I don't have that kind of money. So I'm hoping by asking here someone can recommend some alternatives to what I have already tried that I can add onto whatever the vet may say or prescribe. I've been joking he's a psych patient just like me!

But his barking is affecting my ability to focus and work on things at home. I already have ADHD, and the constant distraction is not helping. If you have any ideas, please let me know. Otherwise, he is a sweet perfect boy.

How can i stop my Rottweiler jumping up and trying to play fight me?

I am the only person in the house he does it to and it is constant! like none stop the moment he see's me

Welcome to the fortnightly loose leash walking virtual workshop!

Join us as we compete with the squirrels, cats, other dogs, fresh urine scents and things that go zoooooooom!

Resources

Articles (All have videos embedded)

• Train Your Dog For Perfect Loose Leash Walking by Casey Lomonaco. (With links and descriptions of several great videos, which we'll link to below.)
• Loose Leash Walking Tips by Casey Lomonaco
• Silky Leash by Grisha Stewart (blog post + videos.)

Youtube (Many of these are videos which are embedded in the above articles)

• Silky Leash intro video with an excitable puppy
• Clicker Training Loose Leash Walking by Casey Lomonaco
• Loose Leash Walking II by Casey Lomonaco
• How to Train Your Dog Not to Pull - Loose Leash Walking by Emily "kikopup" Larlham
• Dog Training Tip- Leash Walking: Go Sniff and Marking by Emily "kikopup" Larlham
• Choose to Heel by Loridressage
• Loose Leash Walking by Stacy Hiebert Greer
• Clicker Training a Heel by Amy Norcal
• Shaping Loose Leash Walking With a High Rate of Reinforcement Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 by Helix Fairweather and Lynn Martin. (Read the text below the videos too!)
• Loose Leash Walking by Turid Rugaas

See our page on leash reactivity for help managing and training dogs that bark and lunge while on leash.

So, my dog has been sleeping in the yard for his whole life, that makes me feel like an abuser. Yesterday we found an awful black widow in the yard and it freaked me out so much i want to train him to sleep in my room (since we don’ have more rooms for him to use and that way i could give him company) but he really doesn’t ever calm down, i’ve tried in the past, gradually exposing him to my room and he keeps exploring and never reslly gets to sleep plus he’s used to being in the yard where he can go to do his necessities or drink water, like, not sleeping the whole night im guessing. I really don’t know what to do i would love for him to live inside, the whole time, without constant watching.

Hello! I’m pretty desperate for some help with this issue.

We adopted a 6 month old puppy (now 7 months old), from the shelter a little over a month ago. He’s a very sweet dog, but we’re struggling with house training. His DNA test shows he’s a 50:50 mix between a lab and a mini Australian Shepherd. He’s about 35 pounds.

He can hold it in his crate during the day for hours. He doesn’t have accidents in his crate at night. He’s finally picking up that he should be going potty outside. But when he’s out of his crate, he asks to be let out every 30-60 minutes. We’re so proud of him for asking! But if we miss it, he pees on the floor next to the door. We’re reluctant to bell train him, because we feel he really should be able to hold it outside of his crate longer than he is. We’re worried that a bell will just further encourage him to demand to be let out super often, and pee on the floor if we don’t oblige immediately.

I tried tethering him to me outside of his crate to help increase the duration that he holds it. But he will literally squat and pee 2 feet from my face if he isn’t taken outside every 60 minutes max (yes, I interrupt the peeing with a firm no, and immediately take him outside to finish). We clean the urine with an enzymatic cleaner, and we have a commercial carpet cleaner that we use weekly on top of it. He gets treated and praised heavily every time he goes outside. He’s been to the vet and checked for a UTI and such, and the vet says he’s healthy.

Outside of the peeing - I don’t think this is stemming from a lack of stimulation and exercise. He gets 2 walks a day (20 minutes in the morning, 30 in the evening). We’re working on training drills multiple times a day. He gets food puzzles, toys, time with a heard ball and fetch in the backyard, and play with us. We also have another dog he plays with. He takes structured naps in his crate every day, mostly because I can’t get any work done during the day needing to take him out so often. He does drink a good amount of water throughout the day - but we also have a giant breed dog and two cats, so we aren’t really sure how to limit his water intake without taking away their access as well? We currently take him out to potty on a leash, and we plant ourselves firmly while he’s doing his business so he isn’t learning potty time = fun time. He minimally pees every time we go outside, immediately.

We’re getting so frustrated. I’ve never had a dog that has no issues peeing in front of me while they’re on a tether before. He’s definitely picked up that outside = good place to pee. But he just has absolutely ZERO concept for inside = bad place to pee.

Has anyone had an intact male dog become absolutely obsessed with a female right after she’s been spayed?

My female was spayed on Wednesday and since coming home, my intact male has been absolutely beside himself. He’s constantly whining to get to her, obsessively sniffing/licking her, and is now trying to hump her as well. If we separate them for any length of time, he seems to get even worse when he sees her again.

She was nowhere near due a season — her seasons are usually around 9 months apart and she wasn’t due again until around the end of December. She’s recovering completely normally from the surgery, eating, toileting, wound looks good etc.

He’s also completely normal otherwise and is eating as usual — he’s just absolutely fixated on her. (When she was in season he’d refuse to eat)

We’re now on day 3 after surgery and it actually feels like he’s getting worse rather than better. 😭

Has anyone experienced this after a spay? If so, how long did it last before your male finally calmed down?

We’re keeping them separated/supervised so he can’t interfere with her recovery, but the nonstop whining is driving us all insane. 😂

hey everyone! first time posting here, and would love some advice!

little backstory real quick so you can get a feel for things:
my boyfriend and i moved in together at the end of august. my dog, willow (pitbull,3yrs, female, spayed), was doing great for the first 3 weeks. suddenly, she has started to fight going to sleep at night. she NEVER used to do this and was actually so good at bedtime and knowing when i needed to sleep and whatnot. she would even stay sleeping after i woke up in the mornings. she was very good at going to sleep after we moved in but im not sure what happened? she will be perfect during the day, behavior wise, but as soon as we get into our bedroom to go to sleep she goes crazy. she humps our legs quite aggressively (even though she’s spayed), she barks, digs in our blankets to point she ripped our sheets, and does some aggressive nibbling. i’m not quite sure what to do about this or how to fix it because no matter what i do she doesn’t listen and just keeps throwing the tantrums. she is crate trained and loves her crate so we’ve resorted to having her sleep in there. i hate that ive had to do that because i have never made her sleep in the crate before. but it seems to be the only thing that calms her down. i also tried just letting her calm down in the crate for an hour then taking her out, but it doesn’t matter as soon as she gets on the bed she goes berserk. she doesn’t act like this in the mornings either, she will happily sleep in, so it doesn’t seem like the bedroom itself is the problem. she has her own bed in our room and she doesn’t care for that either. i’m not sure what to do at this point because we use a mental stimulation treat/toy before bed to try and help but it hasn’t been working anymore.

any advice or tips/tricks would be very much appreciated!!

i can answer any questions about our routine in the comments as well, if needed!

Our 4.5 month old mini poodle stops on walks if he notices another person/dog. He’s doing pretty well with obedience training, and will mostly listen to “With me!” if we want him to come walk beside us, but the second he sees another living being, all that training goes out the window. He stops, stares, plants his feet and doesn’t acknowledge us whatsoever until the distraction is gone.

Every time this happens, we try to entice him with a high-value treat, even putting it in front of his nose and trying to direct him to keep moving, but he doesn’t care at all. I try tugging gently at his harness, which he’s usually pretty responsive to, but he just refuses to do anything but stare.

One important note: I don’t think this is a fear response. We live in a suburban apartment community with lots of dogs and people and our vet gave us the green light to take him on walks really early on, so he got tons of socialization. He isn’t reactive with other dogs, and if they approach while he’s staring, he’ll reciprocate.

I think it’s likely that he just wants to play, and since people often walk by and try to pet a puppy without asking, I’d imagine he’s unfortunately learned that person/dog=petting/attention.

Any advice on what to do, since he won’t take to treats, or is this something he’ll just grow out of?

Hi! i have had my mini aussie for about 2 years now, in the beginning she was a major resource guarder, coming from a hoarding situation i understood this and for a while now it seemed solved and she became more comfortable and we learned her triggers
as of lately she has reverted back and is worse, it’s turned into not just our dogs but me, she is reactive to.
for example the other morning when my boyfriend tried waking me up, from the other side of the room she woke up and launched herself at me as i was asleep.
most triggers as of late has been when she is asleep and then disturbed. either when the other dogs are adjusting themselves or i am in the night. but never to my boyfriend.
these things are almost like a flip of a switch and the second we say her name when we see the behavior about to happen, she reverts and is like “oh right i’m not supposed to do that”
my dog is the sweetest thing other than this, on a day to day basis i can play with her cuddle with her all i want.

i’m just wondering if there’s anything i can do, things that will help her and get her out of a fear state of mind?

I have a beautiful 9 month old English chocolate lab who is super smart. I, however, cannot figure out how to communicate to her that she needs to walk with a loose leash.
I have tried to everything I have seen on fixing the issue. The big issue is that my pup could not care less about treats on a walk. If I want to reward her behavior, I would have to physically push the treat into her mouth. And, yes, I have tried bringing the good stuff.

Maybe I have not found the treat so good it overrides her desire to pull.
Please help!

Update: better treats helped! I still need to work on our communication, but she was so eager for the treats I brought today. She loves the Zukes lil links, so I cut them into 4-5 pieces and took a little baggie with us.

Hi! My dog is a little under 1.5 years old, primarily Australian shepherd and Australian cattle dog but ultimately a mutt.

We adopted her at about 1 year old, and according to the shelter, she had never been walked, been socialized with other humans/dogs, never had training... you get the gist. We are actively working on the socialization and leash reactivity with a local training company.

Recently, she has had some behavioral changes when asked to "drop it" or "leave it" on a walk with food waste or other garbage. She is nipping at my heels, shoes, shoe laces, and pant legs, as well as barking and occasionally jumping with a borderline aggressive demeanor. When I stuck my hand in her mouth to get a piece of plastic out, I also got bit pretty hard (no skin break but some bruising and minor swelling).

So of course, we want this not to continue at all.

My focus moving forward is keeping her on a short leash, permitting her only to sniff in a clear patch of grass to avoid any debris. We also work on "drop it" and "leave it" in the house with toys, clicker, and treats. This just seems not to be translating well outside of the house, as she does really well with her toys in this controlled environment.

Does anyone have suggestions of other training efforts to implement, specifically to address the nipping and biting when asked to "drop it" on a walk?

From our perspective, it seems like she can't differentiate between play time and "serious" time, so reacts in a way that isn't obedient. Totally could be off base here!

Thank you in advance :)

Editing to provide more info: she is doing the nipping on long walks and short walks. Her routine is wake up, long walk home to play and eat, relaxation til lunch walk, home to play, etc. She always receives play after a walk (she comes home from any length walk ready to run around haha) and we will also do miscellaneous training and play between napping and her next walk. There is probably room for a little more play, but we really feel like we are addressing her needs adequately and have had this schedule implemented for over 4 months since adopting. Open to other suggestions though!

We rescued a 6yo Shih Tzu late August. The story is she was a backyard breeding female and is not spayed. We had her scheduled for late October, but she started a heat cycle about 12 days ago. Total Velcro dog and hates to be left alone.

She overall has done well in the house with minimal accidents until she went into heat. She hates her diaper and will pull it off so we’ve been putting her in the crate when we leave. She is very stressed in the crate and tries to dig out and often gets trapped under the kennel mat. The last few days when she is crated for even just 2-3 hours, she has been peeing… kennel mat, no kennel mat, even just a towel tonight and she peed.

Before I totally lose my mind… is this related to the heat? I’ve NEVER had a dog willingly pee in their crate and no, it’s. It too big. She’s 15lbs and the crate is 18x30.

my husky is 8 and my daughter is 2. my husky has always been snuggly, loves pats cuddles attention and lives a great life with lots of walks and activities. he’s always been an inside boy as he gets 2-3 walks per day. also he’s always slept on my bed until my daughter arrived and now he wants to be outside day AND NIGHT?!

he tends to duck out her cuddles and pushes her away with his arm when she pats him. he always chooses to go back outside as soon as he’s done his morning walk and breakfast.

when guests visit he stays inside and sits between my daughter and the person, I think he’s quite protective of her. if guests sleepover he will sleep in the hallway from the baby room to the guest room.

i dont think he’s likes her, but he’s never growled he just prefers to not be around us anymore. if she goes to disagree he will want to be inside as she’s not here.

do I address this with a behaviour trainer?

My 9 month old border collie mix has always been a super happy, friendly dog. Loves people of all ages. Suddenly he’s started growling and barking at people he doesn’t know. Sometimes he’ll be all happy and waggy but as soon as they speak its like he realises he doesn’t know them and starts growling.

He does it whether he’s with his owners or not (a neighbourhood kid he’s met before approached the fence and said he got growled at when we weren’t home)

Could this be a hormonal thing? We’re getting him fixed at 12 months to let him mature a little more but now I’m not sure if we should wait.

Two months ago, I adopted a two-year-old pit mix from the shelter (mostly pit, very little mix). He is a sweet boy, if very exciteable and overeager. We are working on relaxation training and manners. He's generally very trainable in terms of specific behaviours (sit, down, middle, etc.) but is finding long-term behaviours (loose-leash walking, not jumping, staying in "place") to be challenging.

In the near future, I may be combining households with someone who has cats. I am not entirely sure about my dog's level of prey drive - we see cats on our walks sometimes, as well as squirrels, and he is generally not interested in them unless they are very close to him and run - and then he does try to bolt after them, but it's relatively easy for me to recapture his attention with a treat.

I'm aware that prey drive is a lifelong management system and not something that can be "trained away." I'm curious what level of prey drive you would consider workable in a home with cats, and if this dog in particular sounds manageable. (I know there's not a lot of details - I'm just trying to assess with the information I have.)

EDIT: thank you to everyone who has responded in good faith, even if your response is negative! I love and have known those cats for much longer than I have loved and known this dog, so a dose of reality is not unappreciated. I'm not, at this time, able to say with confidence whether my dog's interest is in killing, chasing, or just general overexcitement, but I will proceed as if it is the first for everyone's safety.

My shepherd does everything perfectly until I have to leave them by themselves. He is good for accepting a pets from strangers and will sit there like a perfect gentleman. I've tried do a tie down in the house and going to another room and he is totally ok with it. He's also fine being left at the house by himself. He now is trusted to free roam. He doesn't get into anything so l don't think it's separation anxiety. It's just being left with a different handler that he's not happy about, and he whines until I return. I'm just trying to get some new ideas to help him. He always did lean towards the more fearful and anxious side as a puppy but we've come a long way with that. He is now a very happy well adjusted adult he's 4. Should | just call it quits on the title or keep trying? Any ideas are appreciated

I’m fostering a 2.5yr old frenchie and when she’s calm she’s an absolute angel! Playful, cuddly, silly. However she’s very clearly having a difficult time adjusting. We’re navigating a series of issues (nipping/lunging if I move around the apartment too much, won’t go to the bathroom on walks, destructive chewing and furniture climbing) but the big one right now is she won’t let me unlock her crate.

I had to crate her while leaving the house for 3hrs, and figured it wouldn’t be an issue as her crate has been her safe space since arriving two nights ago, and I had her in her crate overnight both nights (there’s no way I could leave her uncrated and unsupervised. I tried my best to dog proof the living room, but she’s been able to climb in ways that defy the laws of gravity and physics. she’s tried to eat books (!) from my bookshelf and tried to jump at wine bottles on a wine rack). I lured her in with a kong, locked the door and she was fine. Fortunately she’s very food motivated! However I came home and went to unlock her to take her on a walk and she lunge lunged at me — much more agro than her warning lunges and nips. I know she has to go to the bathroom but I can’t safely unlock her crate so that she could just go on my floor and not in her safe space. But no luck. I tried tossing some food in, it didn’t help. I waited an hour until she slept and woke up again, still no. I’m moving slowly, not yelling when she lunges, offering treats only when she’s calm.

Any advice would be appreciated as I’m feeling nervous leaving her in there all night, potentially in her own waste, and I’ll be in and out of the apartment tomorrow so will need to crate her again :/

I love fostering but she’s the toughest one I’ve had so far! And I’m sure there are things I can be doing, I just don’t know them yet!

First I’ll say I’m completely new to dog fostering. I’m only a week in with this dog and I do wonder if some of this behavior is exaggerated right now because of the recency of big life changes and stressors for him…but alas

I’m fostering a 3 year old pug/chihuahua mix (chug) who I’m told was surrendered due to issues getting along with another dog in the home. From my understanding, this conflict seemed related to jealousy when the other dog would get attention from chug’s #1 person. He also has already had another foster home before me where this was also an issue. Oh and there’s a touch of separation anxiety that he’s been dealing with too. He does take an anxiety pill that only maybe helps.

He very quickly has attached to me since he moved in and not only do my absences trigger his anxiety, but the jealousy conflicts have come up a couple of times too regarding me giving attention to other animals. In both instances he barked and chased the other animal away. The first was when my roommates cat tried to come into my room with me and the dog and the second was when a friend’s dog approached me when chug was near. Both instances occurred also while a meal was being eaten…maybe related? I will say he’s spent a lot of time around the cat outside of my room even when food was around and there have been no issues. They’ve even slept on opposite sides of the couch so I was really shocked when he chased the cat out of my room.

All this to say, I’m looking for advice on how to help him cope with…other pets existing. He hasn’t gotten any adoption applications yet so I thought maybe if we worked on this together then it might be easier for him to find his forever home.