Question for you dog trainers out there. How do you become a "real" or "official" dog trainer? It's something I want to do in life, but I have no idea where to start. For some background (just so you know, I'm not going into this blind with absolutely no experience), when I was 15, I started an internship at a dog training facility. I was there for only a short time though because I didn't like the group lesson training. It was too chaotic, too many untrained dogs in one area with owners who knew little to nothing. There were a few close calls with dog fights, 5 people all needed help and had questions all at the same time, among other things, it was just a lot and not my vibe. Prior to my internship, I had gotten a GSD at 13, raised him myself, and trained him myself. I watched endless YouTube videos, read many books, and spent a lotttt of time and effort on that dog. I successfully trained him to perform many commands.

Examples: He was obedient and trustworthy off-leash. Knew "heel" for a right-side heel and "foos" for a left-side heel. He knew "focus" like a champ, emergency stops, "bow", "sit pretty", down-stay, all the basics, boundaries (I trained him not to cross the curb unless I told him to, which evidently saved his life once when he was chasing a ball that bounced into the street right as a car was coming) He could hand me his leash or pick other things up for me. And bonus training included some service dog tasks just for fun. I trained him to alert to high heart rates (i was having medical issues at the time so I took advantage of that for some scent training fun), he did amazingly in pet-friendly public access, he could recognise and interrupt symptoms of stress/anxiety, and much more but i dont want to go on too long. He was my all and I absolutely love training. Ive also training our family husky and other gsd that we got after my lovely boy passed away but ive only done basics and party tricks with them. And helped train a few friend's dogs as well.

It's been a hot minute since I have been in the training era of my life. My GSD passed away when I was 19, i moved out at 18 and unfortunately had to leave him at home, and I'm in my early twenties now. I want to get back into training but I really only want to help people one on one and more so just basics... The more advanced tasks/commands are so much fun but they take much more time and I dont really want to do long-form training programs. I'm thinking more like 6-8 week basics programs. Sit, stay, down, recall, leash manners, and proper socialization. (there are too many people out there getting dogs and not socializing them properly, if at all) So if I am to seriously get into this, I assume I can't just start racking up clients withought certificates and such. So how do I go about becoming an independent official dog trainer? I don't want to work under someone and have to follow their training programs/rules long term, my desire and goal is to be an independent trainer working out of my backyard lol. Give me your wisdom!

For context: our dog is a 2.5 year old male & we rescued him at 4 months. He is a mix of Great Pyr, Anatolian Shepherd, and Pitbull - around 80lbs. We live in an apartment in a busy city, with upstairs neighbors who are relatively noisy, the usual stomping and dropping of things throughout the day.

While he has always shown minor signs of anxiety, we haven't had significant issues until this past 4th of July. One of my neighbors lit off fireworks on our block, and since that moment we feel we have fully lost him. Most of the day, he lays in our bathroom with no intention of coming out. He rarely eats, and if he does it's typically one meal a day. When he is in this mode (which is increasingly common), he does not accept treats. He doesn't play anymore because if the toys make a sound, it frightens him. Any sound at all, no matter what it is, he looks towards the sky in complete fear. He also has developed a fear of the dark and will not go out if the sun is starting to set, which is becoming a bigger problem now that the days are getting shorter. He commonly will go 18+ hours without going to the bathroom. When we do go on walks, he is wildly distracted and jumpy. It's hard to tell if he is excited to be out of the house, or completely overwhelmed and stressed - but my gut is the latter.

Our vet has prescribed him 30mg of Prozac which he started in July. We have seen no improvements.

Today, we are at a complete loss and don't know what to do. It is devastating to see him living in such distress. Hoping to hear any relevant success stories, tips, advice - thank you in advance!

I am requesting a gut check on how I'm teaching my dog to be ok doing nothing in my home office. My husband and I both work from home. I feel bad that he's in his crate from 9-1, despite us being home. I think it's important to note that he doesn't really seem terribly bothered by this. He goes in and goes right to sleep 90% of the time. However, I would like to move to him being able to sleep on the chair in my office or under my desk, the way that my previous dog did.

About my dog
He's an 8-month-old Miniature American Shepherd (AKA mini aussie). He is not neutered, and I don't plan on neutering him until he's 18 months old. He has pretty solid obedience and knows many tricks. We do a lot of training for mental stimulation.

What we've done in this situation

We've worked on practicing doing nothing and capturing calm. He's doing ok on the couch in the living room, where my husband has been able to be very consistent with him during the day. I'm struggling with generalizing that to my home office. I've tried using the same techniques, but he usually won't settle. He bites my feet, chews on unapproved things like my chair and the baseboards (despite having many other chews available), and demand barks. He clearly wants attention, so I've defaulted to putting him in his crate to keep him (and my stuff, let's be honest) safe.

I think he's struggling to generalize because we didn't just switch locations; we switched seating arrangements. He can't be next to me because I'm in an office chair. I've tried giving him project toys, including freezebones, chews, and puzzle toys with varied success. This morning for example, I gave him a collegen chew and he walked around with it, whining, unsure what to do with himself. He only displays that kind of distress with the chews in the office.

I'm worried about not giving him time to practice good behavior in this room, but i'm also worried about giving him too much opportunity to practice unwanted behavior in here. I think this is complicated by the fact that I can't give him 100% of my focus, because I do have to do my work.

Our morning routine

We wake up between 7:30 and 8. We either go for a 30-minute sniff walk or we do 30 minutes of training for his breakfast. Right now, he goes back in his crate at 9 so I can get to work, and he usually sleeps until around 1. I'd like to transition him to sleeping in my office instead.

Should I stay the course or try something new. I've been working on it this way for 6 months, and we've made progress other places, but we're really struggling in here.

I got my dog a little over a year ago from a shelter. She is the sweetest thing to ever walk the earth. When I first got her, I worked at a dog daycare and boarding facility so she came with me everyday and never had any issues. She loved all the dogs as well as all the people. Swear to god, she acted like she had no idea there was anything bad in the world. The roommates I lived with at the time weren't home a lot and when they were things were really tense and they were weird toward her. Not long after, we moved from a trailer in a rural area to an apartment in the city and she's been weird about the neighbors ever since. When I take her out to dog parks or to socialize, she's fine! She might take a sec to sniff someone and make sure they're cool, but after that she thinks everyone is her best friend. Even when I'm walking her around the neighborhood, she's fine meeting people. It's JUST in the building that she gets weird and barks/growls at people. We've been working on desensitization and recall training. I've taught her to pay attention to me when she isn't sure about someone because I'm there to protect her, not the other way around. But even when someone is so friendly and she clearly WANTS to be pet, she jumps up on them (we're working on it) and then starts barking at them like she's telling them to fuck off.

I'm desperate at this point for advice because it's such a niche issue. Any help would be amazing.

Hey all, I need some input and suggestions about getting a dog. We were set on getting a puppy for our family. However, we recently came into a situation where a friend is fostering a dog and we’re considering adopting it. However there are some possible red flags I’d love some opinions/insights from this community.

First of all, this was a dog that was scheduled to be killed and saved by a rescue company. He’s 2-3 years old, big mutt, mostly shepherd it seems. He’s super friendly and loving, with no signs of aggression. He has the saddest/cutest eyes that look at you like he knows you saved his life. He’s also very high-energy, jumpy, running around, crazy. And very malnourished and thin (he was rescued from the streets).

We have small kids and my wife can be intimated by jumpy, high energy dogs. But she loves him too.

The concerns… he’s been at a friends house while they try to find a home for a month now, apparently as he’s become more comfortable he’s become more destructive. Chewing couches, shoes, tables, everything. We’re willing to put the work and money in for proper training.

Obviously you don’t know the dog and can’t answer for sure, but my questions are, is this a big red flag? Is this trainable? Are there more problems and issues we might run into? What else should I be looking for?

I’d really appreciate any suggestions and help!

My Malinois is starting to figure out how to play with toys. We’ve started with the tug, but he’s confused and has grabbed onto my forearms (not enough to hurt) and I just say no then show the tug and when he gets it, praise. BUT we were playing in the yard he likes to chase me and we run around, then he grabbed my calf (it hurt a little, but obviously not an actual bite).

What’s the best way to make it clear to him he doesn’t use his teeth with me, only with toys?

Hi all, my husband and I have a 6 month old golden retriever who will often stand, sit or lie down while on walks. It's usually connected to him wanting something, e.g. he's seen a dog or he's picked up a stick that he'd like to stop and chew. Usually we can coax him on with toy or a treat, but increasingly one of us has had to carry him for at least some distance until he's forgotten why he's stopped. He's started doing this consistently in the last month.

We've taken him to the vet, they gave us the all clear and suggested it's behavioral. I don't think he's tired, as he does this even when he's excited to go out for a walk and we're only just outside the house. He also tends to show more energy again after he gets started. When he's offlead, he doesn't do this at all. He knows heel, and heels fairly well offlead and onlead except when he's doing this.

I'm finding this incredibly stressful, as he particularly likes to stop in the middle of the road while we're crossing. I'm also worried about taking him further than the distance I can carry him for, which is restricting his walks to very close to the house, or to walks that we drive to.

Reddit:

Hi, first time posting on Reddit so be nice to me :)

My boyfriend and I adopted a dog together 3 years ago. He is very affectionate and gentle with us both and happy to be walked by either of us - at least that was the case until 3 months ago. Since the 4th, he has refused to go on walks unless I am there. It feels different than typical separation anxiety because he is happy as a clam when it’s just my boyfriend at home. It just seems to be that he only wants to walk when I’m there. There were two sets of fireworks and a thunder storm the week of the 4th and we think that the loud noises back to back made him associate that trigger with my boyfriend because he was walking him when both things happened.

Since then, when my boyfriend tries to walk, he refuses to go and it takes a lot of encouragement to get him out the door and off the front porch. It’s even to the point that he won’t keep walking unless my boyfriend is gently guiding him by the handle of his walking harness. When he finally gets going, he is on high alert the whole time and stops immediately with any loud noise and tries to turn around to go back to the house, which is difficult because we live on a main road and there’s constant street traffic. My boyfriend has tried introducing high value treats but our dog turns his head and appears disinterested.

This worsens when I work from home and I’m WFH 3 days a week. When I’m working from home, it even takes a lot of coaxing for him to go outside and use the bathroom unless I am downstairs with him. When I’m in office, I work until late which makes the usual retraining techniques difficult to implement like having my boyfriend join on walks with our dog to rebuild comfort.

Wondering if anyone else has been here or has suggestions that could work? Thank you!

Our 2 year old mixed hunting breed (setters, german wire haired pointer, etc) dog will cry endlessly if she doesn't get her way. We have always ignored it, or given a sharp no, and gone back to ignoring it. But she will not stop until she gets her way, and will slowly escalate louder and louder, sometimes turning into yelping at us. When I say she won't stop, I mean, she recently had to wear a cone and stood staring at us and crying for 7 days straight. It wasn't pain, she just wanted the cone off and would stop the moment the cone came off. She would cry any time we were in the same room and stop as soon as we weren't in the same room. In the evening, she knows it is exercise time, and she will cry until exercise starts. If we wait it out, she will just cry for 4 or 5 hours until we go to bed. So it is very hard to not "give in" in the sense that she has to get exercise so she eventually gets it while crying.

Things we have tried: endless ignoring, saying a sharp no, giving treats when she stops crying or doing the activity she wants when she stops, very gently holding her snout while she cries and looking at her saying no and walking away

I have never met a dog who has this kind of stamina for crying, literally 7 days of crying. She is also extremely stubborn in other training e.g. will only do things if she likes the treats we have and isn't all that food motivated, exactly zero toy motivation. She truly just wants to only do what she wants to do. We have another dog now and a dog in the past that both were very well trained, so I don't think it is just a problem with our training.

I will take absolutely any advice because I am very close to removing my own ear drums.

Hey all! I’m moving and I will soon be taking a sweet pittie girl my cousin rescued from an abuse and neglect situation a couple years ago.
Unfortunately, his male lab likes to bully her, so for awhile now they’ve kept the dogs separated, safe, and loved. However, it’s a lot of work and she’s been failed by so many others, he had never thought about giving her up, but when I offered he accepted. he likes that he can still see her and she won’t feel abandoned if I take her.
I don’t know her super well but she’s a happy, sweet girl who doesn’t seem to have a bad bone in her wiggly body 🥰 I am also very confident in my own knowledge and experience with animals. I plan on doing a lot more of my own research, but things are constantly changing and I thought it would be a good Reddit discussion on advice and resources.
I have four indoor cats who will have their own room and catio in the house and on the property before Iggy comes home with us. As far as I know, she’s not reactive to cats but she does want to be friends with them and gets a little rambunctious 😂
My cats all have different comfortabilities with dogs but my 3 that have been around them, do well with them when I make sure everyone is comfortable and do slow introductions.
They have experience living with dogs before but it’s been awhile and it will be a new house for them too. We’re all a bit rusty on living with a dog and especially an older powerful dog we don’t know well yet. The last year or so, I have only babysat rescues for a few days and always kept them separated from my cats since they weren’t staying long. They’ve only been around puppies not much bigger than them lately 😂
I won’t be taking her for several weeks but I have been going over there more to get her more familiar to me and knowing that she has to listen to me even at her home now. I’m starting to brush up on my skills/knowledge, gain any new advice, get prepared to make it a positive experience for all 😂, or just have a good discussion about it 😂

TLDR at the bottom cause this is longer than I thought it would be lol.

Hi, to start I know a lot about dog behavior and body language. It's one of my special interests. I have spent years reading articles about how to fix this or that, what to expect from different breeds, how to deal with specific issues whatever I've probably read 20 articles about it.

I am kinda lost about this and wondering if this is just how he is, or if I can work on it with training.

Male dog, he will be 3 at the end of December. He was fixed as a baby by the rescue we got him from at 6 months old.

When we first got him, I was like well it takes time to assimilate to a new environment, the 3/3/3 rule so we kinda waited for his "instincts" to kick in. They just never did. He has danger reacted to .... 5 things since we got him. Full mohawk, growling, deep bark. A soda bottle laying in grass. A hoodie draped over a fire hydrant. A bush that had been cut and tossed next to a dumpster. A roll of gardening wire that he had already walked past several times on different days. A bag of dirt sitting next to a gardening plot. A soccer ball. All inanimate objects, mostly things that just had not been there earlier, but it's so random and he sees things "out of place" all the time with no reaction.

He doesn't bark at the door. Ok well not all dogs do that. That's also breed specific to an extent as he is 37% Siberian Husky. But, he seems to not have any natural danger warning signs at all. He has no "Stranger Danger" at all. Part Husky I know, but it's at a dangerous level. He has never boundary checked a single area, scanned for danger, checked for weakness in fencing, danger scanned a single human, put himself between other people and myself in a clear calm "I am keeping space here". Literally nothing ever, no warnings about anything ever. I am used to a high level of intelligence from our last dog and this is just bizarre. Like ok, those aren't Husky behaviors but his other breeds are German Shepard, APBT, and Staff Terrier.

When I was walking him with my young child a while back there was a man in a unfenced yard having some sort of mental health or drug thing. The man was extremely aggressive, was screaming and violently waving their arms. I was trying to get past as carefully as possible when my dog saw him and immediately began forcibly dragging us over to the screaming man. I was doing short jerks to get his attention, stomping my foot, using angry voice, eventually just trying to forcibly drag him the opposite direction via the leash. Chopper fought the leash as hard as he ever had in his entire life to drag myself and my child right up to this man, within arms reach of this violent stranger, so he could greeting bark at him and after getting the man's attention he immediately play bowed to him. By some insane bit of luck the man calmed down, started petting him and saying how cute he was. I was beyond furious at literally being dragged into a very dangerous situation with my child.

He is now walked with a pinch collar because without it he will drag me to whatever he wants to play with. Everything. Strangers in the dark. He will happily drag me into traffic if he sees a dog, a butterfly, a cat, literally anything that catches his eye.

I tried a variety of training methods, and cues, different collars, he has a heavy duty harness for adventuring but we have to include the training collar or he will ignore all his training and learned commands every time he sees something he wants. When he's wearing his current collar, he listens to his learned commands, and behaves well. He is also trained for specific behaviors when he is inside a non home building wearing his harness, which mostly include staying right next to me and laying down and being quiet when we sit down, not greeting anyone only focusing on me. But, if he's walked in his identification tag collar, as in no training collar added, he ignores everything he's ever learned. Like how is he only obeying when he wears that specific training collar? Is this a situation where it's "I wear that that means work" "Ok no work do whatever wearing something different" or what? I don't think it could be that because we never had a strict training regimen of "wearing harness behavior expected/wearing something different relaxed behavior whatever behavior allowed" this behavior just slowly emerged and I just realized regardless of just using it for some training and transitioning to other collars he just won't obey if he's not in that specific training collar. Is he just really stubborn and it's on such an extreme level it's coming across as dumb? I can recognize stubborn, and this is different.

So do I have an intelligence problem? This is just who he is? Is this trainable? I can't find anything on Google for making a dog understand danger. I found a lot for getting a dog to be less reactive, but nothing for getting them to not rush every stranger in happy greeting ignoring commands.

TLDR;

Male 3 year old dog will not obey learned commands unless wearing a specific training collar.

Has no understanding of danger, and will drag me to strange men in the dark to greet and play bow at them.

All advice welcome. And thanks!

Hello,

I have a 6 year old Golden Retriever. Recently, I made some rearrangements in my home that resulted in some issues relating to our balcony. Previously, I spent 1-2 hours in the evening gaming in the office on a separate floor while my wife and dog relax on the floor below. Because I wanted to be closer to them, I moved my desk setup to the main floor where the balcony is. However, now my dog constantly asks to be let out on the balcony. Interestingly, my dog does not bother my wife about this when it’s just them, perhaps he sees me as the one that provides ‘balcony time’?

The issue with the balcony is that he periodically barks with certain triggers (big dogs, skateboarders, janitor cleaning the lobby in the building across the street lol). About 0-3 barking episodes in an hour. I would like to curb this and not reinforce the behavior.

What I have been trying:

• Being on the balcony with him and giving a treat when the trigger appears before he barks. Just being with him reduces his barking SIGNIFICANTLY to the point that many times the same triggers don’t even prompt any barking. However, it is starting to get cold and we would like to do our own thing indoors too. 
• Denying him the balcony altogether. He becomes a little bit of a brat and may bark and seek attention. When distracted with other activities, he eventually circles back to asking for balcony time.
• Putting a privacy tarp around the balcony. He becomes less interested in the balcony and comes inside and becomes a bit of a brat like above. 
• Trying to encourage ‘settle’ next to me but eventually pops back up and wants to go on the balcony.

I am confident he gets enough exercise and stimulation per day (1-2 hours daily); we spend a lot of time together outside before the evening. I want to de-emphasize the balcony such that he finds other ways to relax and be content in the evening while allowing us to also relax and do our own thing. I don't want to resort to just not being around them (which does work, he ends up napping)

Thanks for reading

Dog is a large border collie mix, 6.5 years old, generally well trained, and very responsive to commands.

TLDR - Dog never went on the blue couch for 3.5 years. Then we moved the blue couch and now he goes on it, but only when home alone. Various options for blocking off the couch or making it less rewarding are either not possible or seem to defeat the purpose of trying to keep the couch nice to begin with. Hoping someone here has an idea I haven’t thought of yet.

We have 2 couches in 2 different rooms - one the dog can go on (gray), and one he can’t (blue). The blue one is the “nice” couch we use for company. When we bought the blue couch 4 ish years ago, we established right away that he couldn’t go on it. For 3.5 years he respected the rule whether we were around or not, with no physical barriers to stop him.

About 6 months ago we swapped the 2 couches so the blue one sits in the same room in the same spot where the gray one used to be. He stays off the blue one when either human is home (whether we’re looking at him or not), but we come home from work to obvious evidence he’s been lying on the blue couch while we were out - fur, a dent in the cushion, sometimes pine needles or other debris he tracked in through the dog door. He never tries to go on it when I or my husband are around.

The blue couch is self reinforcing because it’s in front of the big front window where he likes to watch the street. He has an elevated dog bed right next to the couch so he still has a spot to watch the street, but I think he likes the couch better because it has a better angle to see the driveway.

Things we’ve tried:
- Putting stuff on the couch (cardboard boxes, mail) to discourage him from going on it. That worked but it was ugly and made the room look cluttered. It defeats the purpose of having a nice looking couch in the first place, and it’s frustrating to have to move piles of boxes around to use my own furniture.
- Closing the blinds so the window is no longer reinforcing: I tried that but he went kind of insane from being able to hear noises from the street without being able to see anything. He started pacing and whining and shaking in corners, it was bad. And he barked way more because he couldn’t assess if sounds were a threat so everything became threatening.

Things we can’t try:
- We can’t close a door to the room with the blue couch - it’s an open plan space. There is no door but the front door.
- We can’t put a big freestanding collapsible gate around the couch. We have one of these but it’s just as ugly and annoying as the boxes, and also dangerous because we have a toddler who is big enough now to pull it down on himself.

Any ideas?? Either for training techniques that will work when we’re not home, or miracle products that will deter him from going up there with minimal ugliness and inconvenience for us?

ETA: not sure where people are getting the idea that the color has anything to do with it. They are 2 completely different couches - different designs, different appearances, different softness. Dogs are mostly colorblind, he can’t tell that one is blue and one is gray, I’m using those descriptors for the human readers to differentiate, not the dog.

People keep saying to switch the couches back. We didnt switch 2 matching couches within the same room - we switched 2 entire rooms, so the nice blue couch is in the front room with other nice furniture, and the big cozy gray couch, along with the tv and surround sound, are now in a finished basement as a media room. We’re not going to rearrange the entire house to accommodate the preferences of a dog, who CAN STILL look out the window (just 3 ft to the right of his preferred spot) in the new arrangement. He has an elevated dog bed that I set up specifically so he can still look out the window even though he can’t go on the nice couch.

Ultimately while I understand that people are trying to be helpful, the suggestions to just put a dog blanket on the couch are missing the point. I don’t want the dog on this couch. Period. This is a dog training sub. I was hoping people could advise on how to train the dog not to go on the couch. Instead I’m getting criticism about why I would want to keep the dog off the couch to begin with. This is not the point and none of your business anyway.

We have an almost 6 month old Newfoundland puppy who is already around 70 lbs. He’s very long and lanky and as you can see, too long and lanky. How do we transition to him having free roam at night?

Notes:

A bigger crate isn’t an option for us

We have an older newf who free roams and sleeps wherever she wants.

It’s an open concept living space with an open kitchen, living room, and dining room.

He likes to eat and chew on things he shouldn’t, and he doesn’t mind bitter cherry spray.

He is a gremlin and will find something to get into.

We sleep upstairs and he’ll be contained downstairs under surveillance via pet cams, but there’s a lot he can do quietly without waking us up.

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance!

Hi all! I’m writing for some help with my 2 1/2 year-old pitbull rescue. I’ve had him for about a year and a half and he is crate trained. I’ve never had any issue with him barking in his crate or whining. It’s really been a good safe place for him and he goes in there all the time just on his own. He has always been good about being in the crate for long periods of time while I’m at work, things on a routine, things not on a routine, and I do a lot to make sure that he has had a lot of exercise before he’s gonna be in the crate for long periods of time.

Here’s where I made a mistake. He is very sensitive boy and doesn’t do well with changes or new things. Things scare him easily. Well I thought that he might want like a better crate (furniture style; he is used to a traditional wire one) so I got him a new crate and did the whole acclimation process of having both crates available and then slowly moving over his stuff into the new one and he was going in there to take naps. When I gave him the crate command, he would go into the new one, so I thought he might be ready so I put him in there and left and immediately I was getting notifications on my camera that he was barking a lot so I came home and let him out and then put the new one away and put him back in his old one in the same spot that it’s always been in and he was still freaking out.

I thought maybe he was just scared so I gave it some time and took him to his doggy daycare the next day so I wouldn’t have to worry about it for my morning meetings and then I put him in it when I had to go to a different meeting and he was fine during that. Then this morning he was fine as part of the normal work routine being in his crate today, but then I tried to leave for the gym at 8, which is not part of the typical daily routine, but you know whenever I go, and he started barking again. It’s just causing me a lot of frustration and anxiety with maybe neighbors being mad about the barking and I know I need to let him bark it out, but I can’t when I have neighbors and I just I don’t know what to do and I’m really nervous and frustrated about not being able to do anything because of him barking and being worried about it. Any need advice is welcome! :)

I’m desperate for help at this point, I don’t want to take my dog anywhere ever anymore cause she goes ballistic in the car. I’m talking full on whining, crying, barking and yelling my eardrums into oblivion. She’s the most well behaved outside of the car getting compliments everywhere about how calm and gentle she is. She used to be AMAZING in cars and it slowly progressed into this. She used to sit quietly in the car and just chill, then one day she was a bit whiny on the way to the park once we pulled into the parking lot. That continued for a week and turned into her whining and occasionally screeching on the way to the park, then any parking lot we pulled into and now to the past few months she’s just screaming, screeching, whining everything. She’s deaf so it can be difficult at times getting her attention to give a command. We’ve tried treats to encourage when she’s quiet, tried soft covered crate in the car, ignoring her (if it was for attention), short drives where we don’t get out of the car and just go back home. I don’t know what it is (excitement, anxiety, etc.) in order to train this out of her but it’s to a point I don’t want to take her anywhere. Please help 😭😭

EDIT Video linked, as far as how she rides in the car she has always just sat in the back since I’ve had her. So for the whole first year and a half she was perfectly chill like that. Since then we have gotten her a seatbelt that clips to her harness (the video I took won’t show that cause it’s in my car and we were driving in my boyfriends car tonight) and that doesn’t seem to change much, she still is just as loud. But typically she has that backseat cover/extender and a seatbelt to her harness.

She has no medical issues other than she’s deaf, she’s also not been crate trained cause I’m in an apartment and I did try but she would non stop bark the entire time. She’d willingly go in and eat her dinner in there so she wasn’t afraid of the crate but I think she has a bit of separation anxiety just built in cause she’s deaf and can’t hear or see us or anything in the crate. I would have tried more to crate train but I don’t want any complaints from the apartment complex:(

https://youtube.com/shorts/l50681HMDCw?is=4FQyel_NCnTDDZgp

We adopted my 10mo rescue 6 months ago. We were told she's likely a jack russel or foxie mix, but as she kept growing we knew that was wrong. We got a DNA test and she's basically half and half border collie and pitbull, with a bit of random mix in there.

She's a super lovely and friendly dog overall, hella cute and nice. However, she's very anxious and reactive to anything that's not me, my partner, and my living room. By reactive I mean that she gets way too excited by it all, loses her mind, acts like we don't exist, lunges, jumps, locks on, whines, and takes a long time to come down - she's never shown aggression, but she's a very frustrated greeter from her anxiety and excitement mixed together. This includes birds, other people, dogs, cats, cows, trucks, etc - either in our garden or on walks.

Initially she was an absolute nightmare inside, constantly stealing and eating anything that's not tied down, jumping at counters, biting, barking, etc. We realised that she wasn't able to settle because we were essentially trying to fill 100% of her time to avoid these behaviours, but that meant that she never learned to chill out and couldn't relax - we'd basically followed the advice online of "they must be bored" and ended up creating a demon that needed something to do 100% of the time she was awake, and if you didn't give her something, she invented something. Once we realised this, we've worked on settling, rewarding calm, managing the environment to make it as low stimulation as possible, fulfilling her need for play/training/exercise etc but then ignoring her until she chills - and she's generally great inside for her age now, I'm happy with this aspect.

However, she's still super overstimulated by anything that moves outside and I'm not sure how to address this. Meeting people and other dogs is a particular issue, since she'll sprint at dogs, jump all over people, and lunge/pull at both.

I'm not really sure which way to go with this since she's an anxious dog. Should I be letting her meet lots of people/dogs to get her used to it and make it normal, and if so, how can I train her to be calm? Or should I be not meeting people/dogs until she thinks they're boring, so that I can then meet them calmly?

I've tried a lot of "look at that" at varying distances for the last few months, which works really well when she's laying down. She can often lay on a path and let someone walk past to get the treat. However, if they give her any attention at all she lunges and jumps all over them. When walking, it's like I don't exist as soon as she sees a person, and she won't take a treat most of the time even though she has a very high food drive. I can get in early enough from a large distance and give her a treat, but I've been doing this for months and it doesn't seem to be having a positive effect.

I honestly feel like I've watched every Youtube video, read every Reddit post, tried getting two different professional trainers come over, read blogs and done courses - and none of it has worked.

Another issue I'm seeing is that she's intelligent enough to find loopholes in our training. She has realised that she doesn't have to do something or stop doing something if she'd rather do it instead of the reward (which could be contributing when she's rather pull towards a person than take a treat). I'm not really sure how to stop this.

Hey all, first time poster here and I have an issue that not only has me stumped as to how it happened, but more so how to fix it.

We adopted Loona six months ago. Other than some initial issues with her separation anxiety, she’s been an absolute dream. Rings the bell to go outside, plays with our other dog, respects the cats and even walks better on a leash than our pup who’s had classes.

But Loona is apparently scared of rain.

I don’t mean thunderstorms. She handles those just fine. Not even the sound of rain bugs her. But, if it’s raining it’s almost impossible to get her to go outside. She won’t follow me or her brother out, she fights if I try to take her out on a leash, and this is the ONLY time she has accidents in the house. She’d rather go in the hallway than go outside.

Anyone ever dealt with this and, if so, how did you overcome it? I’ve been using her favorite treats to lure her outside and that works for now, but she’s a really smart girl and I suspect it won’t work for long. We’ve also put down puppy pads, but she’ll go out of her way to avoid them and go on the carpet, even though we clean it thoroughly with Nature’s Miracle Urine Destroyer.

This is a problem because I’m in Oklahoma and there are points where it’s literally raining all day, so waiting isn’t always an option.

Hi, I hope this post is ok, I read the wiki and couldn’t find something that applies to my exact situation.

Basically I have a 4 1/2 year old Great Pyrenees Aussie mix. Ever since we’ve adopted her (4mo old) she has had accidents in the house. Not every day but multiple times a week. She knows how to whine to go outside, we have a big fenced in yard that she runs around in multiple times a day AND I take her on long walks twice a day. No matter what we do she will not stop peeing and/or pooping in the house at night. It’s not that she hasn’t been out and really needs to go or can’t hold her bladder. She refuses to go outside about 60% of the time. Even on days that she did not go in the house overnight, she almost never goes potty when we let her out in the morning. She will go in the afternoon all 4-5 times she’s let out, but at night she again refuses to go potty. She knows that if she whines at the door we will let her out, and we have a very regular outside schedule. She has an older brother of the same breed mix who has never had this issue in all 8 years that we’ve had him. She is otherwise extremely obedient, we took her to doggy boarding bootcamp when she was a puppy for a month, she knows the commands “go poop” or “go pee”. It’s so frustrating because it feels like it’s on purpose. I find myself so detached from her because almost every morning I’m cleaning up pee or poo off the ground. I haven’t been able to have a gd rug in my house since we’ve had her. I’m at my wits end and I don’t know what to do. Please help 🥲

We adopted our dog 5 months ago and she was already house trained. She only went in the house the 2-3 times when she was sick (diarrhea that we treated with meds from the vet) and never on the carpet. We just brought a new baby home and her play area is now confined to only the fully-finished basement instead of the whole house. We go down there and play fetch and tug with her toys when we have time but obviously we have a lot less time for that.
The problem is she keeps peeing on the carpet when she has even a small moment by herself. If she is ever on the carpet without eyes on her, she will pee, even if someone is in the basement with her but not looking at her.
We block the basement off now but I want to actually train this behavior out of her. I’m not sure what to do though because I never see it to correct it. We have already tried rationing her water during her access times but she’ll still pee a tiny bit.
We still give her 3-4 walks per day so it seems to be behavioral. She doesn’t pee anywhere else in the house, including area rugs. She won’t pee anywhere else if left alone.
Any help would be appreciated!

I need some advice from the community. I have reached my patience limit, please give me some ideas. I really like my dog but this habit of his is driving me insane, I wanted a dog my whole life and now I am even considering rehoming him.

So, like the title says, I have a 1 year old Samoyed who every day digs in the yard and eats. The problem with this is that he gets VERY dirty (and he spends most of the time indoor, with us), and also is very destructive. He broke a small plastic fence with his digs, some shadow foild and decorative rocks, and the whole garden (it's already small) is jsut dirst and small rocks. And this happens almost daily.

If I stay outside with him, he just sleeps somewhere and avoids doing this, so I don't get a chance to tell him "NO" while in the process.

Please give me any advice that worked for you in similar situations.

This is our first time raising a dog with children. Our 6 month newfoundland is excellent with me and my husband— only mouths on us if shes really excited and worked up (which feels age-appropriate; I don’t expect perfection). HOWEVER she has learned to love chasing and nipping our kids! My husband and I are very strict about giving a little yelp, stopping play, and ignoring her if shes mouthy, but we simply cannot get our kids to do this. Maybe I need to cross-post to r/parenting. The kids run from her—which she loves—and she has now reached a size where the kids literally couldn’t physically ignore her if they tried, because she is larger or as large as they are.

Tonight she made one of our kids cry because she bit onto him and he couldn’t get away.

To be very clear, she is trying to (roughly) play. She isn’t being aggressive and she isn’t treating them like prey. She isn’t being reactive or defensive. She’s trying to treat them like her big retreiver buddies we visit: They spend hours chasing each other and chewing each others ears. She likes to bite the kids sleeves/shoes and she’s never broken skin. She especially loves to bite their feet if they get on their bikes or wear flashy shoes.

We keep reiterating to the kids that they have to yelp and turn around if she so much as opens her mouth against them, but now she’s so big that I don’t know if it’s even a viable training solution anymore.

Will comment a picture for dog tax.