u/ATuguinha

Guys, I’m getting desperate.

I have a 3-month-old female Portuguese Water Dog who is generally quite chilled, apart from this.
Every time it’s playtime, my hands seem to be the first thing she goes for. Then my arms, legs… basically whatever is within reach. I’m covered in bite marks all over my body because she bites me, pulls my hair, and jumps on top of me. Saying a strict, assertive “no” doesn’t work at all.

This happens:
- when she’s in a playful mood
- when I pet her for, let’s say, more than two minutes

Things I’ve tried:
- Giving her a toy instead and redirecting the bite (she still comes for my hands! Please note she has lots of toys and loves them)
- Making a loud noise as if I’m in pain (90% of the time I really am!) and pretending to lick the area
- Not reacting at all, letting her bite without pulling my hands away (it hurts like hell because she really bites)
- Ignoring her by standing up for 10 seconds every time she bites
- Holding both hands up, saying “no”, and giving her a toy

She looks super happy when she’s doing this, so she clearly thinks it’s play, but she really goes for it. She even snaps at the air trying to get to my hands, arms, and legs while I’m saying an assertive “no” and showing that I’m in pain. She even made my nose bleed once.

Please help! What else can I do?
Thank you!

F35, diagnosed with ADHD this year, not medicated.

I’m not sure whether this is an ADHD thing or just part of my personality, but I always seem to feel dissatisfied with everything, as if the grass is always greener on the other side.
I also tend to miss things once they’re gone. For example, I had a job I was unhappy with, so I quit. Now I look back on it and miss it, and I even see it as one of the best periods of my life. It seems like I only truly appreciate things after they’re gone, but for some reason I struggle to enjoy them in the present moment.

Do any of you feel this way too? Is this something that can be related to ADHD? I just feel so unhappy and not at peace.

We have had our 3-month-old puppy since she was 2 months old. We already had a two-week holiday booked for September, when she’ll be 5 months old.

you think being away from her for those two weeks could affect our bond? We would leave her with family members she really likes. Thank you!

Do

Sorry, guys, but I just had another stupid argument with my boyfriend, and I genuinely want to understand whether he could be right.

I went into the bathroom and noticed a few drops of pee on the floor (a typical guy thing!). As I always do, I said:
- There’s pee on the floor…

He thought I was talking about our puppy because she had just peed on the bathroom floor and he had already cleaned it up. So he replied:
- What? I already cleaned it!

I then said (jokingly)
- Oh, what? Did you pee on the floor then?

At that point, he started speaking to me quite harshly, so I asked:
- Why are you talking to me like that?

He says that, because he thought I was referring to the puppy’s pee and he had been kind enough to clean it up, he interpreted my comment as rude/sarcastic.

In my opinion, that’s more of a personality thing. I told him I doubt that most people, even if they thought I was talking about the puppy’s pee, would interpret my comment as rude. He completely disagrees.

What are your thoughts?
We have a lot of disagreements like this. I keep saying it’s a personality thing, while he says I’m putting him in a “box” by saying that.

We have had our 3-month-old puppy since she was 2 months old. We already had a two-week holiday booked for September, when she’ll be 5 months old.
Do you think being away from her for those two weeks could affect our bond? We would leave her with family members she really likes. Thank you!

My Portuguese Water Dog puppy went to the vet (who is supposedly a very good one) when she was 9 weeks old. He looked at her and said she had a calcium deficiency because her paws were pointing slightly outwards instead of being straight.
He also said that eating her own poop, licking walls, and a few other behaviours were symptoms of calcium deficiency. She had all the symptoms he described, so we’ve been giving her a calcium supplement, as he advised, for almost a month now.

We went back to the vet last week, and he said she was improving based on the way her paws looked. However, I honestly don’t notice much of a difference, and all the other symptoms are still there.

Is what the vet told us accurate? Should I continue giving her the calcium supplement?

Many, many thanks in advance!!

Boa tarde!
Sei que as praias com concessão durante a época balnear não aceitam cães, mas estive a pesquisar e descobri algumas que aceitam nos arredores de Lisboa. Mas queria recomendações de quem tenha animais de estimação sobre quais são os melhores spots para levar cães. E há piscinas ou lagos seguros que aceitem? O que recomendam? Obrigada!

Hello!

I have a female Portuguese Water Dog who is 12 weeks old and has been with us for about a month.

Schedule:
She usually gets the zoomies around 10pm, and then falls asleep in the living room next to us while we watch TV until around midnight, when she comes with us to the bedroom and sleeps in her own bed. She usually wakes us up around 4:30am because she needs to pee or poop. We take her to the balcony, she does her business, and then goes back to sleep until around 6am.

The problem is that at 6am she wakes up full of energy, jumps onto our bed, and starts biting everything in the bedroom. One of us is basically forced to get up because otherwise she’ll start destroying things.

It’s also not really an option to leave the bedroom door open and give her access to the rest of the apartment, as we don’t trust her unsupervised yet. We tried crate training as well, but she’s still not comfortable with the crate door being closed.

Has anyone been through something similar? Any tips on how to make her sleep longer? The sleep deprivation is really starting to affect us.

Thank you in advance!

I’ve read a lot of different information, and from what I understand, there doesn’t seem to be much consensus on this topic in veterinary medicine.
If a female dog is spayed before her first heat, it decreases the risk of tumours but increases the risk of orthopaedic problems (because she doesn’t finish growing/the sex hormones don’t participate in growth). If she is spayed after her first heat, it increases the risk of tumours but decreases the risk of orthopaedic problems.
Is that true? What would you advise me to do?
Thank you very much in advance!

Hello all!

So, we have a 9-week-old female Portuguese Water Dog (she's been with us for 9 days!) and we are trying to crate train her.

At the moment, we have the crate in the living room because we want her to get used to sleeping there, rather than in our bedroom. Because of that, we are taking turns sleeping with her every night.

What we have already managed:

• She is comfortable going in and out of the crate
• We give her a Kong with food in the crate at every meal
• We can close the crate door for a few minutes before she starts crying (and sometimes we can even leave the room for a few seconds)

So our typical night is:

• She falls asleep outside the crate
• We wait until she is in a deep sleep and move her into the crate
• About 20% of the time she stays there; 80% of the time she comes back out
• We stay half awake, very aware of any movement
• As soon as she wakes up, we take her to the balcony to pee or poo
• She lies down on the balcony and doesn't do either
• We bring her back inside and she falls asleep again
• Repeat all night, with a few pee and poo accidents on the carpet in between...

At night, if we put her in the crate while she's awake, she leaves, because she LOVES sleeping in two specific spots in the living room. But if she's very sleepy, we can pick her up, put her in the crate, and she'll stay there until she wakes up. Once she wakes up, she cries.

We try not to open the crate while she's crying. We wait for a few seconds of silence before opening it (otherwise she panics, screams, bites the crate, etc., which we want to avoid).

The issue is that she doesn't seem to be getting the hang of potty training yet, and we're sleeping very, very little every night while constantly cleaning up pee and poo from our living room.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can make this work?

Thank you so much!