r/DogAdvice

I need help!

My 6 month old German Shepard is driving me crazy. He is constantly biting and barking at me, when I get him to stop biting he just barks nonstop.

I’m bruised and tired, I’ve looked up so many videos to try and get him to stop but he just won’t.

I play with him very regularly, we go for runs, we have daily training sessions but he just goes off. I even force him to take naps!!

What should I do?

My 5 year old has always been the healthiest, happiest, sweetest girl. We have been through so much together. School, exams, my husband and I getting married, becoming parents. A few days ago I found a firm movable lump under her right armpit. I spiraled thinking it was lymphoma. The vet did a fine needle aspiration and found mast cells in what they believe is the axillary lymph node, so now they are concerned about metastatic mast cell disease.

I am honestly devastated and barely functioning. She is completely normal otherwise.. eating, playing, energetic, happy, acting like herself. You would never know anything was wrong.

What makes this harder is that we had a growth removed from her belly about 5 months ago, but we did not send it for pathology because vet said he was 99.99% sure it was benign. so now I’m terrified it may have been related.

Either way We are waiting for next steps/staging and I feel sick with fear reading stories online. I know this is serious, but I would really appreciate hearing from anyone whose dog had dealt with similar situation and still did well or lived meaningful happy years after treatment.

Please share positive stories if you have them because my heart is honestly broken right now. I can’t take it.

context:

me (25F) my partner (25M) his brother (26M) and his girlfriend (29F) all went camping this past weekend for brother’s gf’s birthday. we were camping from sat-Tuesday. we had four dogs with us, my two dogs which are ACD mixes and 7mo and 1.3yr respectively. they had their two dogs, which are also ACD mixes, one is 9 years old the other is 7mo.

all weekend dogs were fine. we know older dog is grumpy bc well she’s older. she’s a barker and very protective of her owner and space, but i was never told by owner that she had potential to bite. all of our dogs were off leash all weekend together, no issues.

last day, my dogs are up with us and then the other group wakes up, as the four of them (brother gf and their two dogs) exit the tent, mine went to go say good morning and greet them. i realized my i didn’t see my older dog, so i went to go grab him so they had space to get out of their tent without 4 dogs wagging around them. well… without any growl or bark or warning, the older dog lunged at my dog and does not let go. my dog didn’t growl, didn’t bark, didn’t fight back, he just screamed and cried until we got her off of him.

long story short, he is going to the vet today for antibiotics and possible stitches. i personally feel like they should be paying for those vet bills, whether my dog walked up to greet them or not. after four days of zero issue, and not being told this was a possibility, i do not feel like i am at fault for her dog attacking mine without warning because she wanted space or was cranky.

i just need advice. this is basically my brother and sister in law and the family dynamic with his mom (my bfs stepmom) is already very toxic. i just want them to pay for it and say sorry.

Hi all,
I have a 3 year old Pomeranian. She came from a difficult situation and has terrible anxiety. She constantly is under our feet and has to be able to physically see or touch us to not be whining or anxious. In the past it hasn’t been a huge problem but We are expecting our first baby soon . So We have been try to work on setting boundaries with her to give us space and keep her out of certain areas even when we occupy them.
She has been doing great so far for the amount of time we’ve put into this training. She isn’t perfect if we “ignore” her for too long she tries to sneak into the areas and we have to remind her of her place. I’m not mad at this she is still learning and has gotten better.
My biggest problem is when we exclude her from areas like the kitchen, dining room, or baby room while we are doing stuff. she will sit outside of the boundary we set and whine non stop. She can still see us she just isn’t allowed to be right under our feet like she likes.
We have tried not acknowledging it. We tried introducing the command “ quite” and treating her once she stoped whining but neither of these have stopped the behavior. I think treating her has encouraged the behavior more.
I am at a loss on how to handle this issue. The whining is very triggering to me after a while and really irritates me. I’m sure it will be harder for me to handle once we have a baby in the mix I’m sure. Any tips on method on how to train this behavior away will be greatly appreciated.

my puppy dog threw up some saliva this morning around 4 hours ago. i went to work and my girlfriend called me saying he’s not eating and he just wants to be in closet and won’t come out and just pooped out this mucus looking thing. is this just a normal stomach bug or should i be worried.

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone else is dealing with something similar/has delt with something similar. My dog is a female 1yr old foxhound pit mix. She's potty trained, never goes inside (unless left alone in her crate for too long) and will always let me know when she has to go. But that tends to be every 2 hours. She doesn't drink an absurd amount. If I leave her in her crate for more than two hours, she will pee. She will let me know that she has to go out that often too when outside the crate. She's been to the vet, got a urinalysis, and nothing is wrong. She's not licking any of her parts, and nothing seems to be irritated.

I'm her dog walker, and I met her back in September. Almost two months ago, her parents asked if I could take her in. So I did. She was a little nervous about the transition at first, but now she's doing great. Prior to me taking her in, she still couldn't really be left alone for more than 4 hours without having an accident.

Thankfully I have the means to accommodate her needs, but it is causing me a lot of stress and I am unable to do anything without her.

Edit: scheduled a vet appointment for next week to talk about going on proin. My dyslexic ass doesn't like that it's a letter swap from prion, and I kept wondering how a deadly protein will help my dog hold her urine

Charlie is a 10 year old dachshund/beagle mix we adopted a few years back. Absolute sweetheart, not the best with random encounters with other dogs, and loves kids (we know he had kids in his previous household).

We live in an apartment complex and almost every time we head outside there is a person or a kid that wants to pet him. And I know he's good with people so I let them. But I always say right after saying yes that "oh be careful though, he might try to lick your face". He gets super excited when people give him love, and his reaction is to hop up and kiss their chin or cheeks. I usually keep him under control, but I give a warning just in case because I know some people do not like that from dogs.

I'd say half the people have no change in their demeanor but the other half either change their mind about petting him or get visibly less happy. I don't mind either way, though Charlie will get moody when he doesn't get the attention he thought he was going to get.

I never thought about changing my warning until this little kid froze up and cried when I said that.

I guess the question is should I change up what I say? Is it the "be careful"? Should I just not say anything?

Well, I gave him his first bath (by me anyway) and he was such a good boy. He got several treats after. In between his after bath rub down that is. Rub, treat, rub, treat. Such a goof! So what do you think? Should I brush him again? I brushed him yesterday.

My “friend” has a dog that she treats like furniture and locks her up all day. This dog has spent more of her life in a kennel than outside of it. When I ask about it, they say it’s punishment or she needs it. They say they only let her out 3x a day and the rest of her day is in a kennel. I’d argue a shelter is better than this home (they don’t wanna take her to a shelter). But I finally convinced my friend to rehome her pup.

This is an incredible dog. I just started a part time job as a dog trainer for a reputable company in my area. This dog is SUPER trainable! She’s also got that golden retriever vibe where everything and everyone is loved and she will go with the flow and roll with whatever life throws at her.

More about Iris the puppy that is essentially Chain Chomp:
- large head
- always happy
- very energetic
- very intelligent
- potty trained
- incredibly resilient, confident, and forgiving
- while they don’t take her on walks, I have. I find that after a few corrections… she’s better than my 3 year old Doberman I’ve spent thousands of dollars on in training 🙄
- her mouth makes up 90% of her
- she grew up around multiple children and a cat. She is great with people and kids. She sometimes chases the cat but it’s out of excitement and doesn’t attack the cat. Again, they don’t exercise this dog.
- she’s a little over a year old.

But… she needs rescuing. Truly. Can someone save her? They want to charge a $300 rehoming fee since she’s up to date with vaccines, spayed, and she comes with supplies like that damn kennel.

I know they’d be willing to negotiate because they don’t want her. And I don’t feel comfortable giving her away to just anyone. But if anyone out there wants a beautiful, smart, trainable puppy, please let me know. I’d even offer some free training sessions, but I don’t think it’s needed. She’s really easy to train.

I don’t have social media. And if I did, I wouldn’t feel comfortable being this honest (“friend” doesn’t have Reddit). So I’m asking here. I’ll take suggestions for what to do. This amazing dog deserves a loving home.

Located in Arizona/Phoenix area

My dog has always had really bright, shiny fur, but we recently switched her to a raw food diet to help with weight loss. I’m not sure if these spots are related or just a coincidence, but has anyone seen something like this before or experienced changes in their dog’s coat after switching foods?

Found in new puppies stool. She recently had fleas when we got her, but was treated and flea free for a few weeks.

Our Ibizan Hound (9-year-old) was diagnosed with Hemangiosarcoma back in February 2026, right on his groin. We couldn’t afford surgery, even when another specialist had a lower quote, so all we are left with is trying to maintain his quality of life. He acts totally normal; gets excited to go for walks and play, eats and drinks the same, no change in energy. But the “wound” as I’ve been calling it obviously will only continue to get worse and recently it’s been bleeding slightly non-stop. Went to the emergency vet, advice was the same as the primary and the specialist: it’s not going to get better without surgery. Just looking for anyone with a similar experience, was there a better way you maintained it to stop it from bleeding? At what point was it clear that their QoL was too diminished? My biggest fear is putting him down too early because again, he doesn’t show signs of distress or great discomfort besides licking his paws a lot because I think he wants to lick the wound but knows we can’t let him. We use Yunnan Baiyao pills, warm compress, liquid bandage and manuka honey.

Our family dog 7 years old (shorter one on the left closest) and my pup 9 months (taller one on the right)

Although we got our family dog before covid lockdown (October 19) I feel his early years of socialising etc were ruined by it. I know he wouldn’t harm my pup he’s just very vocal and I just don’t think he understands how to play.

My pup is super playful he’s been socialised since we got him and loves other dogs and always tries to play with him.

My pup loves him and this is how they act when they’re together. I do have to stop my pup from jumping all around our family dog as he doesn’t like that so we do keep an eye on them.

Our family dog sneezes when he’s barking and showing his teeth, which is why I think he’s trying to play…opinions?

It's been happening since I woke up a few minutes ago. He's struggling to get up, sorta flops around but seems happy enough to eat. It's unusual for him to not want to go outside but he really doesn't want to.

He is a 15yr old terrier mix who got bit by something we didn’t see two days ago. We thought he stepped on a wasp so thought he was fine, but he was in a lot of pain so we took him to the er vet about an hour later to make sure it wasn’t a snake. Vet gave him methadone to calm down and confirmed it wasn’t a snake. She gave him antibiotics, gabapentin for pain and carprofen for anti inflammatory.

Next morning, I go downstairs and sit next to where he was laying on the couch. As I do, he gets up and is very wobbly and falls back down. Laying back down his head is still wobbling back and forth. I am worried so I go to my parents room and tell my dad. My dog then walks in and is stumbling and unstable. My dad goes to call my mom at work and I go sit with the dog. Less than 5 mins later he is walking fine again, but my mom still calls the vet who tells her to monitor him and bring him in if it keeps happening.

The rest of the day he is fine until he throws up around 3pm, which is not super unusual for him when he’s not sick/injured and we thought it might have been the meds, though he had only take the antibiotics at around 7am that morning as the swelling/redness had gone down and he wasn’t showing any more signs of pain. Less than an hour later, he threw up again and then two more times within an hour so we took him back to the er. They say it might be the meds and do a blood panel to check liver and kidneys which both look good. They give him an anti nausea injection that lasts 24hrs and then send us home with maropitant for nausea after the injection wears off.

Next day he is fine, takes his antibiotics in the morning and is fine all day until 3pm when he jumps up on me and is wobbly again. I get him to walk and he is wobbly walking. I call my dad and he says he’s not sure what we can do and tells me to film it if it happens again. I think he has gone back to normal at this point. Then I go to let the dogs out and go out with them and he is wobbly and unstable again, which I film this time. When we come in my dad gets home and see him and the video. The dog lays on the couch and still hasn’t wanted to get up for about an hour now.

I want to take him back to the er vet but my parents aren’t sure what they will be able to do. My mom is trying to schedule an appointment with our regular vet.

What could be causing this? Could it be related to the bite? All of his other symptoms are gone except for this, so I’m not sure if it’s related or if it has to do with his age or what. Any advice is appreciated. Thank you!

UPDATE: after going to our regular vet yesterday they told us he has old dog vestibular syndrome. This is what was causing the nausea and wobbling and it is unrelated to the bite. Luckily, it should go away in about 2-3 weeks. He is on meds to manage symptoms. Thank you!