The dog musing/vent thread

I'm honestly wondering if there will ever be a day where I will feel confident about having my dog.

I love her but I honestly don't have the margin of emotional health where I can constantly tolerate and train her reactivity, or where she's just another stressor piled on top of the rest of the hurdles of my day. I try to be positive every time we train but I seriously can never just feel relaxed with her unless we just lived our lives inside the house, and thus every other day I'm unsure if I made the right decision.

That ends up being a stressor too because of people who think I'm a horrible person for even daring to wonder if she's right for me because of how it's playing out with my anxiety. And then my siblings pressure me to not even ever think about a different dog. But I literally have spent this entire year wanting to tear my hair out when we come back from the shortest walks.

I'm perfectly capable of meeting the needs and beyond of a dog, but I cannot handle reactivity on top of college on top of employment just because a leaf blew across the sidewalk or a dog looked at her.

Bluh.

There is nothing more frustrating than having a dog that is NOT a good fit for who you are as a person, or your lifestyle. I've been there, done that. Luckily for me, I had family where the dog (Chloe) fit in perfectly and they didn't mind keeping her, so I was able to "rehome" her in good conscious, knowing everyone was better off.

There isn't an easy answer. In the end, do what you think is best for yourself and your dog, be that sticking it out and making it work or placing the dog in another home.

puppies were born today -- only one male out of four, aaaand he's the forbidden color. The universe does not want me to have a puppy.

There's another CUTE dog for adoption here. They call her BC/Aussie but I see retriever in there too. Dunno. But sable and white and bright eyed. 10 months and CUTE. Mable. Cute cute cute.

Someone smack me and tell me that I will find a dog when the time comes. October is the latest I move and that is NOT far away.

Someone also tell me getting a random muttly dog and a puppy is a bad idea.

And now I'm sitting here trying to decide if I want to actually contact the BC/sheltie litter people....

There is nothing more frustrating than having a dog that is NOT a good fit for who you are as a person, or your lifestyle. I've been there, done that. Luckily for me, I had family where the dog (Chloe) fit in perfectly and they didn't mind keeping her, so I was able to "rehome" her in good conscious, knowing everyone was better off.

Could we have made it work? Eh, probably. But doing so would have just added extra stress for not only ourselves, but also Chloe, and I feel like everybody involved, including her, would always have been a bit dissatisfied. I still think about the "what if's" sometimes and even offered to take her back a few months ago when Mom was having some issues with her, but it remains the same: we could make it work, but someone would be unhappy.

Another good example is Gracie and Cooper. We inherited them after their owner, a relation of Michael's, past away and they were a HORRIBLE fit for our lifestyles. Great dogs, we loved them, we intended to keep them and did keep them for a year, but it was just stress after stress after stress. We finally placed them with my mother and grandmother and the dogs are SOOOO happy now, as are their new owners.

There isn't an easy answer. In the end, do what you think is best for yourself and your dog, be that sticking it out and making it work or placing the dog in another home.

:hail:

Middie is not a good fit for me AT ALL. We don't really click. It's been an uphill battle from the beginning. But I've had him for years, and he isn't going anywhere, and it's gotten a lot easier as he's been trained and aged.

Don't give up on her. It's manageable and you can do it. I think its your family that's the problem here, telling you how awful she is and and how you can't manage her. My parents did that, too. The trick is to find a good exercise outlet for her, like a baseball field. If she's tired, she'll be easy to work with.

Puppies were born today -- only one male out of four, aaaand he's the forbidden color. The universe does not want me to have a puppy.

Puppies were born today -- only one male out of four, aaaand he's the forbidden color. The universe does not want me to have a puppy.

Gimmick decided that today was the perfect day to vault the baby gate and take off running. Then, since Gimmick was clearly having so much fun, Gambit blew past me (he does not usually dart doors) and took off with him. I live close to two busy roads, and Gimmick has proven he has no car sense.

I called, I drove around, I freaked out for over and hour. And there were maintainance guys at the apartment, so I didn't even know if Gambit would come home.

I finally found them, looking and smelling like they had had a compost lunch, then went for an after lunch swim in a swamp. Oh, and did I mention Gambit was bringing a dead maggot infested raccoon home for dinner?

Now my apartment reeks, the dogs reek, even after a bath, and I'm pretty sure I'm just going to dump them both at AC as strays.

For the first time ever, Quiddich is the good one.

A lot of it definitely has to do with my family, mostly coming from the fact that my dad is not a dog fan and he was nervous enough about bull breed type dogs that when we first adopted her, he'd get up in arms when she barked and ran around his feet one time he actually brandished a tool at her v.v

It's much better now but he hates it when a dog hair touches any of his stuff, when anything of mine that has dog hair touches something he touches, and she still demands attention when they're both outside at the same time by just continuously bopping his hands and barking at him and won't calm down for 10 minutes. Probably partly because she associates my anxiety with him.

So yeah, I always feel pressure to have her be on her best behavior in the house and then we go for a walk and despite working daily on her frustrated excitement during all 10 months of owning her and giving her plenty of exercise, she still feels the need to attempt to run on leash and make the ugliest pterodactyl squeal at a dog like 20 feet away when the day before she walked past a dog right across the street. Thus, just to walk around the neighborhood I have to constantly be overflowing with treats and it can never just be leisurely because she's constantly looking for things to stress over. And then we get home and I wish I could magically tape her mouth shut because that noise is just like...No, Nina, no.

I'm honestly wondering if there will ever be a day where I will feel confident about having my dog.

I love her but I honestly don't have the margin of emotional health where I can constantly tolerate and train her reactivity, or where she's just another stressor piled on top of the rest of the hurdles of my day. I try to be positive every time we train but I seriously can never just feel relaxed with her unless we just lived our lives inside the house, and thus every other day I'm unsure if I made the right decision.

That ends up being a stressor too because of people who think I'm a horrible person for even daring to wonder if she's right for me because of how it's playing out with my anxiety. And then my siblings pressure me to not even ever think about a different dog. But I literally have spent this entire year wanting to tear my hair out when we come back from the shortest walks.

I'm perfectly capable of meeting the needs and beyond of a dog, but I cannot handle reactivity on top of college on top of employment just because a leaf blew across the sidewalk or a dog looked at her.

Bluh.