A Puppy is a lot of work

So, we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with our puppy housetraining and other discipline issues (mainly mouthiness). I think there are a few phases with getting a puppy:

1. The excitement of bringing a puppy home and all the initial bonding.


2. The stresses of training a puppy: waking up in the middle of the night to take them out to pee, following them around to make sure they don't pee or poop in the house, cleaning those messes when they do, making sure they don't chew on wires or anything they shouldn't be chewing on.


3. Asking yourself whether this will ever end: will she ever figure out that she isn't supposed to be biting my hands and feet, and hanging onto my pants' leg? Will she ever figure out that she needs to go out to pee?


4. The sheer joy the first time she walks to the door to be let out to pee! And when she heeds your reprimand of her misbehavior and moves onto something else.

This has definitely been a great experience. Firstly, I understand why there are so many misbehaved dogs out there: people just don't devote the time and effort to properly train the animal. You get easily exasperated with the lack of progress.

What this has also made immensely clear: why there are so many misbehaved children out there: we have only had her 2 weeks, and we were already becoming frustrated with her lack of progress, the lack of sleep and the cleaning up of messes...how much work is a child? I mean, after a year, you have barely scratched the surface. My mother has always said about parenthood: "there are many deposits, before you get any returns."

There are also loads of funny moments: this morning, I was folding laundry and Susie sauntered over and decided she was going to jump into the laundry basket and chew on clothes. I told her to get out, and removed her, but she jumped right back in and continued chewing, so she went into time-out in her pen. Usually when we put her into time-out she will mope and whine, and then settle down. Well, this time, she settled down, and then just sat there and barked at me. It was pretty clear that she was giving me the doggie version of: "oh, yeah? Well, I don't love you anymore. So there!" It is so hard to not laugh during moments like this.

Or the other night she was on what we call puppy crack: she got hyper and started running around the house at warp speed. We were in the livingroom, and she was tearing through from room to room, making circles...at one point when she was in the hallway that leads to my office, we hear a *thud* and realized that she ran full speed into the closed door of my office (which is usually open). It didn't seem to slow her down, because she came tearing out of the hallway, and made a dash under the coffee table, but in jumping over the bottom support of the coffee table, she managed to hit her head on the coffee table. She started yelping like crazy, but kept on running. My husband and I were both worried, but also laughing.

And your realize why small dogs are so often really neurotic and undisciplined: because everything they do is "so cute!" It's so cute when Mitzy jumps on you, or barks like a maniac at the mailman, or snaps at your ankles...but really, you have to picture Mitzy as a 100lb dog, and then that behavior isn't so cute anymore. But because Mitzy will never be 100lbs, Mitzy's owners just think it's cute. But it's really not.

We have to catch ourselves that we don't fall into that behavior with Susie. My husband thinks it's cute that she digs little holes in the backyard...but maybe he won't think it's so cute once our backyard looks like a 32 hole golf-course. I think it's cute when she sasses me with her barking...but really it's obnoxious.

Anyhoo...we have our first puppy training classes tonight, and not a moment too soon!