As you know, I recently brought a new puppy into our home. I knew it was going to be a lot of work, and I have to admit that it has been more work than I remembered from years ago. However, I will not give up and will trudge on as every day gets a little better. (Except for last night at 2:30 am when darling Max decided he wanted to go outside to play).

After I brought Max home I found a nice little dog owners forum. Me being the ever wanting approval and obsessive person that I am, I was excited to have found somewhere that I could talk about my pooch and get advice on things that I knew nothing about such as house-breaking a small dog. I have soon discovered that the people in this forum are much like those everywhere I have encountered. There are many, many, many there that are kind and generous and overall nice people. Then there are those that think they know everything and will put you screaming with your head between your knees in a matter of seconds. Add to that the obsessive nature of some dog owners and it is exasperated ten fold.

Max is doing well with his training considering that I have only had him 2 weeks yesterday. Housetraining is a challenge, but again I knew it was going to take some time. As long as I watch him closely, the accidents have been few and far between while he is outside of his crate and/or pen. The first day I kept him in his crate and came home for lunch. He had an accident, but I chalked it up to it being his first day. When I got home from work at 5 pm he had had another accident. If anyone out there has crate trained, you know that a dog will not mess where he sleeps unless he has to. It was obvious that his little bladder just wasn’t capable of holding it for 5 hours yet. I didn’t want to compromise that instinct by forcing him to mess in his crate, therefore making it harder to crate train him when he is older.

That was fine with me. I went out and bought an exercise pen (those wire fence looking things) and set it up in the kitchen along with a puppy pad and his crate. He used the puppy pad great (yeah!) but decided he needed to be a Houdini and climb out. Yes, my 2 pound puppy can scale 2 foot high wire fence. He was happily running loose and left me several “presents” throughout the day. That evening I went and got some plastic landscaping fence and some snap hooks and attached it to the top of the pen thinking this would do the trick. Boy was I surprised! Another four days of adding hooks and finding him out when I got home. Little booger is a smart doggie! But I finally have it tied down enough to keep him in there! (There are at least 25 snap hooks holding it down now! I’ll have to post a pic soon). If that didn’t work, the only other option was to confine him to the kids bathroom while I was gone and I didn’t want to do that for many reasons (cleaning the room everyday and removing everything were the biggies)

Anyway, I responded to a post about a puppy escaping his exercise pen. I guess I decided to unload my guilt for having to leave Max so long alone. I also wanted feedback as to using puppy pads and housetraining at the same time. Without going into a huge spiel, most everyone stated that I had to find a way to let the puppy out during the day. Some advised me to come home during lunch (which still won’t work at this point), hire a pet sitter/walker, take him to doggy daycare, bring him to work, and even to find another job closer to home so that I could come home to walk the dog! (That one was my fave!) While their intention was good and I know that they are only trying to help, I have stated several times that I can’t afford to hire someone to come and walk my dog at $10 a day. We are on a limited income and $200 a month for dog walking isn’t within our budget. I could go home at lunch time, but I work @ 20 minutes from home one way. I probably will do that for awhile when he gets a little older though. I was made to feel like a horrible puppy mamma because I couldn’t stay at home at take care of my puppy.

While I think it is sweet that people love their dogs so much, I think some people take it to the extreme. Max is a dog. I love my little furball of chewy-ness, but he is a dog all the same. I am not going to put him above the needs of my human family. Would Max like it if I was home all day to take care of him? Absolutely! So would my kids. But I don’t live in that world. In the end, Max seems to be happy and healthy and not emotionally scarred from being all by himself. He doesn’t cry, sulk, and throw a fit when left in the pen when I leave for work. He sleeps in his crate for naps even when I am home so I know he likes it in there. Am I making house training harder? Possibly. But he is a smart dog and I think that eventually he will figure it out. It may take a little longer, but so be it. It’s the best I can do.

Do you have a dog? What do you do with him/her if you work?

And don’t even get me started on the whole dog food debate….

Labels: Max