princessherder

First, let me tell you that if I had looked into a crystal ball before getting a puppy while my youngest is still a toddler, I never would have considered a puppy.  However, we do have a neighborhood issue with house mice and my family really, really, REALLY had to have a puppy.  We looked around, and finally settled on a free puppy from a local person whose Labrador and Malamute had a litter together.  We are not “up” on the latest puppy trends, so did not know that we actually have a so-called ” designer dog”. 

Whatever.  She’s cute, lovable, and is sort of learning things rather quickly.  So that’s all that matters to us.  Designer.  Meh.

So, now I not only have to potty train my 2.5 year old, but I have this lovable little mutt to house-train and train in all other areas of properprincesspuppiness as well.  What’s a SAHM to do (that’s stay-at-home-mom for those who don’t know)??  There is now double the pee and poop to clean up now.  Yea, me!!

Along with potty patrol, I have one other duty: to make certain that my toddler princess (we’ll call her a proddler) does not try to feed the puppy.  Yes, my precious little girl loves to scoop up all the dog’s food from her bowl and dump it onto the floor, then feed pieces to the dog.  Then, she also likes to either scoop the doggy’s water from the water dish  and attempt to feed it to the puppy by hand.  Alternatively, she will actually try to carry the water dish to the puppy, which frequently results in almost all of the water being spilled on the floor.  Today, I had the proddler help clean up the mess, and she actually did so happily.  So that was nice.  She really loves to help, and I want her to retain that good quality.

When it’s time for puppy to potty, she does pretty well, only having “accidents” inside when we don’t pay attention to her sniffing the floor and/or standing at the door looking at us like, “Um, hello? Moron??  I reaaaaaaalllllyyy have to go potty now!!!”  Otherwise, she’s fine.  Unless, of course, there are cars.  Or people.  Or other dogs.  Or construction workers.  Or birds.  Or grass.  Or sticks.  Or rocks. Or rain.  Or… well, you get the idea.  Then, she’s too preoccupied to “do her business”.  So, today, when all those things were major factors in our area, we really got nowhere.  I did nothing this morning and afternoon besides stand in the rain waiting for a dog to drop feces, or clean several “baby feed doggy now” messes.

I suppose I have concluded in all of this that I do have a puppy and a toddler at the same time, and neither of them chose to be here.  So, it’s up to me to train them,  clean up after them, and love them.  While at times not so easy (I wonder if dog shelters also accept children…) I know that it’s all going to be worth it in the long run.  Also, looking back on this very blog post, I realize that it’s very funny right now.  Having a great sense of humor is really essential during times like these. 

Coming soon… kennel training and keeping the neighbors out of my face.  What’s the deal with neighbors, anyway?  Are all neighborhoods required to have at least one jerk living there?  I mean, really.  Am I the jerk?  More on that next time!

Happy Herding,

B.H.

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