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Puppy Problems

I love her, but she is a handful.

By Kaleb Haycraft-ThomsonPublished 4 years ago 4 min read
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Puppy Problems
Photo by Echo Grid on Unsplash

When you see a puppy you think that they are the cutest thing in the world. They smell great and give the best kisses. Almost everyone loves puppies. Now I already have a pair of cats and a kitchen fish. My husband and I have a bunch of snakes as well. But we wanted a dog. We are both avid dog lovers and they are the best, but I'm used to older dogs and have never had a puppy before that I have raised by myself. Which I will admit has been a bit of a learning curve. And now we have a 13 week old German Shepard puppy. She is cute as a button, but she's smart. The kind of smart that gets herself into trouble.

She loves meeting new people and adores kids to the point if she hears them she tries to pull in their direction even when we tell her that those aren't her babies. You can see the pout when she finally realizes she doesn't get to play with them. Now as for trouble... It could always be worse, but honestly it's mostly hilarious.

We got lucky with her. She has had barely any in the house accidents which has been a pleasent surprise. Equinox hates her crate with a burning passion. We got her a soft sided crate that can be folded up as we like to go camping and we needed one that saved space that was sturdy enough to handle a little hyper puppy. It works. Sort of. When we put her in the kennel we will more often than not cover it to black it out and make it feel more secure for her, but about a week into us having her she realized she could roll the crate. And when I say roll I mean roll. She throws herself against the side of the crate and rolls it all the way across the living room screaming bloody murder at us until we take her out. She then bounces around quietly like she's pleased with herself. I know she is.

Now this crate has taken a pretty good beating with the temper tantrums. But at some point she started ripping a seam. Which was fine since I know how to sew. I left it alone for a little bit because it wasn't a pressing matter since it was so small that she couldn't even get her nose through it. The next day we hear her screaming bloody murder in the middle of the show we were watching. She had been popped into the crate for a nap since she had played until her face got the sleepy puppy droop. When we got her uncovered we realized that she had not only made the hole bigger... She stuck her head through it. It took two minutes to get her calm enough to let my husband put her head back through the hole.

We pop her out of the kennel and I do a quick stitch on the seam and we call it good. She completely retears it by the next day. My husband had bought her a kiddie pool and fenced in our patio so I sit out there with her while I start sewing the seam as tightly as I possibly can. I finally get it sewn and it's nap time. Apparently she realizes there is no longer a hole because on come the puppy works and she starts rolling the crate around again.

Needless to say crates are a bit of a hard spot for us. But now that she is crate trained for the most part she sleeps in bed with us in her harness and on a leash so that if she hops out of bed we will feel it. The idea came about the second night we had her in bed with us and she got out of bed and got stuck between the air conditioner and the screen trying to get out to go potty by herself. She made sure we woke up with all of the nosie she made. So from that point on we made sure to hook her up and put her in bed. She now sleeps through the night with the occasional 2 or 3 am potty trip. But if my husband has had to sleep downstairs a few nights due to his leg hurting too bad for the stairs she makes sure to bounce over him and refuse to sleep the second he is back in bed with us. Probably because his spot is her spot when he isn't up here.

Nothing says welcome back like a puppy's big paws kidney punching your spouse.

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About the Creator

Kaleb Haycraft-Thomson

Transgender man. Animal lover. Activist.

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