I got Mississippi a crate today. It’s a nice 42″ one with two doors. She is afraid of it right now. She didn’t like the sound it made and she doesn’t like stepping on the plastic bottom. I’m trying to lure her in with a kong and treats. I got in myself and encouraged her to join me. She seemed to want to very badly but was afraid. I put the crate on a blanket so it’s quieter and put her favorite blanket inside. Our trainer is coming over sometime to help get her acquainted with it. I’m hoping the crate can somehow help us with her crazy chewing. I’m hoping she loves it and soon considers it her special dog cave. Now everyone in the house will have their own cave. I’m thinking of moving my studio chair from my office to the garage. My studio is pretty well set up now and I could use some cave time myself. There are just so many spiders out there. Do they make spider repellant?
I really broke down yesterday. I need more help. Just until she can get more settled, more trained, and therefore more exercised. Working from home with her is hard. She hurts me when we walk, she hurts me when we play, she jumps on me and barks and whines and chews. She’s making me crazy and I feel trapped. I keep leaving our house just to get away from her. I want to love her but I’m so frustrated. And as if rehabilitating a rescue dog weren’t enough, I’ve got all these other issues to deal with. Being in a new town is hard. Spending so much time alone is hard. I understand that I made the decision to do this. I am doing the work, we will all get better at this, I just wish I didn’t have to feel so overwhelmed. Tom is gone at work all day, and at night, lately I’ve been so upset, he spends his time just trying to cheer me up. There is little dog time left for him. I need another social outlet so he doesn’t feel like he’s dealing with two neurotic ladies. I feel like a stay at home mom with a crack baby and a full time at-home job. We’d go on more adventures during the day if I could be away from my computer. Or if she wasn’t so hard to walk right now I could at least enjoy our walks. I’ve started using the harness more and it’s much much better, but the walks are still physically and emotionally draining.
I’m sure I sound like such a whiner. How hard could one dog be? But she’s breaking my heart. I love her so much but she can be so hard. I feel like I’m juggling too many things. I miss painting. The house is a mess. I’m a mess. I’m tired and bored and lonely. Relief is coming soon though. I’m going to an art class tomorrow at OCAC. I’m going to spend the day making sculptures and vessels out of paper. It’s going to be a great break for me. Maybe I can recharge my batteries a little by doing something creative and meeting new people. It sounds like a dream.
OK, so on to more positive stuff. I made her some mush to stuff her kong with. It gave me great joy making her something special and she really loved it. I separated it into separate little containers and froze some of them. We can mix it in with her kibble and freeze it in the kong for some seriously long and challenging kong time. I made it with beef, yam, carrot, peas, mint, and brown rice. It tastes yucky and bland to me but she licked it up like it was caviar. I discovered she loves frozen peas too.
Today the FedEx guy came and she started barking. I asked her to sit and she did! Also, I may be delusional but it seemed like when I said ‘zip it’ that she’d stop barking. I’ve been drilling her on the commands she knows and I started trying to teach her ‘wave.’ I know it seems silly to spend so much time on commands when I can’t even get her to heal or to stop tugging on the leash but I’m having trouble in those departments and the training seems to make her a happier dog. It’s something we can do in the house and it’s been a good tool for getting her to pay attention to me when we are out in the world with all the distractions.
She has met so many dogs this week. Her crazy habit of barking wildly at other dogs has really gone down. It used to be that whenever she’d see another dog, she’d go nuts. Now sometimes she whines a little, sometimes she tries to run away, and very occasionally, she is just totally nonplussed. It seems she is getting better, one dog at a time. Sometimes I can get her to sit while she is getting all nutty excited over a dog.
This afternoon I made a second attempt to introduce her to her crate. I sat in front of it and tried to get her to just take her kong out of the crate. She seems to be afraid to remove anything from the crate, even if I put it just at the entrance. I finally pulled it out and we had some cuddle time. She sat on my lap for a long time. She thinks she’s a lap dog. It feels so good to hug her. It was a beautiful, wonderful moment and I felt like everything was going to be ok. And it will be. Someday soon.