Wow. It’s been a month, and I owe a lot of you visits. I’ve been treading water with all the things I need to do, all while keeping one eye and half my attention on the dog because he won’t stop chewing and digging and wreaking havoc. Even as I type this, I am shoving him away from my carpet where he’s ripped up the edging. It doesn’t matter that he has a squeaky monkey right there next to him that he’s allowed to chew, he wants what he can’t have. Plus, if I get him to stop doing the naughty stuff, he wants my attention and will whine, bark, and claw at me and refuse to let me type (as he is doing now). But I’m the only one up between 5-7AM, so I’m the one on puppy duty.
My husband says the dog likes me better than him. I say I am a novelty and he only gets to see me in the mornings and evenings, which makes me more interesting. We have puppy class on Saturday, then it’ll be five weeks of basic training to hopefully curb the madness of puppy teeth and claws. But being constantly on my guard has left floundering with the writing aspects in my life, making it impossible to sit at the computer and focus for more than a few minutes at a time. I have left my computer four times during just this blog post. My critique group can attest to how often I’m standing and removing something that shouldn’t be in my dog’s mouth while we video connect.
I hope training helps because I have 20K to write in June to be on target and it feels like I’m running on fumes. (And now the dog is chewing on my clog…)
IWSG Question of the Month – What were some books that impacted you as a child or young adult?
My childhood was made up of Xanth, Landover, and Goosebumps (puns, magic, and a tad bit of horror). Maybe that’s why my sense of humor is so off-kilter at times.
Got any puppy tricks? What books impacted you? Anybody got a spare brain?
About Insecure Writer’s Support Group
You can find the sign up for the IWSG here. We owe Alex J Cavanaugh a huge thank you for thinking this blog hop up.
Hope you can train the chewing out of him. I had a black lab growing up and she ate the legs off a coffee table, a hole in the wall, and devoured part of my record collection.
Whew! Wishing you sanity. We don’t do pets because kids are already too much (and I’m allergic). He’s super cute though.
Puppies are cute, but I don’t have the patience for them. I go for older shelter cats and dogs.
Good luck! He’s adorable!
I missed out on Goosebumps when I was a kid, but I read some as an adult and they were a lot of fun! 🙂
And I though my cats were needy. Mean, but we put hot sauce on a few things our previous cats liked to chew. Worked on one of them. The other took it as a challenge and said “Hotter!”
Oh, puppyhood. I remember it fondly…probably because I haven’t had to deal with it in a good, long time. We had something called ‘bitter apple’ spray or something like that? The idea was you spray a little bit on whatever you didn’t want them to chew on (the carpet was popular with our puppies, too. Poor carpet.). They weren’t supposed to like the taste, so they’d leave it alone and go chew on something else. It worked great with one dog. He stopped chewing immediately. The other dog just found it a zesty condiment, so I had to do what you’re doing now—constantly stopping whatever I’m doing to redirect the pup to some appropriate chew toy.
Hang in there!
Puppies are SO much work. Training them well at that age pays off in the long run, but… yeah, I don’t wish that on anybody. Our last couple of dogs were rescues, which come with their own sets of issues, but we haven’t had to deal with the teething and housetraining for a long time.
Hi – and thanks for being so welcoming to a dead zone exile.. Apologies to Alex, Kim, Melissa an many others
Growing up, just two dogs, my grandad’s beloved Cooee – one aunt and one uncle – siblings, had just moved to Australia, but named the pup from there.
After Cooee , my black labrador English setter cross – must be a brand name for that mix now. Rehomed, sadly, because I was leaving home for uni… Now live surrounded by working dogs, in sheep and cattle country. Operated by signing., which is incredible
Ah, yes, that would take your attention. I expect that this won’t be a permanent thing, and you’ll get back to the writing. Eventually. It’s good to get a break now and then.
Aww I love puppies…as long as they belong to someone else. 😉 We adopted our last dog from the shelter. She was older, already potty trained, and well behaved. I don’t think I would have the energy for a puppy full time, but I love to play with them when they belong to friends. I hope training goes well for your pup!
I’ve never had a puppy, but we have a rescue dog and training was super helpful. He did go through a phase where he wanted to steal anything that looked like a toy (including my socks!). He’s calmed down, but is still very reactive to other dogs. We’ve kind of accepted that we might not be able to train that out of him.
But if your dog is a puppy, I’m sure training will go well! He’s adorable too!
Puppies will be puppies.
Good luck!!!!
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Your puppy is adorable. I hope his training works.
What a cute dog! Good thing too, because it sounds like doggo is keeping you busy in all the not so fun ways. 😉
Puppies are so much fun to have around. I am the proud momma of twin boys and they made my life hard. It wasn’t until they were 5 when I decided to get a therapy dog. Teddy is a corgi and he was a handful. He was actually pretty easy to train. But we learned to keep our shoes off the ground when he was home alone. And kennel training helped because then he had a safe place of his own to lay down in without issue. He has graduated to a bed gremlin now and sleeps under the bed all the time. We learned to always have bones on hand. His favorite are the hide bones with meat on them. He gets two of them a day and a raw hide bone whenever he finishes one. If we don’t do that he chews on things he isn’t supposed to. I wish you good luck on your puppy training and suggest trying to find bones or a special treat your doggy will love. If they create a good habit it helps them behave better.
Puppies are so much work.
20k to write in one month! Whew! That’s a lot. Good luck with your target and with the puppy wrangling. Sounds like you have your hands full.
Puppies! The class may give you tips on helping him chew on approve things and stop chewing non-approved things. He’s young, so probably teething. I think — if I recall they have a lemon spray or something you can spritz on stuff to put them off.
I don’t have pets anymore, but we have had dogs, cats, fish, turtles, and snakes in a bucket. Yewww..not for long.
Enjoy that pup and all his mischief. You’ll laugh later!
Puppies grow up, but I don’t envy you dealing with this stage! Good luck with all the writing.
Good on you for doing a class with your puppy. Early training and socialization prevents so many problems.
Good luck with the 20K this month!
Been there, done that. Raising dogs is for the young, for sure. He is cute! Which probably makes it more difficult. Just remember: he wants you to be the boss.
Goosebumps are fun books! Your dog is keeping you busy! My daughter is taking care of my son’s dog. She’s 11 months old and a bundle of energy. Always into something!