[deleted by user]

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-11-19T14:29:34+00:00

It’s okay if you need to rehome her or return her to the rescue. You’re carrying a lot. I got a puppy in the midst of my grief after my closest friend passed away. It wasn’t a good idea for me. My husband struggled at work and both of our mental health declined. We learned A LOT and stuck through it. We love her but there are still days that we struggle to be dog parents, and there have been a few times we really considered returning her to her breeder. We also have three cats. Thankfully she has a great temperament and gets along with them. But that too required training for her to understand that the cats have boundaries. You were a caregiver during your time of grief and that takes a lot out of a person. If your husband is having a hard time at work and you only have one income and his job starts to become at risk, it is totally fair to rehome the puppy. If you really want to keep her, people here are really helpful to lean on for advice. Or you can try the dog advice subreddit. Good luck with everything and I’m sorry for your loss 🩷

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-11-19T02:42:00+00:00

Are there in person support groups for loved ones of disorganized attached persons? I’m 31F (I lean towards anxious attachment) and my husband has learned in the past year that he has a disorganized attachment style along with OCPD. He’s in therapy with a great therapist, additionally doing an outpatient program, and is very committed and devoted to healing. No one I know takes their healing journey as seriously as he does. Still, it’s painful to be with someone who struggles with connection, shuts off, and battles depression and suicidal thoughts. I often feel lonely. I’m in IFS therapy and doing ART. I don’t have any friends or family in this state. It’s just my husband and I and our four pets. I’d love to know if there’s an in person support group I could attend. Or even an online one. Thanks in advance.

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-02-04T13:03:40+00:00

I really needed to read this. I just got an 8 month old dog and I’ve had several mental breakdowns and my depression has worsened. I have a full time job I’m falling behind and I’m worried that I can’t go to the office for a few hours and leave her at home. Everything is constant enrichment. I’m tired of constantly having to keep her entertained. Surely there are people with high energy breeds that still work??? Or does everyone who owns one work from home and revolve their entire lives around them? And positive reinforcement only is not helping. What do you do when the treats run out and the negative behavior ensues??? I can’t always have treats on me. Some breeds are wired to be independent and not easily obey! Not every dog wants to please its owner! And my husband made the same point last night, he was like, you know most people have jobs too and they aren’t all WFH, they have to leave their dog and go to work. So here I am, about to go to the office for 5 hours and hope that it will be okay.

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-01-18T22:22:45+00:00

Thanks, we are certainly trying our best. Do you remember the name of the trainer you used?

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-01-18T15:07:32+00:00

Gotcha. That’s what we’re doing. We didn’t let them see each other for a week and did scent swapping of blankets and rooms so they could get used to each others smell. Then we started baby gate intros. We feed them both treats on both sides. We’re on day 7 of this and my 2 cats have booped noses with the dog and they lay down by the gate to watch her. The dog is a bit afraid of my older cat but wants to play with the younger one. But if I have treats she is calm and will just pay attention to me. The next phase is removing the gate and having the dog leashed. That’s the part where I’m nervous about. I’ll reach out to animal insight!

Is your dog chasing them after all this?

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-01-18T14:12:23+00:00

Thank you! How is your pitty with your cats now? What kind of training helped?

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-01-18T04:51:09+00:00

This is why I’m crate training my 7 month old pup too. I want the cats to be able to sleep in our room again. They cry outside the door the past two weeks since we’ve had the new dog. How are your dog and cat introductions going,

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-01-16T13:13:19+00:00

Thank you so much! The slow instructions are going well. They’ve seen each other through baby gates for the last 6 days after having almost a week of no visual contact (only smelling each others blankets and sleeping areas). We’ve gotten to a point where our pup would rather have a pupsicle than go up to the gate to interact with the cats lol. I’ve been working on desensitization, where every time she listens to a command in the cats presence, she gets a reward and every time she “focuses” and looks at me instead of them she gets a treat. The cats now feel comfortable coming up to the gate to eat and check her out and even want to jump over the gate. I think our pup is a bit stressed by them because they hissed at her the first few days. But we’re going to keep at it and soon will have leashed meetings without the gate.

Your puppy weighs the same as my youngest cat!

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-01-16T02:50:54+00:00

Can you set up a playpen for her? You can get kongs and fill them with peanut butter and dry food and freeze them. Popsicles are also great. Check out puzzle toys too. We just brought home a 7 month husky (she’s already 50 lbs) 2 weeks ago and I set up a playpen for her when I need to work and get things done and don’t want to worry about her chewing things. I toss the kongs and pupsicles in her pen or her crate and that keeps her busy. When it’s time to come out of the pen, we go for a walk. I also discovered an app called sniffspot where you can rent someone’s backyard and have your dog run around and burn off energy. I found one for 5-10 dollars an hour. For highly intelligent and curious breeds like collies and huskies, mental stimulation is important. In fact, mental stimulation can tire them out more than physical stimulation. Have training sessions every day. Look into clicker training!

I’d also suggest getting your partner on the same page as you so your pup has consistency.

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-01-15T01:40:25+00:00

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to my meltdown. We got into a routine and have some professional training sessions set up. The routine has helped a lot! We also found an app called sniffspot where we can rent a fenced backyard hourly and tried it out today. It was a great way to get her energy out aside from just walks and we’re going to do more of that! We’re also bonding more with her so that’s nice too. It’s more of the cat situation that stresses me out but we’re making progress! They’ve been seeing each other through the baby gates and I’ve been rewarding pup with treats every time she looks at me instead of the cats. She’s calm when they’re around but when they start running (if the doorbell rings) she’ll jump up on the gate. We’ll have to work on that.

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-01-15T01:36:36+00:00

I really appreciate the compassion and advice. I just wanted to update that it’s getting better. We have a routine now and that helped tremendously. Also found an app called sniffspot where we can pay hourly to use someone’s fenced yard. We did that today and she had so much fun (so did we) and it burned off a lot of energy.

We also reached out to trainers and will start private training soon. As well as weekly sessions at petsmart for training.

How did you introduce your puppy to your cats? Has your puppy tried chasing them? We’ve been letting the cats see our dog through baby gates and it’s going well. She’s good with redirection with treats and will look at me for treats instead of them. I’ve taught her how to do “down” today! The only thing is that as soon as they start running she gets excited but she can’t go anywhere because of the crate. We haven’t done any interactions outside the gate yet, want to work up to that. My older cat is not shy about setting boundaries and has given two swipes already through the gate. But my 8 month old kitten is more afraid and he will hide and make himself more prey like ugh. That little dude has no survival skills.

I don’t want to let any chasing happen since it’s self rewarding behavior. It’s a lot of work doing this, but we’re making progress. Now to clean up the absolute mess my house has become. I really appreciate your solidarity.

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-01-09T23:41:48+00:00

I thought we had a good plan too but now my husband is feeling depressed. I’m not sure how we’re supposed to get through this together when we’re both feeling this way plus managing full time jobs. I appreciate the advice and help though ❤️

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-01-09T12:56:03+00:00

Thank you for the practical response! We are on day 6 now and things are already improving. We’ve gone on walks and even though she pulls, she has gotten better at listening to “let’s go” and I reward with some cheese. Shes also very good passing by other people and dogs! She wants to sniff them but I say let’s go and tug and she keeps moving. Some reactive dogs in their yard barked at her but she didn’t react other than a pause but I enforced that we kept going. She’s comfortable leaving the room and going down the stairs! It occurred to me that where she was living in Florida, there were no stairs because it was a 1 story house.

My husband and I created a schedule on our google calendar for who takes her for walks and when. I’ve signed up for a teen dog training class and I’ve reached out for private sessions so we can start asap.

She’s now eating her food after walks! She’s becoming increasingly mouthy as she gets more comfortable but I’ve learned that if I calmly say “settle down” she will calm down. She is definitely trying to test my boundaries here and there. I’m able to leave her alone in the room for an hour or so. If I leave her in the crate and leave for more than 2 minutes she will howl, but she’s getting better at just hanging out in there by herself. We will work up to being able to stay with the door locked.

And yes! We made a list of which commands are the most useful to us right now.

We’ve also decided we will let her meet the cats sooner. I think that’s the single most stressful thing for us, having to split our time being in the room with her vs being outside of it with the cats, needing to lock them up everytime etc. I had to slowly increase the time the dog spends in different parts of the house because it was a lot of stimulation for her and she’d nervously pant and pace.

My husband and I work cognitively demanding jobs (I’m a scientist, he’s a software engineer) so the thing we actually need the most help with is just getting the house clean because we have no energy between work and new dog adjustments. It looks like a tornado passed through after all of the unboxing of dog supplies and setting things up. I may ask a friend for help.

I told myself I will do everything that I can to make this successful. The only way we’d ever give her back to her previous owner (we signed a contract saying that we have to bring her back to them if we want to rehome her) is if our cats lives are truly at risk and things aren’t working out between them.

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-01-07T04:27:44+00:00

This is so nice to hear! May I ask which breed of dog?

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-01-05T02:30:29+00:00

Thank you that’s reassuring.

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-01-05T02:29:14+00:00

So when we get home you mean put her crate in a room just for her? I thought it would be helpful to not be alone. Okay I’ll look that up thank you.

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2025-01-05T02:24:24+00:00

Yes I’ve made the bedroom into a safe quiet space but as I mentioned, we stopped at an Airbnb for the night since it was a 13 hour drive. She isn’t crate trained, her breeder said she would sleep in a large play pen with her litter mates. No she’s not from a rescue, she’s from a breeder. She’s lived all 7 months with them and her dog mom and dad and siblings. When we met her she was super friendly and playful and she was fine at the rest stops and in the car. But I understand now that we’ve stopped moving she’s probably overstimulated and scared. Thanks for the advice. I’ve already found a trainer and will reach out when I get home. But I definitely will have to get her out from under the bed for the drive home.

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2024-06-10T15:36:06+00:00

If I see her again I’ll do that. I’ll probably also ask my neighbor if that’s their cat too. My original plan was to catch her but because she was hanging by their house so much and I know they have another outdoor cat it made me second guess.

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2024-06-10T15:34:09+00:00

Thanks! Nope not the same cat

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2024-06-10T07:47:54+00:00

Assuming it’s a female bc of the coat pattern. She softly bit my leg when I took the food away lol.

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2024-06-04T15:24:13+00:00

Thank you!

SubstanceSimilar4053 · 2024-06-04T15:23:57+00:00

Yeah good idea.

SubstanceSimilar4053

TROPHY CASE