Our dog Ripley acts like an alien
In my last blog entry, I talked about how my boyfriend and I were thinking about getting a puppy. Well, we went from “thinking about it” to “taking a puppy home” one day after I wrote that. We found a new breeder, and from then on it was a whirlwind. We ravaged Petco for dog supplies, then went to pick out our brand new puppy. Since she was ten weeks old already, we were able to take her the very same night we met her.
Named Ripley for Sigourney Weaver’s iconic character in the Alien series, the black and white Boston Terrier we brought home was sweet, shy and sleepy. Everyone remarked on what a “good puppy” she was. I heard “She’s so quiet!” and “How sweet is she!” about 65 times during the first two days we had her. Awesome and I remarked to ourselves how we must have gotten really lucky to find a puppy who didn’t bite, run around like a crazy dog, bark loudly or whine. Turns out we spoke a little too soon.
Around the fourth day, the puppy was acting more like the alien than Ripley. I guess she got comfortable. She was tearing through the house at top speed, trying to jump into our dresser drawers when we opened them, barking when we didn’t put her on the couch, and whining almost as soon as the crate door closed. We quickly back-tracked our original thoughts and realized – she’s a regular pup.
Ripley doesn’t have much bladder control since she is so young, so she can’t sleep through the night without whining at least once to be let out so she can go to the bathroom. Getting up in the middle of the night to let a puppy out when you have to get up at 6 a.m. the next day is not fun. And not particularly ideal for our relationship. Since Awesome works at night and isn’t required to get up in the early morning like me, we decided that he would be the one to take the dog out when she wakes up in the middle of the night.
This is where we have run into frustration. I hear the puppy whining because she’s on my side of the bedroom and the slightest noise wakes me up. Awesome would sleep through a train running him over. So she whines, I nudge Awesome and tell him, he takes three minutes to wake up and get dressed, by which time the dog has already peed and pooped all over the floor because puppies don’t care if you have pants on or not. We both get annoyed and neither of us gets very good sleep afterward.
Pets or children can be a strain on even the best relationships. Awesome and I rarely ever fight or even get mad at each other, but the past week has been a little difficult between us due to lack of sleep and annoyance over cleaning up after Ripley. The important things we try to remember are that puppyhood won’t last forever and that we need to work together in order to make Ripley into a loving, well-adjusted dog.
So we celebrate the little victories – like Awesome teaching Ripley how to climb stairs for the first time, or seeing her bark at the front dog to be let out to pee instead of just going wherever she wants. Encountering a little bit of frustration isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it makes all the victories that much sweeter.
Emily Little (nee Campbell) was a perpetually single girl who recently met and married her Mr. Right. Her blog, Dating Emily, has been a two-year diary of her adventures in relationships. Her life of bar-hopping and casual dating has turned into one of dog-walking, craft-making and budgeting for eventual home ownership. But just because she can make a mean casserole doesn’t mean her adventures are over. As she prepares to become a first-time homeowner and eventually, a mom, she is discovering that the adventure may just be beginning.