It Takes a Village...

Disclaimer: this might end up being a rant.

When we had a family meeting after Godzilla passed on, we talked about what we did wrong in raising him, so that we could make improvements upon getting a new puppy. 

What are the "improvements" so far?

My brother was so involved in the process of making a liveable home. He thought of where the puppy could stay, what treats to give him, bought his supplies, did lots of research, the works! But after getting nipped the first time, he gave up. Now he doesn't even say hi to Odie upon getting home! The other night, I went out to pick up my sister from work, so I told my brother to be vigilant about Odie's bathroom trip as he's taking a dewormer. When I got home, just as I expected, my brother didn't let him out, so Odie pooped in his crate and no one cleaned it up. I was so grateful for the effort.

My sister and I take Odie to his potty spot at night when he starts barking, whimpering, and whining, to make him do his business before going to bed. When we did that last night, he kept trying to bite me, chased a basketball, bit and pulled his leash, and cried and whined some more. He obviously wanted to go, but was suddenly uncomfortable in his spot. This happened for a good 30-45 minutes, I guess. Of course, our mother thought that we were training/playing, so she told us to stop what we were doing and just put Odie back in his crate because it's midnight and people are sleeping, because a barking and whining puppy was unnecessary. Sigh. It's not like we were having fun trying to make him go potty. We could have spent 30-45 minutes just cradling and legit playing, but by the looks of it, he really needed to go. I don't know how we must have looked like we were having a blast wasting our time. So we put the dog back in his crate. He went WILD, and finally did business inside the crate. Congratulations for finally achieving silence, because that's all that matters anyway.

I guess Odie's having a hard time doing business in the front lawn all of a sudden because of all the decorating that's been happening. Our mom told us that she's gonna have Christmas lights put on the plants, so Odie can't hang out in the front yard for two and a half months without a leash and without supervision. Now he ends up hanging out in the garage, taking in the emptiness of the environment. To think this is such a crucial time in the formative stage. Poor baby, he LOVES lying on the grass pa naman. He even jumps towards it and rolls on it, and suddenly it's untouchable.

Ate and I adjusted anyway and started leashing Odie in the area at night when the decorating halts. As if luck is on our side, we have a genius of a driver/handyman who does not clean up after doing his job. His excuse? It's bad luck to sweep after sunset. So I end up manually picking up remnants of the day's work just to prevent Odie from picking them up himself and eating them. After all, there was a time I did pick an LED bulb from inside Odie's mouth. When I complained about it, driver/handyman told me that he already swept the area. I don't know what his definition of "sweeping" is. 

Last night, while trying to get Odie to go potty, I spent a lot of time getting nipped so I could get the things he chewed on such as scraps of stripped copper wire, strips of black electrical tape, hardened glue from a glue gun, and little plastic stars, to name a few. How thoughtful of him to leave such things lying around.

People say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it takes a pack to raise a puppy as well! My sister and I sent Odie to school because we want him to be a better family member, but that doesn't mean that he'd just come home and be a perfect puppy after graduation! We need to follow through by constantly reviewing in a conducive environment, which I thought this house would be, but this is anything but conducive. He deserves better - a LOT better! And I'm beating myself up for not fighting enough to give him that. Do they think we bought an accessory that just happens to bark and eat and go potty?

After everything that happened last night, I just sat on the front porch and cried. I just needed to. The past two months, I've given an insane amount of effort, and possibly an insane amount of money just to make things work. I'm so happy to be surrounded by people who take the time to understand.