Posted on here a while ago about struggling to bond with my pup when he was 2mo. Now he’s 6mo and it’s still not massively improved.
Logically… he’s great. House trained, sleeps in the night and through the day, good on a lead. Good off the lead (for now… hello adolescence). Knows loads of tricks, gets all the enrichment and I spend most of my free time lingering this subreddit and thinking about his training etc. I’ve got one dog trainer for general stuff, and another one for his gundog training, positive only.
But despite this all, I just can’t love him. I just can’t. I like him of course. But he feels more like a project to me, to train and look after and to raise him right. Emotionally I’m just detached.
My soul dog died almost two years ago very suddenly from a brain tumour at the age of seven. He knew recall and sit, and that’s pretty much it. But my god he was everything to me. My entire soul and life. The dog I spent every waking and sleeping moment with. The dog whose death ripped me to pieces and I’ve never quite recovered. I hoped that I’d be able to bond with another dog after him, but I just haven’t. My pup just… isn’t my soul dog.
Give it time I know. Stop comparing them. But it’s so hard. And I feel like I’ll never feel that kind of love I had for my old dog again 🙁
submitted by /u/anon1839
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