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I'm writing this at 2am after we had another potty training accident. I got to her on time but she couldn't hold and had an accident at the door. My Golden puppy is 10 weeks. I feel like I'm not getting anywhere with her. It feels like one step forward then another 5 steps back.

I do shift work and I'm so tired. It is a pity because I always wanted a Golden puppy. I know none of this is her fault. Maybe she would do better with another person. I feel like I will never housebreak her. I'm so down in the dumps. The trainer says to throw out the pads and to use artificial grass and we did. Yesterday I had to take her bedding away because she was peeing on it. She doesn't seem to mind having pee on her. None of my dogs were like this. I feel like all the bad moments outweigh the good and I might have done a huge mistake bringing her home.

Does anyone else ever feel guilty about domesticating their rescue? My family pets have always come from breeders and I can say with certainty that those dogs would immediately perish in the wild lol. My current puppy, though, is a rescue that was picked up off the street by animal control. We love her to death and spend as much time with her as possible, but I can't help having this feeling that she'd be happier on the streets where she came from. Obviously, that's not realistic because I'm not the type of person to set my pet loose on the streets. I just think she misses running around free, not being crated at night, being allowed to run up to people and dogs whenever she pleases, and being able to eat whatever garbage and scraps she comes across. We spend so much of our time telling her "no" and training her not to do normal dog behaviors (eating, barking, jumping up, chewing) and I just feel awful about it sometimes. It doesn't help that her favorite (allowable) activity is playing with dogs at the dog park, something we cannot replicate at home, and that she has very little interest in toys. Besides the dog park, it seems like she's only happy when she's being destructive or when she finally tuckers out and falls asleep on the couch in the evening.

I know, intellectually, that we are doing everything we can for her and that she's got a pretty nice life compared to other dogs. Does anyone have any advice on how to get rid of these guilty feelings, though?

To all of you struggling (esp single puppy parents), hang in there!

After a big day at the dog park yesterday, my 7 month old husky mix is currently snoozing on my bed. Not long ago, she was incapable of settling outside her crate no matter how tired she was. She’s still not reliably napping organically, but it’s happening more and more often.

When she finished her vaccines in August, she was so scared of everything that even seeing her leash would send her scurrying to hide in her crate. Though she’s still pretty nervous and won’t go on walks in a busy neighborhood, now she loves her trips to quieter areas and is a hilarious goof with other dogs at the dog park. She’s even let a couple of humans approach her, which would have been unthinkable a couple of months ago!

She let me sleep in til 7:15 today!

Not sure what kind of pup he is- need help to figure it out. Also, will he be long haired or short?

Puppy is just shy of 18 months – the state which many says is the turning point of everything ‘clicking’, but today that just seems extremely far away.

But I know it’s not his fault I’m feeling defeated today. We are currently renovating our 2nd home – we got him when we were almost finished with the first, so along with the puppy blues which hit me hard, we also finished the first apartment, sold it, struggled to buy a new one, finally found it, moved in and found out the condition of the building was way worse so we had to spend all of our remaining money and even take another loan for unseen stuff – while both also working full time and handling our now teenage dog.

For the past few weeks we have had craftsmen walking in and out of the apartment so our puppy, who is used to being home alone and pretty okay with it, has been in a limbo of either being with family or I have been working from home, but I know this has been stressful for him and his daily routines has been nok existing.

Now, we are lacking towards the end of that and slowly we will be able to transition back to our ‘normal’ everyday in this chaos – but at least for him. And today he had to be home alone for the 2nd day in a row. Yesterday there were no problems and he was curled up asleep. Today, he barked non stop for 10 minutes 3 times during the day with his tale tucked between his legs. It broke me. I literally had to go to the bathroom at my workplace to cry while looking at our camera at home.

I have been working so hard for him to be comfortable being at home, first in our first apartment and now again in the second. And I know this is just one day, but all of the stress and teenage shenanigans are breaking me. I feel like this dog still doesn’t love me or that he has a bond to me, even though I try to do everything and more – this has nothing to do with today, but just a general feeling that boils up whenever things are not going well.

So sorry for the meaningless rant but I have cried for the past 4 hours and I had to put this somewhere to get it out of the system.

Tomorrow will be a better day. He will be my dream dog.