Context: My partner and I live in an apartment building we hate deeply. We decided we will not renew our lease about a month after we moved in. Our neighbours are very unfriendly and hostile for seemingly no reason. I’ve never once had one of them smile or say hello back to me in the hall or parking lot, they don’t hold the door and when I’ve held the door for them they walk in without acknowledging me. We‘ve also been the victims of three crimes since moving in – including someone breaking into our bedroom window while were sleeping. 🙁
I work from home two days a week and my partner is WFH full time but has a super demanding job. Our pup is a shih tzu cross. We had put off getting a dog for 5 years and did tons of research and prep. We both have lived with dogs all our lives. This little man is the 8th dog we’ve had in our lives between the two of us.
My parents are retired and have a puppy from the same breeder, only two months older. They own a large home and have a massive backyard.
We got our pup in early October, super excited, not expecting he would borderline destroy our lives. The first week was hell. He was only 8 weeks old and cried so much in his crate every night that one night our neighbour started screaming “shut up” from upstairs at 5 am. I get it!! Totally unacceptable, I would be livid too – but he wasn’t calming down even with us there with him trying to relax him. Our apartment has NO sound proofing, like I can hear my neighbour blow his nose.
My parents told me to bring the pup there to sleep so that my partner and I can have proper sleep and get ourselves sorted. He didn’t cry at all at my parents and loves their puppy. We then discovered he sleeps like an angel when he’s in bed with us.
Fast forward a few months, he’s now 5 months old. He stays with my parents the days/nights I’m in the office, but he spends 4 nights and 4.5 days with us.
This creature will not stop barking. The demand barking is getting so out of control. I know he’s a teen, but we can’t let him “bark it out” as it does go on for 30+ minutes and our neighbours will murder us. For example, he knows how to jump off the couch onto his crash mat but sometimes he just decides not to and barks for ages to be lifted down. Then 10 minutes later he jumps off on his own just fine.
He will start screaming and barking within 5 seconds of me leaving the house, so separation training has been a nightmare and impossible. I went to the dentist today and my partner told me the dog was screaming and crying for over an hour EVEN WITH my partner there literally in the room with him!!! 😭
I realize that him being with my parents might complicate things. He probably gets away with more there, doesn’t have a routine, he has a good buddy and a yard to burn off energy. But if he was here 100% of the time I would be going batty.
I just feel like I’ve failed him and ruined all our lives. I want to love him and bond with him but I guess I do but I’m so STRESSED with this barking and his anxiety. I’m sure he can feel it on me which makes me feel worse. I wanted my own dog all my life, I asked for him every birthday and every Christmas. Now he’s here and if my parents didn’t live in the same city I would have returned him.
I’m going to keep working on the separation training, hopefully I can get him up to 30 seconds of me being out of the house before he flips by new years. I’m thinking of teaching him “speak” so that I can then teach him “quiet”. Maybe he’ll get us evicted and it will be a blessing in disguise since we hate this rental so deeply. I’m considering leaving a note on my neighbours doors with maybe a gift card but they’re so aggressively unfriendly and antisocial that I kind of don’t want to even bother??
Any comfort or advice is so appreciated. I feel like the worst dog owner in the world
submitted by /u/obligernotupholder
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