I’m Really Exhausted

Not really looking for advice – maybe just a baby vent about a baby. Lol My puppy is 5 1/2 months old. She’s a poodle/chihuahua/bichon/lhasa apso/dachsund + 5 other assorted breeds (no joke – rescue did dna but for some reason I haven’t been able to get the 2nd half of the results but I keep trying). She’s adorable. She’s sweet. She has a wonderful personality.

I know how hard puppies are but I think I’d forgotten HOW hard 😂. I never intended to adopt a puppy but we lost two of our dogs this year (they were 17 & 15 years old) and the remaining 15 year old and I were just lonely. I saw her picture when looking at older dogs to foster and fell in love and submitted an adoption app without even thinking. It was kind of meant to be – she had a meet & greet already the next day that didn’t work out because their older chihuahua hated her. They brought her by that same evening and our 15 year old was fine with her overall. Not enthralled but tolerating her. So she got adopted. She was about 3 1/2 months old when we adopted her. She was rescued with her siblings w/o mom at an early age. So I think they may have been bottle fed.

Potty training was going ok. Other than one accident at the very beginning – she sleeps through the night fine not needing to go out except for a few nights early on with some GI issues. They didn’t really give me enough of whatever food they were feeding them to do a great transition. So she sleeps from 10:30-just before 7 most nights. Like a dream in the puppy world.

During the day? This dog pees a LOT in quantity and times. I had her checked by the vet to make sure it was just her as a puppy and no issues and all tests were fine. She learned to use a wifi bell no joke seconds after I installed it. It took a little longer to connect it to actual potting. For her it was more about going outside. One time I ignored her because we had literally just been outside and so she rang it 5 times 😂.

The bigger issue is that we still have tons of accidents. I know some are normal at this age of course. But it’s just exhausting. Sometimes she will poop and then ring the bell. It’s like human come see what I did and clean it up please. And easily pees in the house 4-5 times a day and pees outside more than that. I haven’t been able to get a real handle on an actual “schedule” for her yet. Our only other dog we’ve had since he was a puppy at 8 weeks came to us potty trained.

I’ve done some initial crate training but to be honest not in earnest. I have a pen too but also haven’t been diligent about using it. I work from home. It’s probably somewhat laziness on my part – I will admit to that. I work from home and because I’m working I’m sure I miss signals. Random some mornings since it’s been nice I’ve been leaving the back door open (our yard is enclosed fully) and will sit out with the dogs and coffee. Sometimes she’ll come back inside and ring the bell to go out 😂. She’s getting a little better on loose leash training but still a work in progress. She will come when called except when she’s attacking her “brother”. She will sit, turn around, bop her nose to my hand this far. She’s smart and does pick things up pretty quickly. But we will also go outside, she’ll potty, then come back inside and sometimes potty again. So crating her if we go outside if she doesn’t potty is something of a challenge since I guess I really don’t know if she actually still has to potty MORE.

We do have a trainer that has come to the house 3x with another three sessions to go – one is this afternoon.

Again not really looking for advice although certainly open to it with the potty training. I know part or much of the issue is ME lol. So just whining mostly because with other dogs my boys were still here and now it’s just me. And I’m so tired of cleaning my floors. I know all in all I have it pretty good when it comes to this puppy but we also have a long ways to go.

I do enjoy this subreddit as it’s helpful to not feel alone and see issues/challenges others are having.