Puppy Power!

 A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than they love themselves – Josh Billings

Have you ever been really excited about something (vacation, holiday, first date, etc.)?  And then when it finally happened, it went in the complete opposite direction?  Think Clark Griswold in National Lampoons Vacation.  That’s how it’s been since we got our puppy.

We thought we were prepared to get a puppy.  My wife and I had prior experience as we each grew up with dogs.  We had a kennel for the new puppy to be in when we were away; we had chew toys galore, and had even watched “The Dog Whisperer” many, many times to help educate ourselves.

Picking up the new dog (whom we affectionately named “Dot” because of the single brown dot on her side) went as we expected.  She whined for a bit, gnawed on her chew toy, and then fell asleep.  She repeated this process a few times the entire trip home.

When we arrived home, we kept Dot in the kennel as we brought her into the house so our older dog (Ollie) and two cats could check her out before we opened the kennel gate.  The animals all seemed to be okay with the new addition so we opened the gate to let Dot explore her new surroundings.  We expected Dot to cautiously walk around the house, or perhaps just lay down up against a wall until she felt more comfortable.

We were wrong.

Dot burst out of the kennel and started enthusiastically tearing around the house, chasing cats, jumping and nipping all over Ollie, and then proceeded to take a massive poop on our kitchen rug.  We were waiting for Ollie to snap at her and settle her down, but it never happened.  Unfortunately, Ollie was so laid back around Dot that he let her jump and nip all over him.  My wife and I even had to encourage Ollie to snap back and put Dot in her place.  We wanted him to get upset with her.  Sadly though, he would only stare at us each time Dot would go after him.

So now we are in a situation where our 11 week old collie puppy is bossing our 12 year old golden retriever around.  She pulls on his tail with her teeth, tries to drink water while our golden is drinking, and also jumps all over him.  He’ll get after her every now and then, but it doesn’t seem nearly enough.

It’s still very early in the process, but my wife and I are now wondering if it was a bad idea to get the new puppy.  We don’t want our 12 year old golden retriever to live the last few years of his life being tormented by a puppy.

To be continued…