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Ah, doggy. Pixel is a sweetheart in so many ways, but my god she's driving me batty.
We've finally found a way that everyone can get sleep at once; Pixel sleeps in her crate, and her crate goes beside the bed in the guest room, and I sleep in there while Rob takes the bedroom and the cats. Which means I get no cat time, and Pixel gets pretty much constant me-time, and...I couldn't say that I'm happy with this arrangement, but at least we're all sleeping?
She's got some serious separation anxiety issues. After spending all night in her company, and then getting up and petting and giving her breakfast, I went to take a shower alone. Ten minutes! Probably less than ten minutes! She whined and barked outside the whole time, because I was Not There.
On the one hand, I really need to give her some time to settle in, settle down, and feel reassured. On the other hand, I feel increasingly guilty about my "Don't worry, Pixel, I won't abandon you!" reassurances when I know full well that if she can't get over this sort of thing, I'm going to have to take her back to the shelter. I can only put up with this so long. And the longer we stay together, the more traumatic it'd be to take her back... Ugh.
I feel like a bad dog parent. But frankly, I only have so much in me for this dog. I do love her--she's sweet and somewhat biddable and likes fetch and is very house-trained and only chases cats because she wants to plaaaaay--but I'm spending my entire break getting into a stress-filled mess of my own, instead of recovering and preparing for next semester. And I can't tell from this point how fast her "getting better" is going to happen, or to what extent.
I don't know. I guess I give it a while longer, and see how this goes.
We've finally found a way that everyone can get sleep at once; Pixel sleeps in her crate, and her crate goes beside the bed in the guest room, and I sleep in there while Rob takes the bedroom and the cats. Which means I get no cat time, and Pixel gets pretty much constant me-time, and...I couldn't say that I'm happy with this arrangement, but at least we're all sleeping?
She's got some serious separation anxiety issues. After spending all night in her company, and then getting up and petting and giving her breakfast, I went to take a shower alone. Ten minutes! Probably less than ten minutes! She whined and barked outside the whole time, because I was Not There.
On the one hand, I really need to give her some time to settle in, settle down, and feel reassured. On the other hand, I feel increasingly guilty about my "Don't worry, Pixel, I won't abandon you!" reassurances when I know full well that if she can't get over this sort of thing, I'm going to have to take her back to the shelter. I can only put up with this so long. And the longer we stay together, the more traumatic it'd be to take her back... Ugh.
I feel like a bad dog parent. But frankly, I only have so much in me for this dog. I do love her--she's sweet and somewhat biddable and likes fetch and is very house-trained and only chases cats because she wants to plaaaaay--but I'm spending my entire break getting into a stress-filled mess of my own, instead of recovering and preparing for next semester. And I can't tell from this point how fast her "getting better" is going to happen, or to what extent.
I don't know. I guess I give it a while longer, and see how this goes.