Puppy regret.
Those are two words you never want to see together in a sentence.
At our house, we love puppies, dogs, cats, kittens and just about all of God’s creatures. Even so, our puppy Lamborghini is giving our patience a run for our money.
Lambo is sweet and lovable as can be. She is fairly intelligent. She would never hurt a fly intentionally. And I truly don’t think she means to be bad.
Yet she is also destructive, chaotic and the most frustrating puppy we’ve ever owned. Sometimes, I am convinced she’s a demon that has been unleashed on our home to make all of us – including our other pets – completely bonkers.
Lamborghini runs on bad choices. She has a big house, a gorgeous fenced-in yard to run around in, furry and human family members to play with, plenty of time outside, walks through the neighborhood every day, time in her crate to snooze, and approximately 1,000 toys and chewies… everything a growing Goldendoodle could want.
And still, Lambo has the energy, will and desire to routinely destroy and/or eat things that do not belong to her. She has days where all she does is make bad choices, one after another, as if getting yelled at is her most favorite thing.
I am not a first-time dog owner. Through the years, I’ve owned several challenging breed combos including pitbull mixes, an Akita cross and a Chow mix. These were big dogs who could definitely be a handful at times.
I’ve still never experienced anything like the curly-haired, lovable demon we call Lamborghini. She was sent to test me, of that I am sure. She constantly pesters and harasses our little old rescue dog, Dani, who really just wants to lay around and sleep at this point in her life.
The worst of it is that this demon is all my fault. I’m the one who insisted on adding another Goldendoodle to our lives. I was traumatized and grieving from the sudden loss of our sweet Autumn, and I was convinced another puppy from her breeder would help heal the ragged hole in my heart.
While this did in fact happen, it was a monkey’s paw scenario; I got what I wanted, but at what cost? I’ll tell you right now the cost has been peace, quiet and any shred of sanity we once had.
We’ve already invested in a training boot camp for Lambo. She’s actually a lot better than she used to be. We now have tools to help us manage her better.
Still, our doggo management tools can only go so far when Lamborghini still seems hell-bent on making bad choices. She’s about as tractable as the dragons of Westeros (you’ll understand what I mean by this if you’ve seen the season finale of House of the Dragon, HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel).
I’m writing all this feeling pretty grumpy on a Saturday morning, having been woken very early by the unmistakable sound of Lambo horking up a stolen sock in her crate. I got up and let her out so I could clean out her crate, then came downstairs a few moments later to find she had attacked and torn off two big, beautiful leaves from my beloved Monstera plant.
I guess I’m just frustrated and annoyed that, at a year and a half of age, Lamborghini still needs to be closely watched and supervised every single second of every day. I look at Dani who basically naps every free moment and I think, why can’t Lambo just be like that?
I realize it’s not a fair comparison, as Dani is a much older dog. Still, I can’t remember ever having a puppy who stayed this destructive for this long. I keep waiting for her to mature and calm down, but so far it just hasn’t happened yet.
If anyone has tips about how to keep an enormous 1.5 year old puppy from eating everything in sight, destroying plants, chasing the cat and terrorizing Dani, I’m all ears.
In the meantime, I’ll go back to the tips and tricks our trainer taught us – and also give Lambo some more time in the backyard to run around and get her crazies out.
Who knows… maybe this time will be the charm. Maybe this time, she’ll run the demon right out of herself.
But I’m not holding my breath.
