Skip to main content

a whole new dog

these are not ACTUALLY buddy's pills - he's on the generic!
dollar sensible little fellow that he is.
so, our family got a new dog when we got back from alaska.

ok, not really - we still just have buddy. but the buddy we have now is a completely different beast altogether. 

we were baffled at first. he seeks out affection - he'll actually come find you and ask to be petted. if he's laying down and you walk past him, he might lift his head - but he doesn't jump up, afraid. heck, he even let my husband refill his water bowl while he was eating food right there. and the capper: last night we went on a family walk, and he was darn close to loose-leash walking the whole way. oh, he needed strong corrections, but nothing like the nonstop pull-fest it typically is.

we had no idea what to make of this amazing transformation. did he really miss us that much? did he think we'd left him at the kennel for good? had he been abducted by aliens who rewired his brain?

and then it hit us: after six weeks on xanax, we're seeing the "real" buddy come to the forefront. the buddy who's not paralyzed by 60 forms of fear and anxiety. the buddy who wants to be a part of a snuggly loving family dogpile. the buddy who wants to please his mommy and daddy and listens and - oh dare i say it - might even be trainable to learn BETTER behavior and "tricks!"

i spoke with the vet, and the general consensus is, buddy is a dog who needs to be medicated. we will find the lowest effective dosage, and we will continue to work on behavioral efforts to improve his general state of mind and specific fears (thunder). and our "indestructible" crate is to be delivered today, so we will have a way to contain him as well.

and you know what? it's worth it. it's all worth it. it's phenomenal to see the sweet, gentle, awesome dog we have always suspected buddy could be, starting to come out of the woodwork.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

on lullabies

i am not a singer. if you've sat behind me in church, you know this to be true. (and i'm sorry.) a musician, yes. a singer no. and yet i find myself singing to john almost nonstop. and the beauty is, he seems to actually like it! (there's no accounting for taste. he also thinks i'm the most beautiful woman in the world. i'm no ogre, but i'm certainly not winning any beauty contests outside of my son's brain!) and actually, i've written some lullabies for john that are pretty nice. and it made me think: did your parents sing to you? do you remember what they sang, and better yet, if you have kids, do you sing the same songs to them? reply in the comments!
5 comments
Read more

pull up your big boy undies

"what time is it? mommy? what oclock?" john's teacher told me something amazing today. "you should bring me some big boy undies," she said, "i haven't changed john in weeks." it seems that at school, since they check in with him periodically to see if he has to potty, and since his very smart teacher has noticed his (very regular) bowel movement schedule, john is potty trained. at 9am at 2pm, she plops him on the toilet. he might sit for 20 minutes, reading a book. when she checks on him, he says, "i just poo-pooin', miss meka." and when he's done, he's good and done. we're not quite that far along at home, but tonight we go shopping for big boy undies. and i'm sure we'll have a few accidents, but that's just a part of the process ... and soon my little boo will be in big boy undies full time. and ... it's a great time for him to be out of diapers. because good lord willing and the creek ...
Post a Comment
Read more

i'm furberizing my baby

ok, let's get this straight right off the bat: i don't know if i am literally following dr. furber's methods of sleep training. there are so many versions out there. but saying we're furberizing john is WAY more fun than saying that i'm letting him cry his little lungs out in an attempt to teach him to sleep on his own. it's night two of our efforts. he went right to sleep last night, which was great. and he slept for 5.25 hours (!!!!) before waking up at 2:30 a.m. when he woke up crying, i let him cry for 5 minutes before going in to soothe him. (the soothing barely works at all, by the way, but it's what i'm supposed to do ...) then i let him cry for 10 more minutes before going in to soothe him again. next on the agenda was a 15 minute stretch of crying - but he fell asleep after 8 minutes. so a sum total of 22 minutes of crying. not too bad for night two. i've heard night three can be the worst ... so we'll hold on to our hats tonight. mean...
5 comments
Read more