Puppy troubles.

Having a dog is a lot of hard work to begin with, but when your dog has problem behaviours, it is positively life ruining. Our beautiful hound dog, Lady, is driving me nuts lately. She's basically holding us hostage. Whenever we leave the apartment, she howls and yowls and just goes entirely bonkers. It's causing a lot of stress, because we live in an apartment, and I worry about her disturbing the neighbours.

The internet is a great thing, because there's so much access to information that can help you tackle problems like this. Unfortunately, it's also a terrible thing, because everybody's got an opinion and all of them conflict with each other. "It's separation anxiety!" "No, it's dominance!" "You need to use systematic desensitization!" "No, you need to assert your dominance!" "No, nothing will help unless you put her on drugs first!" "Try a bark collar!" "Those collars are inhumane!" "Here, watch this Cesar Millan video!" "Cesar Millan is an imbecile!" It's exhausting, and ultimately, it leaves you no better off than you were to begin with, because, sure, you have all this information, not all of it is useful, or even accurate, and it's hard to tell what's what. 

So far, everybody has been telling us that the howling stems from one of two problems: Separation anxiety or dominance issues. After doing a bit of research, I've drawn my own conclusion: It's not one or the other, it's both. I think she's experiencing separation anxiety because she's unsure of her place within the family unit. Also, the fact that she's a rescue probably compounds the problem. After all, she's been abandoned before. 

All of this means that it's doggie boot camp time (sorry, Lady!). We spent our morning practising down-stays, and this afternoon, as with every day, she'll get some alone time in her crate. In the meantime, I just have to keep reminding myself, we haven't even had her 2 months yet, and it's going to take time for her to adjust to our rules. And we're still learning, as well. I just hope the neighbours can tolerate the noise for awhile longer!

   

The Stuff That I've Been Doin' and Sucktober.

I haven't been blogging much, because the title of this blog is, of course, Becca Does Stuff, and I haven't really been doing anything particularly blogworthy lately. Here's what I've been up to in October: 

1) Being sick. The kind of sick where you feel it in your bones. It was awful. It began the day after I got home from a visit to Ottawa, and I've been dealing with it since. Three days ago, I decided I'd had enough, researched some home remedies, and whipped up a variety of magic potions in my kitchen. I'm not even kidding, I made this concoction of turmeric, ginger, and honey, and chowed down on 5 cloves of garlic, and I woke up feeling 80% better the very next day. Next time, I'm skipping the drugstore stuff and going straight to weird homemade teas made of spices. 

2) Starting a new job. I come from that generation that was taught never to reveal too much personal information online, lest you be fired and then murdered, so I'm not going to specify where, exactly, I'm working. But I will tell you this: It's a little bit beneath my skill level but it's super fun so I don't care, the dress code is extremely comfortable, the people are extremely rad, and it's a job that will keep me very well hydrated and is relevant to my interests. And those are all the clues I'm giving. A girl must retain some sense of mystery, after all. 

3) Training my dog. I don't know if I've mentioned before that I have a hound dog. In an apartment in Toronto. So... that's............... hard. My husband and I are working extremely diligently on training her to be well-behaved and quiet, and I'm trying to stay positive that, because we're both so committed to working hard at changing her problem behaviours, it won't take too long to fix her issues. 

So those are the main reasons why I haven't been blogging. I've been way too sick and stressed to expend brain cells on coming up with topics for posts, which is a task that I'm admittedly not great at even under the best of circumstances. I'm not gonna lie, October is usually my favourite month of the year, but this month, I've been referring to it as Sucktober. It's just been one challenge after another. But, such is life. All you can ever do is keep plugging away at the challenges until you overcome them. And maybe decide to have a different favourite month this year. 

Maybe for my next post, I'll write out the recipe for the magic illness-curing potions that I made, and somebody out there in Internetland can give them a try and report back if they actually work, or if it's just a total coincidence that I felt better the day after I tried them.

And We're Back!

Sorry for the radio silence there, bloggeroos. I went out of town for a couple of days, and by the time I got back, it was time for us to switch internet providers, so I've been living internet-free for the past couple of days.

Anyway, having been back to visit for a couple of days now, here's a quick list of stuff that I actually miss about Ottawa: My family, my friends, the canal, being a five minute walk away from Sugar Mountain, and familiar karaoke bars. One thing I don't miss about Ottawa? The speed of the traffic flow there. Jeeeeeez. It's like a city full of drivers who don't actually have anywhere to go.

But, that's enough complaining out of me for one night. Back to our regularly scheduled programme tomorrow. BAH HA HA HA HA, just kidding! You and I both know there's no schedule here. Okay, bye!