How many times have we heard about dogs bringing happiness to the home? Get a dog and she will fill your life with unforgettable moments! An adorable puppy will remove all sadness and bring spontaneity and joy into your life! But before that happens, you have to work hard, because the path to this happiness will be long and thorny.
Are dogs happiness?
The official term is fixed in English emotionally supportive animal, which means an animal that supports the emotional state of its owner. But don't get a dog to make you happy. At the very least, you should be well prepared for caring for a puppy, which is no less time consuming than caring for an infant.
We present two frank letters from the girls, written on the English-language forums. They sought support and advice, disappointed in their realized desire to have a dog. Both did it deliberately, in the hope that their lives would be better.
They are embarrassed to say such things out loud, fearing condemnation. But we need to talk about this in order to warn other people against trying to fill their lives with movie-postcard happiness after finding a pet.
The owner of the dachshund: "The puppy is ruining my life"
My boyfriend and I recently bought a dachshund puppy. I really wanted to have a pet! In a past relationship, I had to leave my old cat, and I still worry about it. I naively thought that a dog would be more suitable for my life situation.
Now I have a puppy who ruins my life and makes it unbearable.
She screams all the time. When she is alone, when she is bored, when she does not get her way. She does not even bark, but screams, yells in an otherworldly voice. She chews on everything, despite the fact that she has a bunch of toys. Today I took her outside for a while to calm down and wash up a bit, and she ate a plastic container with sprouted seedlings, which upset me a lot.
I cry for her every day. Everyday. I'm falling into some kind of black hole. I have to think about the dog every second. I either tiptoe around her while she sleeps, or pull something out of her mouth, or prevent her from writing on the floor, or listen to her howl while she has food, water, toys.
Most people say they see improvements in their dogs' behavior over time, but it seems to me that every day it only gets worse. I think I watched all the videos and read all the articles about training puppies, about communicating with them, about general training. I do everything there is to do, but none of it works.
I suffer from severe anxiety and hoped that the dog would help me. I bought into all these reassurances about animals for emotional support and honestly thought the dog would take away some of my background life stress. How wrong I was! I have no affection for the dog at all, which makes me feel terribly guilty. If we give her back tomorrow, I won't miss her at all.
My boyfriend says we can give her away. Yes we can. But I don’t want him to see me as an irresponsible monster who cannot handle a small puppy. I do not know what to do. All I know is that I can't take it long. Does this mean that I will be a terrible mother when I have children? This thought scares me too.
Whippet Mistress: "I'd rather not have her"
I bought the puppy when she was 2.5 months old, and for 4 months now she is with me. By most standards, she is a great puppy: she is quick to toilette and has no destructive behavior. We had problems with separation, but we made progress, however, subject to a strict schedule. If I take a walk with her, then feed her, then wait until she calms down, then for the next two hours she will be fine.
But there is one problem. I'd rather not have it.
I have problems with depression and increased anxiety, and this was one of the reasons why I decided to get a dog. I hoped that with her help I would have a desire to live in the present moment, to be more relaxed and happy. But that didn't happen.
The first week I had a severe anxiety attack. She whined and barked all the time when I left the room, and I was afraid that the neighbors would swear over this. Every day I worked for hours on her daily routine, spent a fortune on her first aid kit, visits to the veterinarian, to the zoopsychologist, and to the zoo hotel. Now I can't stop thinking that I was in vain to have a dog.
When I think about her, I see before me only a huge burden of responsibility. A decade of endless collection of feces and worry about her behavior. I have to constantly be on the lookout, because she can steal something from people at a picnic in the park, lick a small child, steal food from another dog. I can no longer freely go where I want and am afraid to leave her somewhere overnight.
I'm tired of constantly refusing invitations to go somewhere and puzzling over how to be with her and where to put her. She can hardly stand any trips for more than 10 minutes, so she needs to be given medicine all the time. With her, every day you need to plan as a whole military operation ...
I know that for most people these are small things, but I feel empty and unhappy.
Everyone around me is telling me: "You couldn't have done without her, right?"
No, it would be great. If only I could turn back time.
