My Last Nerve......

Would I be a horrible Dog-Mom if I said I'm just READY for Diva to be a grown-up dog?
I mean, she's really cute and all but I'm already worn out from the lack of sleep.... I'm worn out from the chewing....(yes, she has a plethora of chew toys but she prefers furniture... and NO the bitter apple spray doesn't seem to faze her!) I'm worn out from the housetraining and the cleaning of pee and poo (which is a DAILY issue).... and now she has discovered her VOICE. Yes, she has realized she can bark - LOUD!

I look at Ruby, our incredibly sweet, docile, superbly behaved older dog and I say "Hang in there, Ruby..... one day Diva will be your Friend and not your Irritant."

We'll be fine, of course. I remember going through this with Chloe, our Black Lab, when Hubster and I were newlyweds. (When you look up "Destructive" in Webster's, there is still to this day a sketch of Chloe next to the word.) Chloe destroyed everything. She even ate a step (carpet, padding, all the way down to the wood) in our first house. She also ripped wallpaper off the walls (worked it loose with her tongue, apparently, then ripped it off in SHEETS!), AND she disassembled a chair from our dinette set. I think most people would have given her away, but we stuck with her. She was ROUGH. But, after about a year or so, she was magically transformed into a fabulous, protective, loyal (and relatively docile) family dog. And she gave us almost 12 years of love. I still have a framed picture of her behind the sink in the kitchen, so I can remember her in her youth.

I try to keep Chloe's "metamorphosis" (and successful outcome!) this in the forefront of my mind when Diva is jumping up and down on my last nerve. :-)