Woes
For awhile Merlin was doing very well with the housebreaking. I have no idea what happened to that, but it’s gone out the damn window. Lately he’s become afraid of the back yard at night. If there is anyone outside, if he hears a noise in the yard, or nearby… he simply refuses to look for a place to go potty. He wrestles with me, barks, whines, jumps on me… anything to go back in the house. This has been annoying, simply because rather than extend his time between going out (it started at 2 hours between potty outings), he is diminishing that time. Today we’ve gone out pretty much every hour. It’s ridiculous
It became more ridiculous at about 8pm. He gave me very clear signs that he needed to go out. So we got him leashed up and we went outside. We got to the carport, and he could hear my neighbors on the right hand side of the house outside. He immediately started struggling against the leash and fighting to go back in the house. I forced him over to the spot that he usually pees in, and that’s when my neighbor on the left side pulled in his driveway in his big station wagon. Merlin went nuts and began whining, whimpering, barking, yelping and pulling at the leash. I thought perhaps I’d just misread his signals in the house, because we had been out at 7pm. So we came back in, I unhooked his leash, and sat down on the couch. No sooner had I sat down than the dog walked in and pissed on the living room floor. Two effing seconds after I’d had him outside.
I’m exhausted. I’m frustrated. A very large part of me feels that I would have been much smarter and more responsible to wait to get this dog during the summer when I had more time to devote to properly training him. Another part feels like I’m just cranky because I’m sleeping like 5 hours a night, and that I need to just be patient because Merlin is 2 months old and has only been a house dog for a week and a half.
Right now the large/cranky part of me is winning the battle.
