A crazy week!

Wow, what a week! It's been crazy and it's all self-inflicted suffering. Although, not intentionally. Basically bad planning.

We have nine dogs here, counting our own, and no, I did not set out to board seven dogs all at once. One has been here for two weeks for training, this is her second week with us. The other two were here for Day Training. I figured I could handle three dogs, especially when the Day Training dogs go home in the afternoon. Then an old customer that I haven't heard from forever asked if she could board her dog here for the week, since she has relatives in town who are afraid of dogs. I didn't want to tell her no...I mean, she's one of my first customers and it's a compliment when they remember you. So I said yes.

Then my friend asked if I could watch her dog, Roger, a huge Pit Bull. Without even thinking, I told her yes, not realizing that she was asking for the same week as everyone else. And when she showed up, she came with another dog (who I thought was a neighbor dog that followed her in--I almost shooed her away) and she said, "No, this is my dog Lucy. Didn't I ask if she could stay with you too?"

No, she didn't, but I couldn't turn her away. So now we had six dogs. And then my neighbor asked very last minute if we could board their dog, Dugg, as they were going through a new transition in their home and Dugg was showing a lot of regression in his housetraining. Can't say that was a compelling reason for me to take him in, but, they're neighbors and also a customer, so I said we would fit him in.

It wasn't until I began to get confirmation emails from everyone "we will see you on Monday!" and, "What time would you like us to come on Monday?" when I realized....that everyone was coming on Monday.

Not all the dogs get along with each other. As I said, Rodger is a big Pitt Bull and even though he seemed friendly enough, tends to "get bit" a lot at dog parks--not a good sign. So we only kept him with his "sister", Lucy. Lucy is a sweetheart and no trouble, but is old (15 years old) and couldn't be kenneled at all because she panics. I don't want to put a dog that old under that much stress, so we've had her sleeping with in the room with Max.

The other dogs are kenneled at night and make quite the racket, although they've been getting used to it.

Dugg, our neighbor's dog, has lived up to his reputation of accidents and has woken up in a puddle of pee every single morning.

And Stella, the dog who is training with us, ran off one day, giving me a heart attack. We followed her all the way two houses down until we finally got her back home.

And then Charlie, one of the puppies who come for day training, suprised me by squeezing through a super tiny hole in the fence. Apparently, he is not as big as I thought and mainly just a lot of fur. Thankfully, he wanted to come in right away and met me at the door step.

But I think the kicker is that Stella is in heat, which is making all the male dogs here crazy. Dugg, our bed wetter, keeps humping her and I have to keep pulling him off of her. I warned her owners that she's in heat and joked that she might come home pregnant (at the same time, promising them that I would try my best to keep her seperated from the male dogs, which has been nearly impossible to do) and they joked back that they wouldn't mind if she was pregnant--as long as it was with another Goldendoodle.

Regardless, we have tried to keep her seperated from the dogs but I do let her out with them once in a while, because she really enjoys playing with them, and I feel bad that she's being cooped up so much.

I haven't taken a shower in two days because I'm always watching dogs. No matter what dog I have out of their kennel, I don't totally trust them while I'm in the shower.

The carpet has taken a major hit with three puppies (Dugg is technically a puppy, although he's 20 weeks now) having accidents.

Our own dogs, who barely get to get out of the house anymore, are even having some behavior issues. Joey marked his place on MY THROW PILLOWS--TWICE---because he is insecure with so many dogs here and has to make sure they know he's here. And on top of that, he started a fight with Ace the other day, which is really unlike him.

And--not that this has to do with anything with dogs--but I stepped on one of Max's needles that didn't make it in the Sharps container today. Again, has nothing to do with dogs. But it hurt. A lot. And it just made everything else seem that much worse, you know?

It made me say, "I am so done with dogs!!!"

I am ready for them to go home. I took on too much.

I have learned a lesson.

Always write things down.