We are winding down with tea and the US soccer game and I allowed myself one Google search parameter and only two articles to decide on my next step for tomorrow. No. Rabbit. Holes. Erin.
It is proving to be difficult (as I start on my fourth attempt at this paragraph) to use this outlet to help myself out without going into the complete nitty gritty of everything in the top of my mental funnel.
Two months ago, I was browsing soy sauces online for 45 minutes, researching braises and comparing blueberry bushes. Tonight? I am actively processing guilt for not crate training the puppies immediately, thinking about how I am going to explain to David that this is about to become a super pain in the ass, and praying The Watering Hole is a miracle God sent angel gift that helps me have two dogs that are good to other dogs.
I did not know that you are supposed to keep littermates separate at night, people. Also, thank you internet for being horrifying with all your information.
It is starting to make more sense every day. The goal of littermates is for the dogs to be “obedient together” and “confident separate”. With this in mind, I feel pretty good about how we are managing the dogs. (They get a ton of attention and individual time.) But…. they are coming of age and rough housing and it’s like a drunk driver teaching another person how to drive blindfolded. I did not realize that littermates will not teach the universal dog language inherently. Every time I see Rey play bite Thor on the leg I cringe, use the Say Uncle command (which makes them stop and sit at my feet for a treat), and pray all this work pays off.
I feel like a theme in my life is that I make things harder for myself right when I get to a clearing. If I achieve a plateau, I add a layer. I wondered tonight if it was a super hero complex or my saboteur archetype. Paging Caroline Myss.
I was all in on Rey and Thor (my 17 week old shepherd mixes) for good reason. I wanted family dogs to help spread the love. I wanted to walk good dogs and take them to beer gardens and sunsets. I miss my old dog and how he would lay in the sun while I gardened. If I was to get dogs, now seems to be a good time. There is just always so much you don’t know until you get into something.
As I near forty (my birthday is at the end of June), I realize all these Google searches I am doing now about the dogs; trying to get enough information to synthesize into one strategic dog culture, is a lot like the conversation David and I had after we got home from Home Depot with armfuls of supplies to strip, clean, condition and paint our 100+ year old porch.
It did not take long after getting into the project for us to change our plan. We felt like we wasted the morning but both agreed it was time well spent – we needed to get into it to know how we wanted to do it.
So, here I am. I am into it figuring out how I want to do it. And I am wondering if this is a 40 year old maturation thing. I wonder if now I will have a treasured habit of contemplating everything I may want to know prior to jumping in. It doesn’t seem like me, but I think it is becoming me. I think this is a big shift where I combine bravery and experience.
When I was painting the porch, I had a little bit of clarity where this thought came, “the dogs will be what you make them”. And I felt relief. They love my kids. They love me. I LOVE THEM. I bury myself in them sometimes. I hold them like babies and they calm us all. My mom said today “they are really special, Erin”. And they are.
I just don’t know what I’m doing. lol. Ok. Good night. Mind if I talk about puppies more on this thing? This felt good. erin
Frozen Spaghetti 