Update on Poor Puppy Parenting

There has been a recent breakthrough in the poor puppy parenting realm that I thought I should report. Previously I posted an entry about when we discovered how our sad little puppy spends the 6 hours during the day while we are at work - whining and crying and pacing. It was quite pitiful and made us feel like terrible parents.

Well, the other day I came home from work and Dakota wasn't laying in front of the door as usual. I found her in the guest room ( a MAJOR "NO" room, as we keep all our souveneirs in there and she has been known to chew them if not supervised). We always keep this door shut but it, apparently, came open that day and Dakota was just laying on the rug smiling up at me like, "oh, are you home already?" She hadn't ripped or chewed anything - she hadn't even knocked anything over!

So after that incident we thought the key to our dog's happiness might just be more rooms. We sat Dakota down and gave her a stern talking to about the big responsibility we were giving her and that she would only have the privilege of the other rooms in the house if she proved herself mature enough to handle it.

Since then we let her roam the kitchen, dining room, living room, office and guest room while we're gone. She is still restricted from our bedroom (she won't stay off our bed) and the bathroom (she can't resist the tempation of Q-tips and toilet paper in the garbage can) but the rest of the apartment is hers.

This change has made a big difference. Dakota is SIGNIFICANTLY less spastic and uncontrolled when we come home. She's still happy to see us but she no longer makes the high-pitched puppy weeping noise while flailing on the groud as though having a seizure. I guess our little ADD puppy is just (*sigh*) growing up. :)