Je m’excuse

Yes, there was a phantom post that I 20% wrote, then deleted, but WordPress decided to be all “Wha? I cannot let you do that! Instead I will post it and make you look like an idiot!”

I will get back to that post, though, because it contains Important Aliyah Information about…men’s pants. Don’t thank me; I am a GIVER.

So, really, my brain is not working so well. Because that puppy we found? She is still with us. But we want to find her a home that is not here. Puppies? Are WORK. And while she is lovely and has amazing potential, we have a dog already, who is her own kind of commitment but does not wake up at 5 am to go out, eat four times a day, or relieve herself in the house (usually). These are all temporary things, I know, that evaporate over a dog’s lifetime. But in here and now, I don’t know that I have these particular rainy, busy weeks in me.

I have found a ton of parallels between puppy watching and baby raising. Keep them safe, warm, fed, clean (this is actually easier with diapers). Referee sibling fights-slash-play. Enforce bed time and potty breaks. Never let them out of your sight unless they are in a safe space. Etc.

Doing this while having another dog, two kids, a husband, and part-time work is…busy-making. At the same time, we rescued this puppy on purpose, so we don’t want to turn her out in the street or give her to the city pound.

For a period of time, I wanted to keep her. She’s adorable! But I think it was for the wrong reasons. I guess I wanted something to baby and to “raise right.” My kids vacillate between amazing and extremely trying these days. The dog we already have came housebroken but has her own issues that we can’t seem to solve ourselves (one of these days we are going to pay a trainer), so I was looking at this puppy as a chance to do puppy training correctly and fabulously.

I think what finally put me back to rational thinking (besides the fact that my husband was against it from the beginning…which, you know, a puppy is not a goldfish or something small and contained) was when the little one peed on the big one’s bed–in her apparent quest for dominance. This was after the big one had peed on her own bed earlier, as a show of “this is my space.” Endless fun with the pee and the washing of dog beds.

I have already facebooked and tweeted about this, but please, if you are in Israel and you (or someone you know) are willing to be a good mommy/daddy to this puppy–who is smart! learned her name and how to sit and is fine in the crate and goes 6.5 hours at night at 8 weeks and has had her first set of shots–please get in touch with me.