We have been on a mission for a very long time to focus everything we have into creating a family.  Month after month I have tried different strategies toward a successful pregnancy.  A couple of the major goals have been to remove unnecessary stress, and to find other things to focus on- which is kind of related to de-stressing.  The less I focus on getting and staying pregnant, hopefully the less stress I have.

SO, a few months back I posted about getting a second dog. If you’ve read that post you would know that I immediately thought I had made a mistake.  But, we decided that we had made a commitment to rescuing this pup and to give it our best effort to making it work.  For the past 3 months things have steadily improved.  I had been letting them play partially unsupervised outside in our fenced in yard for over a month, and we have left them alone in the house together (uncrated and not separated) for over 2 months. They get along great 95% of the time. Our new rescue pup does great unless she is stressed or scared, which is when things get a little tough.  They play a little rough, but both have loose, happy bodies and waggy tails.  They have had a few quarrels over highly valued squeaky toys or treats (which we have eliminated)-  usually these fights ended quickly themselves, or were stopped by me or Mr. Candid with authoritative commands. Though scary, and dramatic, the fights usually only left a couple of scratches and loose fur.  We recently decided that we would like to desensitize our rescue pup to our family who frequents our home (she is quite scared of strangers), while also giving our other dog some well deserved alone time.  So we took our new pup out of the house and to my parents home for the afternoon over the weekend.  She was very stressed the entire time, about 4 hours.  And when we got home our other dog was over the moon with excitement to see her.  We made the mistake of not giving our rescue pup time to wind down and destress and immediately allowed our other dog to hound her to play….this did not end well.

I feel awful because ultimately it was 100% our fault.  The fight was so terrifying and brutal we ended up spending the night cleaning up wounds, and blood. Mr. Candid and I spent the night in separate rooms with the dogs separated while I tended to the rescue pups wounds through the night.  We took her to the emergency vet the next morning where she got some pain pills and antibiotics for the dozens of puncture wounds on her legs, ears and neck.

I am riddled with guilt and stress for our thoughtlessness in the situation.  We had a lapse in judgement and it was nearly fatal.  I watched as my dog took the rescue pup’s leg in his mouth and shook her with a mission to kill.  I am so thankful that it wasn’t her neck in that moment.  I just can’t get over how one lapse in judgement could cause such damage….. can we handle that kind of responsibility?!

Here we are now.  We will be hiring a trainer to come in for a consultation and assessment. Hopefully she will give us some training strategies for both of them (1. how to get our first dog to not be so pushy/bossy and overwrought 2. how to lower the anxiety of the new pup who has clearly been abused in her past. Something that we were not privy to when we adopted….though we shouldn’t have been that naive. ).  Obviously after something like this we have to consider the safety of all the living creatures in our home, and rehoming is on the table.  I have grown so attached to the pure sweetness of this pup over the past 3 months that I am feeling so guilty and upset by the idea of putting her through finding a new home. We love her but things have become so stressful in this house.  It has affected my alone time with Mr. Candid, as well as the over all harmony and dynamic of our home. We’re constantly stressed about their rough play and the potential of it escalating- with obvious reason.  She has also been a little too interested in our very aloof kitty.  We have rearranged our home to make all these safe spaces to make sure that everyone stays safe and alive—-and well, it’s all so stressful!

While we truly love her, and rehoming will be out absolute last resort,  I can’t help but consider how much less stress we would have if we didn’t have to deal with this…..I went from looking to take some focus off of trying to have a successful pregnancy, to wondering if we will ever get pregnant again under these pressures and circumstances.  Not to mention, how could we ever think to raise children in this chaos???

I am so very confused and brokenhearted over this whole situation.  Our new pup is on the mend. her wounds have started to heal, she is good spirits, and running around just a couple of days after the fight. I am so thankful for that.

I guess I got the distraction I had wanted…I just didn’t realize at what cost.

I want to do the right thing.