land shark; the dog house diaries

Land Shark

The Dog House Diaries :

Land Shark

Part 1 – The Waking Dream

I should point out that I am not a morning person, so getting up at 3am to let Barkley out to go to the toilet was not fun.  

I won’t even get early flights to go on holiday unless there is absolutely no other choice, so to get up, and stand in pitch darkness in the garden trying to convince a small puppy to wee was not my idea of a good time.  

Still, the fact that his little face was so pleased to see me, and that his tiny little tail waggled like a metronome, made me forget the fact that I was so tired.  

We stood out there together for about 15 minutes.  Me half awake in my dressing gown and slippers, pleading “let’s go wee wee’s” while he just decided to lie down on the ground and offer up his tummy for a belly rub.  Obviously he got one, and a little while later he obliged by doing a wee.  

Yesss!!

Mission accomplished, I popped him back into his crate, where he went back to sleep like a dream.  And after a while, so did I. 

We had a gorgeous little puppy, and even though I was tired, I couldn’t be happier. 

land shark; the dog house diaries
‘You gotta love a fluffy tummy’

Part 2 – The Awakening of the Beast

Four hours later with Jon now at work, leaving me without backup, the honeymoon period was over between me and Barkley.  

That didn’t take long.  

I did remember what a little sod Chilli had been as a puppy, but I had conveniently put that out of my mind.  I suppose it’s a little bit like all those women who go through childbirth, swear they’ll never do it again, and then have another one a few years later.  You forget the pain when it involves something you love.  

To cut a long story short, from the second I got back up at 7am and released the beast, he was all over every inch of my vulnerable bare skin like a miniature land shark.  Teeth and nails like bloody needles.  

“I am not a chew toy!!!”  I yelled at him.  

Of course the worst thing you can do is to push them away from you when they’re in puppy attack mode, as they see it as a game and get even more revved up.  So what the hell could I do before I needed to ring the blood bank for back up? 

land shark; the dog house diaries
‘Seconds before the vicious attack. Can you see the mad glint in his eye?’

 

The books give you 2 methods on how to deal with this: 

1  Yelp like one of their litter mates so they pull away, and then distract them with an appropriate toy for them to take their biting out on. 

It didn’t work. 

2  Stand still and and take all your attention away from them.

That didn’t work either.   

Nowhere in the books does it tell you to cry and call them a ‘arsehole’, but in my defence, I had scratches all up my arms and blood literally squirting from my foot, turning my flip flop a lovely shade of red.  

For the sake of my own sanity, I put the little darling into his crate for some chill out time, where he woofed at me like a sulky chihuahua.  

Bloody back chat! 

land shark; the dog house diaries
‘Exhausted after mauling me. If you look closely you might be able to see some of my skin hanging out of his mouth. lol’

 

After he had some time out we made up pretty quickly, but he definitely started testing the boundaries today though.  I was up and down every five seconds just to keep an eye on him all day. 

We had a bad case of puppy zoomies in the afternoon, a dirty protest in the dining room after being told off, and several high speed chases around the garden to try and stop him eating gravel… and plants…and EVERYTHING.  

By the time Jon got home I had already poured and drank my first glass of wine.

When I went to bed at 10pm and set my alarm for 3am to let him out for his middle of the night toilet break, I wondered if I should have read that bloody contract from the breeders a bit better. 

Sherry x

 

Stay tuned for more from The Dog House Diaries; or have a butchers at my feature about Fabulous Finn

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