Sick

Do you know what it is like to be sick and have to care for 2 puppies? I do. For the last few days I have been sick with a head cold and having to watch after one temperamental 11 month old lab and a non-housebroken 11 week old lab pup. Neither would let me sleep so that I could get better so they were, unfortunately, crated more often than usually. No, I am not an irresponsible owner. I am actually a very responsible owner and the girls are usually not crated that often to begin with so crating them more often means a couple of hours at a time. You see, this makes the 11 month old take a nap (which was very needed since she had daycare the day before) and makes sure that the 11 week old doesn't have any accidents and doesn't do something like chew on live wires (even though our house has been pup-proofed).

What I have noticed is that the puppies were both more well behaved when out of their crates when they have been crated for a longer period of time. They prefer the structure rather than having free rein to the house. It is strange because you think that the puppies are your children and treat them as such and yet they may misbehave if they are given this much freedom but yet are happy and behave well when having a schedule or structure. On one end you want to follow your human heart and on the other you want to follow the rules of raising dogs. It is a tough call that each person must make based on their own pups, of course.