Puppy sitting

We have been puppy sitting this weekend. Nicky volunteered to dogsit for a friend who was going to a wedding, which was all fine and good. Except that she ended up working both Saturday and Sunday so Mum and Brother get to do the dog sitting.

The dog is a 13 week old Siberian Husky puppy who is as pretty as a picture, with beautiful markings and lovely blue eyes. She is very affectionate and friendly, with lovely soft fur, and all in all was a poppet except......

Although we were told she was house trained she is still so young that when she gets excited she piddles automatically. She did ask to go out, but she also peed on the hall, tv room and Adam's bedroom floor. Fortunately only one was carpted, however we decided to keep her to the kitchen and tv room after that and away from the carpets.

She loved the back garden and raced round and round and round and dug some things up, so as it was a beautiful day we left the back door open so all was fine.
Until bedtime.

At home she sleeps in the bedroom. I don't allow my dogs upstairs and the animals certainly do NOT sleep in the bedrooms, so Jess stayed downstairs. Adam went to bed about 3 and she started crying , then howling. By 4.30 in an effort to let Adam get some sleep as his room is over the tv room we gave in and Nicky had her in her room.

Nic then went to work at 7.30 and Jess started howling again, so Brian took her out to the garage (away from Adam's room) tied her to the lawnmower and let her howl until we got up at about 9. She is one very spoilt little puppy. The trouble is that she is going to grow into a fairly big strong dog, and she is getting away with being a lap dog now, but she is going to be too big when she is grown. Plus the separation anxiety thing kept me in the tv room all Sunday morning till 1.00 (by which time I thought it reasonable for Adam to be woken by the howling) so I did the ironing, and as the weather was awful today I couldn't leave the back door open.

I don't have a lot of patience with owners who spoil their animals like that because it isn't doing the dog any favours, nor the owners who won't be able to leave her with anyone, who can't take her anywhere unless she can sleep in their room - daft. Talk about making life difficult for yourself.

She's a lovely little dog, and very bright, she can already sit to command, and was hilarious when we walked her this morning. She only has a short lead so I borrowed a long lunge line from Nicky (used for lunging horses and about 10m long) to go out for a walk this morning and it turned out a bit like skipping with a long rope for Brian and I as she ran back and round and we had to keep jumping over the rope. It was very funny though.

Thankfully they picked her up at lunchtime, so I could escape to do some things in the rest of the house. She's a lovely dog, but we won't have her back unless she is taught to sleep alone at night.