The Outside.

My little monster is not an inside dog. We keep him inside but much to his chagrin. (Big word. I know. Definition: disappointment, shame, blah blah blah. ) ANYWAY. Yes, Mull spends about 9 hours of his day in his crate Monday - Friday while we are at work but after work... he gets a full hour outside. Walking, playing, chasing tennis balls, everything. We then have dinner and he gets to go outside again. He gets a walk around the apartment complex and some more fetch. He spends most of the night outside because he insists on going out there...

On weekends he gets what we call "family walks". It is when Kyle, Mulligan, and me go on a 2+ mile walk around the world. He gets lots of fetch time. And he also gets lots of walks around the apartment complex. But he insists on ramming his body into our front door and jumping on the handle. He does this because he knows it annoys his parents.

He is obsessed with the balcony but we have banned him from the balcony because all he does is bark at the trees or the wind or the people walking below. And he does not have a small friendly bark it is a "back up and get away bark". Yeah.. he is REAL friendly... ugh.

Currently, he is doing a running start and slamming his body into the door. Maybe he will break a rib (not that I want him too, I would much rather he didn't because that would put him into a lot of pain). Sometimes we wish he was not so high maintenance and that 2.77 mile walk would knock him out for a few hours. Am I a bad pet owner? But I guess I will take him outside, he has been demanding it for oh 10 minutes.

Puppy for sale. Only 50 cents.

The Crate.

First. I want to say do not lecture me about crate training and how it is so good for your puppy blah blah blah. When we rescued our cute little thing we had a crate from him. It was big enough for him to stand up, turn around, lay down in, and be jovial. He hated it. He screamed, cried, and screamed some more. We picked him up on Friday night from the rescue hoping that after 1 sleepless weekend we would have a crate trained cutie. We thought wrong. Being in an apartment made it so much harder with neighbors above us and below us we were terrified we were going to get evicted. We let him scream. We covered the crate with a blanket to comfort him (...the puppy book said to). It did nothing. I felt awful for him, my heart broke in 17 million little puppy pieces and we gave in and took him out of the crate and put him in our bed.

We went to work everyday and just put him in the bathroom. He screamed and screamed, we chalked it up to separation anxiety. A few weeks later we came home to chewed base boards. Cue Bitter Apple. A few weeks later we came home to chewed door frames. Cue Bitter Apple. A month or so passes and BAM we have hole numero uno in the wall. He was trying to eat his way to freedom. ...fast forward 8 months and 6 holes in the wall later... he got a BIG crate for his birthday. Nothing says Happy Birthday Bug like "you misbehave so we have to lock you up". ...He hated that crate as much as the little one we first got for him. Screamed. Cried. Rammed his head into the door to get out. He hates his crate.

Fast forward 5 more months to the present day. He still hates that crate. Most mornings I have to wrestle with his 75 pound body to just get him IN the crate. I close him in and all is quiet while he eats his treat and like clockwork I get to the stairs and BAM screams. cries. I swear the devil is going to get us booted and we're gonna be homeless. I guess I feel the need to talk about this because I find it utterly ridiculous. Must he sound like he is being murdered every morning and every time he goes into his crate? Must he bark and bark and bark and let everyone in my apartment building know that he has been left alone for the day? Must he be shoved in their with all my might every morning?! I mean he has a water bowl in there and like 4 toys AND one of my tee shirts to help with the separation anxiety. Why can't he be a normal dog who loves his crate and goes into it when he wants to be alone. Oh wait, Mull does not want to be alone... he has to always be the center of the world.

Just picture it though. Me. All dressed to go to work. Fighting with an animal to get him in a crate ... every morning. I must have been a bad person in my past life and Karma is coming back for me full force.