Growing up we had a family dog. We had him since I was 9 (now 23) and he passed when I was 21. My entire family chipped in taking care of him, mainly my older sister and myself. About a year after he passed I felt ready to get my own dog. I wasn’t concerned or worried because I felt like I knew a solid amount already having grown up with one. But wow this dog came with so much new information!! My first dog was about 20lbs, my current dog is 75lbs. That in itself makes a huge difference. The energy levels are completely different, the training (seriously the training!!!!) is completely different. Anyways this list goes on and on and I know now every dog’s needs are going to be different, there’s no basic set of rules.
Auggie (my current dog) is my best friend. He was an absolutely terrible puppy with extremely high energy levels. (Seriously it’s next level, even the vet was shocked). Anyways I worked extremely hard to train him and spend every day thinking about things we can do to burn his energy (on top of sending him to daycare 2-3 times a week). In a nutshell, Auggie is always by my side and most of my day to day activities are planned with him in mind. He is my best friend. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED my first dog. He had been with me through majority of my childhood but he truly loved my mom the most out of all of us. With Auggie it’s different because he’s not the family dog he’s MY dog. So here it is, the huge thing I didn’t realize came with getting my own dog ..... was pet owner anxiety. For example, every time he eats something that could possibly block him, I STRESS and I watch his poops like a HAWK and only start to feel relaxed once I get 3 days of regular poop with 0 throw ups. On Thursday he was diagnosed with Kennel cough (yes he’s vaccinated against it, they can still get it), he was coughing consistently for one day straight (wednesday) and then Thursday (the day he went to the vet) it just stopped, now he randomly has diarrhea, which started Saturday. UGHHHH normally when he has any issues, he goes to the vet, he comes back with a treatment plan and is better. I feel like the pet owner anxiety has been non stop for a whole week now - is this what it’s like when you have kids except 24/7 😂. I think I get stressed because with dogs everything is always more serious. Your dog is coughing? Take him to the vet. Your dog has diarrhea? Take him to the vet. Eyes are itchy? Take him to the vet. So you see, every time my dog has what would be a small symptom for a human, for a dog it’s not small and I immediately go into “should I take him to the vet and pay $100” mode?! What if I wait too long before taking him to the vet? What if the vet misdiagnoses him? What if I lose him at the young, innocent age of 1 all because I didn’t take him to the vet fast enough?? Does anybody else feel this way?!?!? I know in general I’m a pretty paranoid person (as I’m sure you could tell if you got this far in the post), but I’m hoping other people can relate.
TLDR; I never knew pet owner anxiety was a thing until I experienced it first hand!! How do you deal with it? Every time my dog gets a little bit sick I’m STRESSED. Does anybody else feel this way???
[link] [comments]
from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/k4e15x/something_i_didnt_realize_came_with_getting_a_dog/
No comments:
Post a Comment