Now that you know how we decided to get Pepper, it’s time for you to hear about my shenanigans with her. You see, as veterinarians, we offer advice to our clients on almost anything and everything when it comes to their pets. The advice can be around medical concerns, behavior and training concerns.
How have we learnt all these things that are non-medical? Well, we meet a lot of animals on a daily basis and that adds to our experience around animal behavior and some of it we’re taught in college. So, you’d probably think that dogs with vets or trainers are absolutely well behaved and trained and it must be so easy for us to deal with our own animals, yeah? But let me tell you something, the advice that I give people (which has btw worked for them) doesn’t work for me. I have had dogs all my life but with Pepper, ah man, my life has been turned upside down. She is a ball full of energy and she has so much energy that none of us in the house are able to keep up with her. None of the advice that I give people has worked on her.
Now I am the one taking advice from my peers. How ironic! Let me tell you about her first day with us. On her first day, she was a little quiet and we were extremely happy but her quietness lasted for precisely a few hours, probably till the time she realized that she has an extremely comfortable bed and a heater to sleep in front of and new parents who would clean her poop and pee all the time without her having to do much about it. Haha! That is most likely the case with every new puppy parent but there are some pups who poop less than others and Pepper is not one of those. Also, she was extremely young so bladder control didn’t come easily to her and still doesn’t.
Every one hour, madam had to poop and pee and medically she was absolutely okay. I can say that because I am a vet. All those blogs that said that your puppy may need to be relieved 12-14 times a day were true!!
Before we got her, we were prepared with everything we would ideally need. Her toys, bed, leash, deworming medicines, vaccines, etc. But who knew that her toys would interest her less compared to shoes, sofa edges, our hands and wires. She wanted to destroy everything and in my experience teething usually starts after two months of age and she was just a month old! So, you can imagine our state on the first day after a few hours. We realized that our puppy is not calm, she is super demanding and eats like she has never eaten food before. And with that realization, we went to bed hoping for a better day the next day. But of course, we were woken up within an hour because our dear Pepper had pooped and peed in the room and then casually went back to sleep!