Member of the club

So it is for real.  I am an official blogger.  After months of “pressure” from friends and my very obsessed boyfriend I took the plunge. 

Now that I have this thing I am not so sure what to do with it.  I am afraid I won’t have anything witty to say like my fellow bloggers but you all will be the judge of that.  

I have a feeling that much of what I will write about will be consumed with desperate pleas for help.  You see, we finally adopted a dog.  After close to 2 years of pro/con lists, financial analysis, pursuading of the landlords/boyfriend’s parents we FINALLY did it.  Seriously, I think we have issues.  So anyway, we get this dog and he is perfect in every way.  Oh, except when we leave he barks his head off.  This wouldn’t really be a concern if we lived in a house in the suburbs BUT we live in a condo in downtown Chicago with 6 other apartments within a 20ft radius and one very nasty neighbor below us.  I have to give props to the people on our floor, they have been nothing but understanding (we hope this isn’t just a front).  However, the man that lives below us is not so understanding.  The first attack came in letter form with a threat to report us the the property management company.  We went down, placed a nice apologetic letter on his door with our phone numbers.  The next day, we see him and apologize (well, Ben did, I don’t really like this man so I left the dirty work to Ben).  Everything is right with the world, right?  Wrong.  Two days later…phone rings “Umm, excuse me Abbie, your dog has been barking for several hours” FYI we had been gone for 1.5 hours.  Needless to say, we flew home.

 When I tell people this story the first response is to say “oh, well you need to try this and this and this and this and this…” PEOPLE, we can read, we are doing everything we can.  I think this frustration comes mainly from speaking to a very annoying co-worker who thinks she knows everything…you know the type. 

He is fine when we are home, he is in a crate with toys, a peanut butter filled kong, food, water, crate covered up, radio on, shock collar, citronella collar (not at the same time), our clothes in the crate with him (apparently it helps if he can smell us) and we have even gone so far as to do separation anxiety training.  With that said, if you have any other suggestions, please pass them along.

Wish us luck in our dog training escapades…I’ll keep you updated.