Sunday, January 31, 2021
Another day, another night. Today I managed to see some improvement in Bean. He's more toned down today and is starting to sleep in his crate even during the day! Gotta learn to be content with little wins. This coming week will be tough though. I'm going to the office everyday and it'll be hard to correct his behaviours when no one is at home. Mum will be working and dad is unwilling to train him or take care of him. So it might be a very tough week. Good thing today too was that I managed to get a good ball session in with the usuals. Been awhile since we played for this long, it's pretty intense. I'm just glad I was able to do something that I wanted to do today!
So here's a few things I'm realising with Bean. I'm very very impatient. I want him to be obedient now, I want him to be the dog I want him to be as soon as possible. For this, I have my own reasons too. If he was obedient then I'll have less worries and my family won't be affected. Now we have to get used to his crying/whimpering, random pee spots and his biting. I don't like that. Our schedules are heavily affected as well. Being unable to plan things according to how we want it to be, can be frustrating. It's really so tiring. So, I know I have to trust the process, I know I have to just let him learn along the way and be patient. This is a tough lesson to learn. It's an important lesson nonetheless though. Give it time, put in the effort to shape him into the dog I want. I have to constantly remind myself of that and not worry. WHY DO I WORRY SO MUCH?
Brian
10:46 PM
Managed to get some time off from taking care of Bean. He's currently sleeping in his crate right now. It's been an extremely tiring past week. There were a lot of ups and downs. He has so many tendencies of a stray dog and it's making me really frustrated. There are a lot of conflicting emotions. I admit, I had a very ideal picture painted out in my head when I thought about getting a dog.
Let me start on the good things first. How I envisioned having a dog was that he will be a good boy, lying next to me when I'm watching shows. Allowing me to bring him out for daily walks while responding to commands as I call out to him. I wanted a dog for company. The thing is I don't remember Autumn to be this difficult, and she really wasn't. I wanted a dog because I thought he will bring me joy.
Now, on to the bad things. It's gonna be significantly longer than the good. Reality is vastly different when I got Bean. He's extremely naughty! When my mum first brought him home, he was so scared of everything. He just sat quietly in one corner and was afraid when anyone approached him. 1 week later, he's so different. He's more familiar with us, with his environment and he's starting to get curious. That's good but it comes with many other undesirable tendencies. He's easily excited, overly excited and he bites too hard and it's causing us to bleed. He's peeing/pooping anywhere and that's okay, I expected this. But there's another thing, he's crying way too much for attention, or for things that he want. This is so damn irritating and it's causing me anxiety. At night before he sleeps, I made sure that all his needs are met. A few minutes after I leave, he starts crying and clawing at the door. He wakes up in the middle of the night to do this too and I haven't been sleeping well. I can't treat this as white noise either, it's way too loud and it goes on for 1hour. Imagine.. 2am to 3am, he makes it impossible to sleep. He really is so unlovable now.
I feel so tired and so frustrated. I don't know what I can do. I've been trying to train him and following tips given by dog trainers on youtube, reddit, forums. It's not really getting better. I've also been feeling anxiety. Whenever I get some down time and lie in bed, I hear him "crying" but when I walk over, he's fast asleep. I can't even nua properly these days. When my mum brought him home, I told myself I'll take full responsibility of him. So whenever he makes a mistake, I feel like I'm not good enough as a owner. Whenever mistakes are repeated, I feel so helpless because what I'm doing isn't working. It's so tough, so very tough. That's the difference between expectations and reality. I want an obedient dog, without understanding that they need to be trained before they can get there. There are certain things that will get better over time as they grow up, but it always pays to start training them young. Training them requires a lot of patience and repetition as well. It's very very tiring and not fun at all, but it's very necessary. In the past week, I've contemplated of sending him to a shelter. I wanted to give up, that's the easy thing to do. This year I've begun to feel contented with just meeting my friends a few times a week and that was enough for me. Now with Bean around, he made that difficult cos I have to tend to him. I don't like that, I still want to meet my friends for meals, to exercise, to hang out. If I did choose to send him to a shelter, does that mean I gave up and chose to take the easy way out? I don't want to do that. I still want to work towards Bean being an obedient dog. There will be times in the future when my friends won't have time for me and I know Bean will be there for me. Right now, I just want to see hope. Hope that Bean can one day be the obedient dog that I want.
Brian
12:14 PM
Thursday, January 28, 2021
I've been single for about 3 years since my previous relationship. Time passed so quick. I wanted to rush things and bounce back quick, but oh see how far I've come! Not gonna lie, it still haunts me and it still part of everything that has shaped me to who I am today.
This year feels different. I finally am able to say that I'm in a better place. I feel like I can start this year with a clean slate. I've been trying out dating apps (or app) but I've not found much success with it. I find it really hard to connect with someone through just texting. It's weird, but somehow things become more stressful and I find it difficult to see someone for who they are when I meet them through the app.
Then the cruise happened! It was so much more fun than I thought it would be. Perhaps we've all been just too deprived of a getaway, but I really enjoyed myself and I feel like I'd definitely go again if I had the chance. I'll leave that for another day, maybe. So I got a chance to talk to this girl on the cruise. I thought she was really cool when I first talked to her. Okay, I'll admit it, she talked to me first. I managed to strike up a digital conversation after the cruise and I thought it was pretty unexpected. Let's get one thing straight, I'm pretty sure I made it known to her that I was interested in getting to know her. And we all know what comes next, she turned it down in an instant. At least she was really smart and polite about it though! That made me more impressed actually. So I backed off.
What I really wanted to convey through this post is that I'm thankful that this happened. It's been a while since I felt that strong urge of wanting to get to know someone. Compared to dating apps which always feels forced, this felt so natural. Even though it didn't turn out the way I hoped it would, but it excites me that I'm able to feel this way again. For the past 3 years, I thought I'd never feel this way again. This might sound weird, but I really have to thank her for this. It felt new and exciting for me. It gives me hope that it is still possible for me to fall in love with someone.
My thoughts are still pretty much all over the place, just because there are quite a few conflicting emotions. So that's it for today. Bye.
Brian
11:14 PM
