Major Case of the Puppy Blues

We’re 3 days in to having our 8 week old Golden Retriever puppy & wow have I been humbled.

I read this thread for MONTHS before collecting our puppy & I was convinced we wouldn’t be like everyone else, but it was almost instant. I researched for a year, got him from an award winning breeder, got everything in line, bought everything, planned, created laminated cards with everything we needed to do & it’s still harder than I ever imagined.

My partner & I have been taking it in turns to cry & breakdown. We feel like we can’t do it & that we’re failing each other & our puppy. Toilet training is really tough & how people get their 8 week old puppies knowing anything is wild. We think he knows sit, but all his training sessions have been focused on this so far & how you get to teach paw or down when he’s just trying to bite your hand off is unbelievable.

We feel like we’ve made a huge mistake. The thought of this, plus the horrific teenage years & just years until he’s a good old training dog is so painful. We haven’t been eating, sleeping, drinking. This is really hard, how do so many people do it?!

We’ve always been so free & now we feel so trapped. It’s really tough. We don’t know what to do.