We had a very busy Saturday last weekend. We started off our day with an in-home dog training session. We have contracted with a company called "Bark Busters" to work with Winnie. A representative comes to your house every couple of weeks and meets with you and helps teach you how to train your dog. Winnie has many problem behaviors we are working on: excessive barking when she sees someone or a dog outside, general insanity when the doorbell rings or someone knocks at the door, pulling on the leash, jumping up on us when she is excited or when we are affectionate towards each other (she hates it when we hug and/or kiss), and being a cry baby in the car. She also has her redeeming qualities so don't think she's all bad from this laundry list of bad behaviors.
What we discovered is that she may have some mild separation anxiety issues. This makes sense because since I've been pregnant, I mostly work from home. She has gotten used to having me with her all the time, and she gets upset when she is far from me. I also give her a lot of attention throughout the day. She'll just come over and nudge me, and I stop what I'm doing and pet her for a few minutes. The trainer, Max, said that this had to stop because Winnie was training me passively. I have to work on ignoring her now. Max said that she would be ignored a lot once the babies arrived so she needed to get used to it. This makes me so sad.
Have you ever seen the old skit on SNL with Will Farrell training a dog by belittling it? Billy and I always quote that skit when it comes to Winnie. There's a part where the dog is refusing to eat his food, and Will Farrell gets down to talk to him and says something like, "Here's the deal, the Palm was all booked up, and they have a new chef at Morton's that I'm not sure about. So, you are going to eat this kibble because after all, you're an effing dog." Whenever I act too much like Winnie is human, Billy reminds me that she's a "effing dog."
Anyway, we've got our work cut out for us with getting her trained and ready for the babies to arrive. Max recommended that once we get our triplet stroller, I should start walking Winnie while pushing the stroller with no babies in it. Then, she'll get used to it, and it won't be such a big deal when the babies are actually in their spots. I'm going to look like a crazy lady walking around with an empty stroller, but I guess it will all help in the end.
Later that afternoon, Billy and I went out and looked at a few houses. I'm afraid that I'm going to go on bed rest and will have to leave buying a new house up to Billy. We would like to make sure we both are in agreement when it comes to what we are looking for in our home. We were definitely both in agreement that we did not like any of the houses we saw on Saturday. I guess the search will continue.
Saturday night we headed out to dinner with friends, and by the time we got home, I was exhausted. I had much more activity on Saturday than I was used to. My legs and back ached, and I was just drained. When we went to church on Sunday morning, we had to park a little ways away because it was Palm Sunday, which meant a packed house. I was complaining about my legs being sore, and I said, "My poor little legs are achy." Billy said, "I'm more worried about your poor, little cervix." We both giggled at that. He said he never thought he would be saying that, but I guess my cervix is our main concern since that is what will indicate when bed rest may be necessary. I took it easy on my cervix the rest of the afternoon.
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