19 Days & Counting

(One last pep talk) 

This Saturday, September 7, 2013, Oakley left for camp for three whole weeks. (Two weeks if she takes to the training really quickly (fingers crossed she does!) but I'm mentally preparing myself for three.)

Our main goal here is 100% obedience. Nothing crazy. No walking on her hind legs. No fetching mom a bottle glass of wine. I'm talking heeling, staying, coming, no jumping and walking/running without a leash. Not-so-simple commands for a puppy who's easily distracted...

(One last walk. Notice her pulling me along...reason #964 why she's there.)

I have no idea what it feels like to send your first born off on their very first day of school but if I had to guess, I'd say it feels exactly how I felt on Saturday morning. Stomach in knots, shaking like a leaf and crying every time she did so much as look at me. Did I second guess sending her off? You bet your sweet tush I did. Did I secretly hope my car would break down on our way there so we could turn around and just go back home? Duh. As our car pulled out of the long, windy driveway, I, Stephanie Nicole Howard, was a hot, hot mess.

There's so much that runs through your mind when you leave your "child" in the care of someone else. Is she going to like them? Are they going to like her? Is she going to eat? What if she gets sick? What if she gets hurt? Is she going to be lonely? What if the other dogs are mean to her? Will she think I abandoned her? Will she miss me? Will her bed be soft enough? Did we pack enough toys for her to play with? Is she going to get enough love and attention? Did I hug and kiss her enough before they whisked her away to her room? But most of all...what if she completely forgets who we are when we pick her up?

I'd be lying if I said I can't look at that first picture without tears filling my eyes.

My house is so clean. And so quiet. There aren't any muddy footprints leading from the back door or toys strewn every 2 feet and no one to wake me up at the ass-crack-of-dawn. Her food and water bowls are empty and her beds are already nice and clean for when she gets back. I don't have to rush home from work to let her out of her kennel or take her for a walk. There's no one wagging their sweet little tail when I walk in the door.  I was able to remove the sheets from our couch and even put my cute little throw pillows back on the couch for the first time in SIX months. And there's no one driving me batshit crazy every waking moment. You think I'd be enjoying this little "break" and looking forward to a well-behaved dog when she gets home but as childish and selfish as this makes me sound, I'm not. To be honest, it's probably one of the most difficult things I've had to deal with since getting our little girl back in March. (Crazy dog mother? All signs point to "YES".)

And then there's my husband. Sleeping in, absolutely loving the entire couch to himself sans 80 pound dog and enjoying not having to shove her butt out the back door every night before we go to bed. How are men so tough sometimes?! Have I bugged Beau to death with the hundreds of times I've asked him What do you think she's doing right now's and the bazillion and one Can we just go back and pick her up's? Of course I have. But then he brings me back down to earth and reminds me that she's not gone forever and that when she comes home in 3 (not-so-short) weeks, she'll be so much more pleasant to live with. He even made me a "bracelet" out of Oakie Bear's very first collar when he found me bawling my little eyes out on Saturday morning. (It's the green thing on my right wrist in the top pic and it literally melted my heart that he would think of something like that...)

So yes. I am that dog mom who cried to the trainer begging him to make sure he takes extra good care of her. I am that dog mom who called up there less than 24 hours of her being gone just to make sure she survived her first night and to check and see if she needed her blanket or anything else. (Good news! She's already learned to heel!) Yes-I am that girl who has a countdown clock on her iPhone...impatiently waiting for the number to get down to "0". I am that girl who has asked to borrow everyone else's dog for the next 19 days while mine is at school. And yes-I'm that girl with a puppy collar on her wrist.

I'm also the crazy one who just wrote the sappiest blog post about sending her damn dog to training camp. Don't worry-I'm fully aware of this....

Oh motherhood. Though I have no real children, I feel like this is really, really good training for me, too...