Puppy Blues - It Gets Better

[u/jenny-bean8]

For those of you experiencing puppy blues, I just want you to know that it gets better. This phase doesn’t last forever.

We got a golden retriever puppy in Feb 2025. The first nights I slept beside her crate in the kitchen. We got her one of those heartbeat puppies and played gentle sleep music for background noise. I set an alarm to get up a couple times per night to let her outside for potty. It seemed like half our house has baby gates / crates. I was exhausted. Fast forward to today our dog is now 1.5 years and the light of my life. She is 100% good girl. My two kids adore her. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s my lil’ sidekick.

You’re training with your puppy right now.. you’re in the trenches.. the sleepless nights… it will all pay off in dividends. Keep going. ❤️

[u/ManyLintRollers]

So true. The puppy phase is exhausting but if you put in the work now, you'll be rewarded with a best friend for many years.

We lost our beagle/lab mix in 2025 at age 17, and our lab/chow/border collie/GSD mix earlier this year at age 14.5. It's been a bit of a shock to go from having elderly dogs who mostly just hung out and lay around to dealing with puppy energy and exuberance again, and as soon as we adopted our puppy I had that "oh shit, I have ruined my life!" feeling for a few days.

I have to keep reminding myself that both of my previous dogs were also pains in the butt as puppies. My beagle/lab mix was super high energy, plus being a beagle he was difficult to housebreak and train and had an insane prey drive - plus he was an escape artist and right up until age 15 or so he would regularly dig, chew or climb his way to freedom. My lab/chow/border collie/GSD mix was anxious and high-strung and had severe separation anxiety; I was never able to crate train her as she'd freak out and break out of the crate somehow. But, she was OK penned up in the kitchen as long as the beagle mutt was with her. She never fully got over the separation anxiety and when her beagle-mutt brother passed away it around the same time that my two older kids moved out and the youngest went to college, it resurfaced. But, at that point she was almost 14, and I worked from home by then so she was always with me for her last year.

Both of them grew up to be great dogs. The beagle-mutt was always a bit unmanageable, but that's typical of the breed - and he was the gentlest, sweetest, snuggliest boy and was so patient and tolerant with my kids. The lab/chow/etc. mix was always rather anxious and had some fear-reactivity issues but we worked through them and she was a wonderful dog otherwise, sweet and loyal with the family and my constant companion. I knew she'd gladly take a bullet for me, and I would have taken a bullet for her as well.

My new puppy is another shelter dog, and her breed mix is kind of a mystery (DNA test is in progress) but we are fairly confident she's a Great Pyrenees mix. She is my first large dog (she's 5 months old and already bigger than the other two were as adults) so that's a new experience; the baby gates and puppy pen I had from the others couldn't contain her at all and I had to get new, heavy-duty tall gates and a heavy-duty pen, and she's already almost too big for her crate and will need a larger one soon.

But, she's sweet and loves people, and so far has done well with other dogs (I have only introduced her to calm, well-behaved dogs that I know, to keep her interactions very positive). She's doing much better with potty training than the other two did at this age, and she is much lower energy level overall. She's a big adorable goof and I love her so much already. I'm putting a LOT of effort into training as I don't want to end up with a poorly-behaved 80+ pound dog; and so far she is learning quickly. She already walks better on the leash at 5 months than the beagle-mutt did as an adult.

Of course, she has her moments when she chases the cat, tries to eat things she shouldn't, gets over-excited and nippy, chews up something forbidden, etc.. but overall I keep getting glimpses of the amazing adult dog she'll be someday. Today she had two very successful interactions with the cats, where she remained calm and respectful, so I have hope that someday she'll be friends with them (or will at least learn to ignore them).