[LAL3961]

Originally Posted by alaskayorkie

That's a very thoughtful and honest post. Glad you shared. It will be interesting to read the replies.

I don't have kids, so I'm coming from a different place than you. But I did go through something similar when we got our first Yorkie. I fell in love with him and wanted to take the best care possible of him. Like you, it bothered me when I had to leave him alone or his day was not filled with excitement from the moment we got up until the moment he went to bed. He went everywhere with me, and I even took him on vacations.

I set a 5-hour time limit for unattended time, and I religiously dropped everything I was doing to make sure he got a burst of human activity on a day when he was spending a lot of time at home. He got two walks a day along with training sessions. I sometimes canceled appointments or left early to live up to my own expectations.

But to be honest, it wore me out. While I never stopped loving him, at some level I resented that my life was built around him -- and the other dogs that would come into my life.

So I relaxed my standards a little bit, and I'm comfortable with that. While it's still a goal to check in within 5 hours, it's no longer the law. I decided my pets are just that -- pets. They have a good life, but I don't cater to their every need. There are times when I leave them 8 or 9 hours, or blow off the evening walk because I'm tired. I also don't take them everywhere with me just because they give me the sad eyes when I leave the house. I also stopped taking them on vacations and learned to trust dog-sitters.

I came to appreciate the "me time" it put back in my life. And I was pleasantly surprised that it had no ill effects on my dogs. The time we spend together is still just as rewarding to them as it is to me. And I discovered benefits in the new setup. They don't freak out when my wife and I don't check in every 5 hours. They just sleep a little longer. And they've become more social knowing that they sometimes get to stay with someone other than me for a couple weeks at a time.

It's been a win-win situation, IMO.