My head hurts, the weather doesn’t agree with me. My lips have ulcerated, I’m chronically tired and prone to crying. Yesterday was really tough, I had an assignment due today, a really good but very overwhelming appointment with a dog trainer about Zoe, and I was pretty sick. Naps, cold showers, and crying on the floor were the order of the day. Zoe was quite lovely except for chewing through my garden hose so I now I can’t water my garden. Today I’m setting her up with a half clam shell ‘pool’ in the back yard to help her keep cool while I’m out. Fortunately there’s a bit of hose left just long enough for me to be able to put the pool in shade under a tree and fill it up. I’ve been unsuccessful in my attempts to rehome her, and the stress here has been steadily increasing so last week I decided to bite the bullet and put some serious effort into improving things. I hired a wonderful trainer Kellie from Holdfast Dog Centre to come to the house and help me get back into actual dog training (as opposed to ignoring, yelling, crying, and feeling really guilty, which is where I was at) and environment enrichment for Zoe.

I’ve also booked into basic training classes there at the end of this month, and Rose is on board to help even though she’s more of a cat person. I’ve been starting to think I’m more of a cat person myself, but I’ve got myself into this situation and now I need to make the best of it. I’ve been told to expect about another 6 months of difficult puppy/adolescent behaviour, and then she will settle and become a lot easier to handle. The training techniques are all positive reinforcement based which is a relief and Zoe is smart as a whip and taking to them really quickly. She’s been a world more settled in the past few days just because I’m not as stressed about her. I on the other hand, clearly need some more positive reinforcement myself…

I got stuck having to make a dash to the vet with her the other day when she tore open a wound on her face that had been healing well. It obviously reached that itchy stage and despite all my efforts to keep her distracted she clawed off the scab leaving a gaping sore on her cheek. It turned out that it was a deep abrasion rather than a cut, probably caused by poking her nose under the gate and getting excited about a cat walking past. So it didn’t need a stitch and I’ve been applying a local anaesthetic cream to it to try and stop her clawing it, which is somewhat successful. It’s healing quickly and only looks like a tiny scrape today. Unfortunately, the vet fee and medicine ate my grocery money for the fortnight, so things are tight again.

Rose and I were planning to go camping again this weekend but the really hot weather means we’ll probably have to postpone that. I’m tired and depressed and miserable and so deathly sick of waking up feeling this way. Everything exhausts me and it’s all an effort – eating, caring for Zoe, keeping up with housework, keeping the garden alive, classes, homework, staying in touch with people, the eternal list of essential admin like paying bills… I’m simmering in a stew of self loathing and frustration. There’s no work on the horizon, various promising ventures have fallen through, which is pretty common and I’m getting better at being friendly when people suggest work is coming my way that I know has about a 90% likelihood of never eventuating. I need to feel like less of a failure. Less guilty about being overwhelmed, less overwhelmed by my day to day life, less scared. I need things that make me feel competent and safe and hopeful. (I need people to stop talking to me about putting my dog down as if I haven’t thought of it, or as if it’s going to help with my depression) I need to feel less trapped, less judged and found wanting, less alone. I have such big dreams. Some days they make my fly. Some days, they drag me into the pit and break my heart. Some days life just hurts.