A little over 2 months ago I adopted the most adorable miniature dachshund and brought him home, 7 months after losing my 2 dachshunds in the summer of 2023. While I am well aware of the ‘puppy blues’ and expected to suffer in my sleep and sanity, it’s been a largely positive experience, not just for my mental health, but also for my daily routine.
His name is Lincoln and I need just one picture to prove he’s the cutest dog in the world!
Here’s 3 ways getting a puppy made my routine easier and more stable:
No more insomnia
Sleeping has never been easy for me, especially when it comes to establishing a routine. I would often get sucked into projects, or books, and find myself fully engaged at 3am and unable to fall asleep. Later bed times meant getting up later and then my whole day was thrown off.
Having a puppy around actually cured my insomnia. I still get caught up in reading but once I put the dog in his crate to sleep around 9pm, I know I only have so many hours until he’s awake and a ball of energy to contend with again. So I’ll get those chores done which are near impossible with a puppy underfoot and then I’m off to bed myself. Once he wakes up, around 7am, I’m also up for the day.
Daily squats
I’ve been incorporating small, daily tasks into my routine and one of those, for 2024, is to complete 20-40 squats every day. I started the year fitting them in here or there, not really finding a routine. But once Lincoln came home, a new task was introduced, 5 or 10 times a day: the potty break. As I’ve been house training him, I have to take the dog outside and wait for him to go.
At first it was annoying, I have things to do, why can’t you just go so we can go inside?
Then, I started doing 10 squats every time we went out. If he had a hard time finding the perfect spot, I might get in 20. Not only has my tally of daily squats increased, I don’t find it onerous anymore. We go outside, he squats on the lawn, I squat 10 times and we go back in.
A clean routine
As my sleep has gotten better and I spend more time outside in the sunshine, I have found I have more energy for other tasks. Sure, I need to spend time playing with him, cleaning up his messes, training him and keeping him from terrorizing the cats, but even then I still have energy to spare.
One way I direct that energy is in keeping my house clean. At first it was practical, the puppy can’t chew my slippers if they’re put away when I take them off. He can’t eat the power cord to my lamp if I manage my cords. Okay, he can chew on the piece of linoleum which is peeling up in the kitchen but that’s fine. He’s helping.
Once I got into the habit of putting things away instead of setting them down, and making sure Lincoln couldn’t turn my clothes, books or furniture into a chew toy, I then spent more time cleaning.
Again, it started practical. Any 4 month old puppy is going to have accidents so I was constantly sweeping and mopping the floors to clean up after him. But I’ve found it easier, over time, to keep up on the other little chores like dusting, cleaning mirrors and windows, and deep cleaning the kitchen.
Lincoln likes to be wherever I am so if I were painting the kitchen cabinets, he was asleep in my lap. Organizing my desk? Asleep under it. Putting away laundry? Stubbornly trying to eat the pants I was in the process of folding.
Having a young dog isn’t for everyone, and we saw after the pandemic how many animals were abandoned by families who no longer had time to care for them. However, for me, adopting Lincoln has brought a new routine which I absolutely love.
Nearly every day I join a Writer’s Group for an hour long writing session and Lincoln has learned that this is quiet time. He still wants to be close so I’ve learned to type while he naps in my arms, alert the second he hears the chime of the completion bell.
Also, he’s really, really cute.