Last updated: May 1, 2025
Dear puppy parent,
So you’ve adopted a puppy who has turned out to be a little terror, and you’re thinking of finding them a new home. Despite your best efforts, some problem has come up. Maybe they:
- Won’t stop biting
- Freak out in their crate or pen
- Are terrible at walking on leash
- Try to eat all the rocks, trash, and assorted other horrors on the street
- Won’t stop pooping all over your house
- Terrorize your children and your other pets
Or maybe they just require a lot more work than you expected.
I feel your pain. This letter is not a guilt trip; I’m sure you’ve heard the “OMG how could you! A dog is a lifetime commitment!” lecture already. That kind of thing doesn’t help, and you will find none of that here.
This is just some friendly advice from someone who has been there.
I’d like to introduce you to my puppy, Friday.
I had waited my whole life for this moment. And now that it was here, I wished I could undo it
I had dreamed about getting a dog for as long as I can remember. I read all the books. Spent hours researching online. I learned to handle dogs by helping my friends with theirs.
If anyone was ready for a puppy, man, it was ME.
Finally, the sweet blessed day arrived. It was time to adopt my first puppy. I was not in a rush. My parents and I were prepared to spend many weeks searching many shelters before we found The One.
We found her on the first day.
She was an eight-week old German shepherd mix, tucked away in the last kennel. Clumsily chewing her toes, she lost her balance and rolled onto her back. She was an adorable goofball. She was everything I wanted.
Then we took her home.
Friday was the puppy from hell, as far as I was concerned.
She would bite, tear at clothing and chew on everything. She never listened. She had an attention span of three seconds. She whined all night long. She peed on my bed. She didn’t seem to like me much.
The feeling was mutual.
I thought I’d somehow ended up with the worst puppy in the world.
I was deeply discouraged. This was not at all what I imagined dog ownership would be like. I was sick of the whole thing and I just wanted my life to go back to normal.
Sound familiar?
That feeling when you have no life beyond your puppy and you regret every decision you made to get to this point
You might be dealing with challenges like:
- Being unable to leave the room for two seconds without the puppy screaming her head off or having an accident
- Feeling like you spend 90% of your time saying “no, don’t do that!” (And you don’t know why you bother, because the little hell-spawn never listens to you, anyway)
- Having your life completely taken over by a tiny ball of fluff with razor-sharp teeth
The biting thing was the biggest issue with Friday. She bit me. Bit my friends. Bit my little sisters – my mom was especially not thrilled about that one.
My family absolutely considered finding a new home for Friday. So yeah, I understand being totally frustrated by this kind of behavior.
Maybe you’ve tried teaching your pup manners, but it hasn’t worked.
Maybe you’re worried you’ve made too many mistakes, and now it’s too late.
Maybe you regret putting your family through this stress. You wanted your dog to be a buddy for your kids. Instead, the kids are upset, and you’re feel like you’re one more argument with your spouse away from taking the puppy back to the breeder.
No matter what you’re experiencing, one thing is for sure:
You knew raising a puppy would be a challenge, but you were not prepared for THIS
You’re probably thinking, “dog ownership is supposed to be fun! What gives? Do I have a bad puppy? Am I a bad person?”
No, you’re not a bad person. Neither is your puppy, as unbelievable as that may sound right now.
Why is this so hard??
Getting a puppy disrupts every part of your life (and if there’s one thing the human brain hates above all, it’s being disrupted).
The needy little fuzzball requires constant attention. You don’t get much sleep, all your daily routines get screwed up, and your free time evaporates.
You want to make sure you do this right, but an internet full of conflicting advice has you second-guessing your every move.
Add your pup’s obnoxious behavior to this mix of self-doubt and sleep-deprivation, and you have a recipe for something I like to call:
The “What The **** Was I Thinking?!” phase (WTFWIT)
It’s also sometimes called the “puppy blues.” Which is cute and all, but it doesn’t capture the true essence of the experience. Because the feeling isn’t “well, golly! I’m a little blue today.”
It’s “oh god, what the FUCK WAS I THINKING.”
It usually starts 3-14 days post-adoption. But the doubts can begin as early as day one.
After all this chaos, your brain is trying to slam the reset button and go back to its familiar routines. This is why you’ve found yourself tempted to get rid of the dog, even though you NEVER thought you’d be the kind of person who would get rid of their dog.
The WTFWIT phase is normal, and way more common than you’d think.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not brushing off your struggles. The biting, the barking, the refusal to nap, the constant need to supervise… That shit’s exhausting.
But those problems are (relatively) easy to deal with. We help people fix them all day every day.
The really hard part is dealing with the monsters in your head
The monsters that whisper:
You’re screwing this up.
Something’s wrong with your puppy.
It’s too late.
This was a mistake.
The monsters make it impossible to think straight, right? You’ve been frantically googling, getting more overwhelmed the more you scroll, and feeling more hopeless with every random training tip that just makes your puppy more wild.
Notice how I’m not saying a single word about how to deal with little Sparky’s behavior issues in this letter?
That’s on purpose.
Because all the dog training advice in the world is just useless noise if you don’t believe things can get better.
Society has lied to you
Okay sure, that’s a bit dramatic. But see, the cultural narrative is that getting a puppy is endless excitement and joy! A fuzzy wittle bundle of love who wants nothing more than to be your best friend!
We get bombarded with that message our whole lives.
And then you get a puppy… and find yourself not happy at all. You’re just doing a lot of work for a tiny screaming demon who seems supernaturally immune to all your attempts to train or correct them.
And that’s when you think that something must either be wrong with you, or wrong with the puppy.
But nothing is wrong with either one of you.
The truth is that puppies are cute for a reason: so we don’t kick them out when they drive us insane.
For the vast majority of us, raising a puppy isn’t non-stop fun. It’s a more complicated emotional experience than that. And that’s normal. It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong, and it doesn’t mean it’s too late to have that beautiful bond you were hoping for.
How long is the WTFWIT phase supposed to last?
Just enough for your brain to adjust to your new normal. If things are going reasonably well, it usually passes in 3-4 weeks. We’ve even seen people break free of it in just 1-2 weeks, once they get the right support.
It can last a bit longer, especially if there are complicating factors (preexisting mental health stuff, grieving the loss of an older pet, etc). Two months is still within the range of normal.
But if things are getting worse, or:
- You feel like you’re constantly nagging your puppy
- They’re growling at you or developing aggression issues
- Your mental health is REALLY bad
That’s a sign that something needs to change.
Because yes, raising a puppy is hard work, but it doesn’t have to be this hard.
I wish I could go back and tell my younger self that Friday wasn’t being stubborn; she was struggling as much as I was. All those really obnoxious behaviors were, as I now know, classic examples of a confused baby dog dealing with big feelings the only way she knew how.
Instead of trying to correct her so much or make her fit the timeline I envisioned, I wish I would have focused on helping her adjust to her own big life change.
There’s a turning point we’ve seen time and again, where a puppy parent finds the right approach or the right support system, and suddenly things shift. It’s probably my favorite part of being a dog trainer. We call it…
The “We Can Do This!” phase
The part where the sun breaks through the clouds. You’re no longer tempted to ask the breeder/rescue to take the demon child back. You’re getting the hang of things.
You might even be having… fun??
It’s not that the puppy becomes perfect overnight, but you stop feeling like you’re drowning. You’re still tired, still occasionally annoyed, but you and your puppy are a team now, and you’ll figure it out together.
So… what if you’re seriously considering returning your puppy?
Let’s get this out of the way first: You’re not a bad person for having that thought. You’re sleep-deprived, overstimulated, caught in a situation that’s not anything like you expected. Of course your brain is trying to find the emergency exit.
And yes, there are definitely cases where rehoming is the right answer.
We’ve worked with a few really amazing clients who gave it their all, but in the end, determined that they were not a good match for their puppies, and had to make the hard decision to find them a more appropriate home. There’s no shame in that.
But it’s a really hard call to make when you’re stuck in panic mode.
My advice is to give it another week or two before you decide.
Enough time to breathe, get some help, and figure out if this situation is actually as impossible as the obnoxious little brain monsters are telling you.
Because here’s the thing I’ve learned, both from my experience with Friday and from 15 years of being a dog trainer who specializes in getting people through the WTFWIT phase:
The “I CAN’T DO THIS” doom spiral is usually a sign that something about your current approach isn’t working. It’s rarely a sign that rehoming is the only option left.
We can help, if you want. We’ve seen people break free of the doom spiral and get to the We Can Do This phase in just days once they start on our program.
But whether you work with us or not, know this:
Things can be so much better than they are right now. You’re not broken. Your puppy isn’t broken. You’re just stuck in a system that isn’t working for either of you.
This too shall pass (and did pass. And now someone’s cutting onions in here)
Friday lived to be eleven years old. She was the sweetest dog you’d ever meet. All those horrible puppy behavior issues that made me so angry are now a very distant memory – a memory that I can laugh at.
These days, it’s nearly impossible to imagine that the dog I loved so dearly was at one point the puppy I thought I hated.
Puppyhood is wild. But it doesn’t last very long. And I know this is hard to believe, but you’ll miss it when it’s over. Not the sleep-deprivation or the part where they sink their teeth into your ankles, of course. But the rest of it.
So hang in there. Take lots of pictures. Laugh when you can. Let yourself feel all your feelings, even the less-than-ecstatic ones.
And know that you’re not alone.
-Jake
(Who, for some reason, voluntarily adopted five more puppies after Friday)
