Day Two Part I: Why Did We Decide To Get A Dog Again?

**After writing about day two with Barry it turned into a really long post so I made it a two part post. This is part I.** -find part II here

This was day two. Thursday morning. This morning we decided we'd workout in our building's gym which is just one floor down from us. Before Barry we were on a regular workout schedule and we figured we could maintain that even with Barry. We woke up extra early and did only a short 20-25 minute workout. We were still conscious of the fact that we had Barry and wanted to make sure he wasn't waking the neighbors with crying hence our quick workout.

When we got back to our floor we could hear Barry crying very loudly. It was way too early for that so we ran to our unit and my husband went to calm him. I think then and there is when we realized we can't do weekday morning workouts anymore - at least not until we know Barry is settled and won't cry during that time.

Big yawn!

I heard a light knock at our door and because I was red faced and sweaty I very reluctantly answered the door, opening it just a crack. There was a guy standing at our door asking about our dog. I opened the door wider. He told me that the previous day our dog barked and cried and howled for three hours. From 9AM to 11AM - or something around that time frame. Quiet time hours in our building are from 11PM to 8AM and I didn't leave until 8:30AM so in my mind I figured most people would be up and awake ready to go to work or already gone for the day and that Barry wouldn't be much of a nuisance to anyone. EXCEPT for the fact that we happen to live right across from 2 people who either work in the evening, go to school in the evenings and/or don't have jobs. Great. I didn't ask his situation but I did apologize a million times and asked what time he does get up and quickly added in that I don't leave until 8:30 so it should never happen again so early... He told me that he wakes up around 9AM and his girlfriend wakes up... later... Those were his actual words for when his girlfriend wakes up. Later. Huh. Well, that stinks. I apologized profusely again and told him we'd work on whatever we needed to do so that Barry wouldn't be a bother. The guy was nice. He wasn't mad or accusatory or anything. He was actually very courteous and gentle about telling me our dog was annoying him and his girlfriend. Thank you across-the-hallway neighbor for being kind. Unfortunately it broke my heart even more and upped the stress in our household once again.

I closed the door and my husband came out with a face that I know well (I know all of his faces well, he is my husband after all). Frustration and upset. My feelings reflected what his face expressed. We sat down and started searching for doggie daycare places, boarding options, ANYTHING! It was 6:30AM and time was running out. We found out that Barry needed to have a *negative fecal exam --see definition at bottom of post-- (AWL didn't offer this exam and we hadn't gone to the vet yet to get one of those - not to mention at the time I'd never heard of such a thing) in order to be able to go to pretty much any doggie daycare or to be boarded AND to top THAT little nugget of refreshment off he wasn't allowed at a few places due to him being a pit bull. Then the final gut punch - almost all doggie daycare places need to have a meet and greet set up with the dog first in order to decide if he can behave well around other dogs. Not just pit bulls, but any breed. It's standard to meet the dog first. Obviously this makes sense now looking back on it. You don't want some crazy, aggressive, mean dog at a doggie day care ruining everyone's experience.

So now what did we decide? The bathroom. The master bathroom is big enough and in the center of our condo so hopefully his whining would be muffled a little. Perfect(ish). We got ready as normal and then prepared the bathroom with a few things. A bone, some water, his bed...

Here's a photo of Barry dreaming. His tongue is sticking out just a little. What a freakin' cutie!

Fast forward to lunch time. I am, once again, a nervous wreck on the train ride home to see Barry. I'm worried what the bathroom will look like and mostly if he's hurt. I get in and the bathroom is mostly okay. One side of the door frame is hanging off and some of the dry wall has been scooped out by either paw or mouth. But otherwise, it's not bad and nothing we can't fix. We go on our quick walk - this time I exit the front exit avoiding the parking garage. When we get back to the condo I decide against putting him back in the bathroom due to the damage on the door and wall and let him run around the condo because he's pretty good in the condo and it's after noon so if he does howl or whatever it hopefully won't wake anyone.

Here is the damage to the wall and door frame via Barry.

Next up: The Great Escape

**Negative Fecal Exam - A fecal exam is literally that. An exam of feces. The vet tech will look through the feces provided by the dog parent and check for worms, worm eggs, etc. If there are visible signs of worms in the feces that will be a positive fecal exam and the dog will need to take a medication to rid itself of the parasite. If there are no signs of anything bad in the feces then that is a negative fecal exam - which is what you're going for.