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Cameo has been with me for four years and is, frankly, a very easy dog. Yuki arrived in July and has spent the month establishing that she is a different animal entirely.
The plants were the first problem
Two hundred plants at floor and shelf height, and a puppy who thinks soil is a snack. I moved everything below knee level up onto the balcony shelf in one frantic evening. The pothos on the low table went to a friend for a month.
Nothing was poisonous, thankfully — I’d checked that list long before she arrived — but she did dig a monstera half out of its pot and then look at me with real confusion about why this was a problem.
What worked for toilet training
Out every 45 minutes, no exceptions, for two weeks. Set a timer. It is relentless and it is the whole thing.
Washable pads in three fixed spots, never moved. Three in rotation is the right number; with two you’re always waiting on the wash.
Not reacting to accidents at all. Clean it silently, no eye contact, no tone. She’s a puppy in a strange place, not a negotiator.
By week three she was asking at the door. Week four she had two accidents, both my fault, both because I got busy and skipped a timer.
What got chewed
One phone cable, the corner of a rug, two moss poles, one clay tool I’d left on the low shelf, and — inexplicably — a single shoe out of a pair of four in the same place.
Cameo’s view
Cool at first, then jealous for about ten days, and now they sleep in a pile. What helped was feeding them apart and giving Cameo the first ten minutes of every walk on her own. She’s four and she needed to know she hadn’t been demoted.
One month in
She’s still in her chewing-everything era and I’ve stopped pretending that’s nearly over. But she sleeps through the night, she asks to go out, and she has discovered the plant shelf, which is next month’s post.
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