Home is Where the Dog Is

Today, a little life update:

Sayde is away at her first sleep-away camp (what we're calling it) and we are missing her SO much. She's been gone for a little over a week now and she'll be gone for another almost 2 weeks and we simply cannot believe how empty our house feels. 

She weighs 11.7 lbs but Sayde's presence is that of an 100+ lb dog. She's a big personality, a big voice (always. barking.), has a BIG attitude, and is the biggest snuggle bug you've ever met.

In fact, until we dropped her off last week, Sayde had never spent a single night not in our bed, under the covers, snuggling up against my body while she sleeps (except for on the rare occasions when we've been out of town, in which case she's taken up that same exact position in the guest bedroom with whoever is dog-sitting her for the week).

Where is Sayde, you might ask? Well, we made the tough decision to send her to an incredible 3-Week Doggy Training Bootcamp with a renowned trainer here on Cape Cod.

Although Sayde has been better than we'd expected with Charlie Mae, we've realized that as our household and family situation gets crazier, we could all use more tools to enable us to relax a bit more when we're together as a family. Sayde needs to know that we're in charge and it isn't her job to monitor every single thing that happens in the house (and around the neighborhood, down the street, on Cape Cod, in the state of Massachusetts...) and we need to know that if we tell her to do something, she'll do it (for the most part). 

As a rescue dog who was homeless when she was found, Sayde has always had a lot of aggression towards other dogs and when food is present. This wasn't the greatest when it was just me and Ben, but we dealt with it and made it work[ish]. Now that we have a toddler running around and hope to add to our family in the future, we decided that we could no longer ignore Sayde's "issues;" for her sake and ours, we decided to do something about them.

Anyways, I write all of this to say that I am way more emotional about Sayde's absence than I expected I would be. I knew it would be weird not having her around, but the house is so quiet, so lonely, so cold, so much less snuggly  than it usually is.

Before she left I was very aware that Sayde added a lot to our lives--I've known that since the second we adopted her--but being home without her for the first time ever has been super sad. I'm counting down the days until we're reunited and will be sure to keep you posted on what happens/her progress!

Oh, and if you're local, here's a link to the trainer that we're using. He snapped the pic above, dressed Sayde in the adorable sweater she's wearing in this pic (FYI: she *never* lets us put a sweater on her!), and has been amazing so far. 

If you want to learn more about Sayde's story, you can read this post from when we adopted her (over 4 years ago now!). And here's a post about why I'm such a big supporter of rescue dogs (as opposed to going to a breeder). 

We love you, Sayde! To all of my fellow dog owners/lovers: I know you feel me on this one. Give your pups an extra snuggle for me today!