Our new dog Barkley!! Haha! You probably thought I meant the baby didn't you? Well, it's not time for him to come yet but if you look off to the sidebar on the right you will see that it won't be too much longer before we are plastering pictures of him all over as well!
Barkley is a Cavalier King Charles and we bought him from some people who rescued him from a puppy mill. He is so dang cute! We bought him mostly for pet therapy for Maddie. She's doing a lot better with things but still needs a little help. We are trying to use him as motivation for her to do better in her school work and control her temper a little. We've only had him for about two weeks and already we are noticing a difference. We no longer have the weeping, wailing and gnashing of tears-along with the blood drawn, scream at the top of your lungs and destroy everything in sight-battles that we used to when it came time for homework. Maddie knows that if she wants to take her dog for a walk her homework needs to be done on time and correctly. The first day there was no change. In fact, I had to stick to my guns and not let her walk the dog. The family took him on his first walk and she chose to stay home. As I was getting Barkley ready for the walk I could hear her in her room saying, "I hate my mom! I hate my whole family except for Barkley!" and other hurtful things. This is the first time she's said that she hates me. It hurt, but I knew she was just upset. When we got home we talked about it and discussed what the conditions were (again) and things have been good ever since. She's responsible for cleaning up after him, feeding him, brushing him, walking him-basically everything. She's doing a really good job so far and doesn't complain when I tell her she needs to clean up after his accidents. It's calmed her down a little as far as anger goes but we are still working on that.
People think that I am crazy to even THINK about getting a dog, let alone actually get one!, this close to the baby, but dealing with Maddie's issues seemed to be the bigger problem. It was really causing some major contention in our home and I needed that fixed before I could even begin to think about dealing with these problems on no sleep and with a newborn. The kids really like him and it's brought some responsibility to Maddie that she really needed. Besides, just look at that grin! I hope that grin is a permanent addition to her beautiful face!
