Harley’s 5th Birthday & Tales of Puppyhood

Last weekend marked a special occasion in my house: my forever puppy turned FIVE!

Every year I get Harley a huge treat to celebrate the occasion. My hubby and I had a chance to take her to the dog beach on Saturday, where she was her usual happy self greeting every man, woman, child, and puppy with a ton of enthusiasm.

I grew up in a household where pets are considered family members, and when I rescued Harley, that couldn’t have become the case more quickly. She stole my heart right from the start as the very first dog that A and I are the “pawrents” of together.

While she is such an awesome dog to have today, for awhile at the beginning she was quite the little troublemaker pup. I thought that in honor of her birthday, I’d share a few stories of how naughty Harley could be as a puppy!

Like a lot of puppies, Harley ate everything in sight in .2 seconds flat. A phone charger, many books, a laptop charger, countless pairs of underwear, and one of my favorite sundresses all fell victim to her puppy teeth. This was the part that I expected in a 4 month old puppy.

What I didn’t anticipate as much was her phase of testing my patience a lot. We crate trained Harley for awhile, and she went through a time that I refer to as her teenage years when she hated it, and not just as in she didn’t like going in there – as in she would hide behind the couch when she knew I was about to leave the house, refuse to come out, and growl at me while I tried to grab her to put her in the crate. This was also the time when her funny ears went from being floppy to being half up half down….

TALE #1: THE BED FIGHT ON MY BIRTHDAY

It was my birthday, and Harley was in the midst of her rebellion against crate training. My hubby had surprised me with plans to go on a hot air balloon ride along the coast, and as we went to leave, Harley ran under our bed and refused to come out in fear of getting crated.

She viciously growled when A would try to get her to come out, and we just weren’t sure what to do for awhile. We tried to coerce her, reprimand her, trick her into thinking she was going out, and I’m sure a few other things before A wound up literally having to pull her out from under the bed as she tried to bite him like a total psycho. I remember sitting in my living room drinking a glass of wine while I tried not to listen to it going down. It was horrible!

Luckily soon after that, she was too big too fit under our bed anymore!

It took me what felt like forever to get Harley potty trained, even though I was really consistent with it. I’m talking a solid year before she got the hang of it….which was a lot of pee and poop for me to clean up! A lot of accidents happened, but the following two incidents come to mind first…

TALE #2: THE COUCH INCIDENT

In my house my dog isn’t allowed to lay on our furniture. We eventually gave in a little and let her lay on the foot rest if she wants to cuddle, but other than that, I didn’t want my dog lounging all over my couches getting hair everywhere.

As a puppy, Harley obviously didn’t like this rule. She had been reprimanded for jumping on the couches numerous times this one day, and while I was in the kitchen making dinner, I saw her jump up there again. I had a thought that maybe she was just trying to get my attention, so I tried ignoring her. A few moments later she jumped down, and I thought all was well…. until I found that she had peed all over my couch! I obviously was not pleased. Getting pee completely out of a couch is no easy feat!

By the way, I still own this couch! And I still find spots on the couch where she’s been laying when we’re gone, evident by the abundance of hair in one spot. Little stinker!

TALE #3: THE CAR INCIDENT

When she hadn’t gotten potty training down yet but we were very far into it, I was taking her to the park one day. At the time we lived in a complex where parking was annoying, and we had a long walk out to my car that day – giving her plenty of time to do her business as we walked. I get to my car and find that someone (probably drunk college kids) had smeared whipped cream on my back window (not sure what that was about).

So I put Harley in the car and attempt to wipe off the whipped cream. I get in the car a few minutes later to find that she had pooped in my back seat, stepped in it, then was walking around smearing it on my seats. Awesome. I yell at her, clean her paws, and put her in the front seat so that I can clean up the back.

Once I was done cleaning up, I get in my front seat only to find that she had been seriously and silently gnawing at my passenger side seatbelt with her razor sharp puppy teeth. Needless to say, it wasn’t my favorite morning! The material of the seatbelt was so pulled and torn that we wound up having to burn it with a lighter just to be able to get the seatbelt on.

As you can tell, Harley was bit of a handful! A lot of the time she still acts very much like a puppy in terms of how excited she gets. People are always asking how old she is, and are surprised to hear that she’s actually middle-aged at this point. I love that Harley’s a puppy at heart, and while I sort of miss her being all cute and little, I definitely can’t say that I miss the peeing-everywhere-and-chewing-everything-to-pieces days!

Since I work from home most of the time, Harley is the living being that I’ve spent the most time with in the last bunch of years. Nowadays, she sleeps while I work, often by my feet. We go on daily long walks, are beach bums together, and she’s the best hiking buddy a girl could ask for. My hubby tells me that when he’s home but I’m not, Harley hangs out by the door and paces around the house looking for me.

She usually stays close by no matter what I’m doing, really – whether she’s sitting next to where I’m chopping veggies for dinner in hopes of a piece slipping off of my cutting board (it happens daily), or photobombing my Instagram yoga pictures.

While she was a handful as a puppy, she’s turned out to be the best dog ever….and if you can’t tell, we’re a little obsessed with each other. I love my crazy dingo!

Check out these other Harley posts:

• Harley Turns Three
• Friendsgiving, Camping & Harley Turns 2
• A Year with Harley: Life Lessons from my Dog

Tell me… What’s your favorite animal?

Dog owners, share a story of your dog being naughty!